1907 Train Wreck

Translate Anything, Including This Whole Page Here
-Chinese-English-French-German-Italian-Japanese-Korean-Portugese-Spanish-Russian-

My Great Grandfather, William Herman Little (8-4-1884 to 12-16-1961), worked on the railroad in the Duluth-Superior area. This is an area of northwest Wisconsin and Northeast Minnesota. I don't know what he did, but from him signing off on these pictures he must have been a supervisor or inspector of some kind. The pictures are of the wreck of Great Northern numbers 1576 and 1585 which collided head-on at 2:15am on July 12, 1907 at Baden, MN. From research that I did, it appears to be a little town or area at coordinates 470037N and 0923518W. That would make it somewhat NW of Alborn, MN, which is about 25 miles NW of Duluth on US Hwy 53. The crew member's names and conditions are on the back of picture number one. The back of picture number two explains that there is a cross (a little black x drawn on the picture) where they found the body of the brakeman. Look closely, it's there to the left of the standing people and in front of the wreck in the grass. Give these big pics time to load.

Here are the names and conditions as close as i can interpret them from the back of the original photo:

1585
A or D Follis - Conductor - unknown
G.S. Smith - Engineer - One broken leg
V. Klein - Brakeman - Died as a result of injuries
C.H Pollock - DO (possibly brakeman) - unknown
S.F. Boston - Fireman - Both legs broken


1576
E Huron - Conductor - Slightly Hurt
E.F. Roach - Engineer - Slightly Hurt
J. Leonard - Brakeman - Killed
R.H. Oliver - DO (possibly brakeman) - Slightly hurt
William Madsen - Fireman - Badly scalded


Listen to a Train

Thanks to Ray State, who posted the following info concerning these trains at the Train Wreck Forum:
"I think you will find that the locomotives are GNR class J-2 2-6-2's of Baldwin build then almost new as they were delivered in 1907. Built for speed with 69inch drivers they proved unstable riders and 15 were converted to pacifics (class H-2 #1710 to 1724) and the rest relegated to branch-line service. Withdrawal started in 1930 and all were gone by 1940."

Click the pics to see the bigger picture


Picture 1

Back of picture 1

Picture 2

Back of picture 2


Visit the Train Wreck Forum to get more train wreck information.

Train Wreck Central 2 - In Memory of Ben

Bill & Jackie's


Copyright © 2001 - 2005 Great Uncle Bill