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WRECK ON THE WABASH
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ON THANKSGIVING EVE, NOVEMBER 27, 1901, ONE OF THE WORST RAILROAD DISASTERS IN MICHIGAN’S HISTORY OCCURRED IN SOUTHERN LENAWEE COUNTY. ITS LESSONS ENDURE.
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WRECK ON WABASH
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The (Italian) immigrants were trying to get out of the cars as the fire raged hotter and hotter. Mr. Elliott rescued a woman and her daughter from the wreck but the fire became so hot he couldn’t do any more...I saw people raising up their eyes in agony and crying out for help. Some of those in the cars didn’t seem to be able to break through the windows. They seemed to try it and then fall back. It was awful.” -Wreck on the Wabash
These are the recollections of A.W. Ely, 70, who was the first on the scene of the wreck on the Wabash Railroad, November 27, 1901. The crash between two powerful steam locomotives occurred just past the Seneca depot platform, where Ely had gone to wait for the 6:45 p.m. Continental Limited to pass by on its way to Detroit.
It was one of the deadliest rail disasters in Michigan, but it wasn’t until historian Laurie Perkins started researching the Wreck on the Wabash that the true death toll was revealed. Her history of the crash is based on newspaper reports, oral histories from survivors and local rescuers, and primary railroad documents, according to the prologue from her 2000 book, “Wreck on the Wabash.”
Perkins, who grew up in Sand Creek, inherited a passion for trains from her father, Roy Dickens, and a fascination with local history from Doris Frazier, an accomplished historian and museum builder. “I started volunteering when I was 14 at the Lenawee County Museum,” Perkins recalls. “Doris was also a great storyteller. She taught me the stories of Lenawee County, including the Wreck on the Wabash.”
Perkins earned her bachelor’s degree in history in 1982 and landed her first job in the museum profession in Lima, Ohio, working for the Allen County Historical Society. After two-and-a-half years there, she decided to pursue a master’s degree in American Studies at Notre Dame University. Her focus always has been on local history and she had “collected bits and pieces of the history over the years.”
After earning her master’s degree, Perkins worked at a county museum in Muskegon and then became a collections historian for the state of Michigan in 1987, where she remains today. One day in a conversation with a coworker about train wrecks, she commented that there had been 100 deaths from the Wabash crash, that it was well known where she grew up. “My colleague pulled out death certificates from 1901 and there were only 23 reported dead,” Perkins said. “I said that the state was wrong, that there had been at least 100, and he challenged me to prove it.”
Her early research became a paper presentation at the 1997 Michigan Railroad Historical Society bi-annual conference, which she used as her essay for admission to the MSU graduate school in 2010. She would eventually earn her doctorate in American Studies. Perkins’ research did uncover evidence that the state’s record didn’t tell the whole story.
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The crash occurred the night of November 27, 1901 on the Wabash Railroad, which ran between Kansas City, Kansas, and New York City. Stops along the route included Milan, Holloway, Adrian, Sand Creek, Seneca, and North Morenci. Train #4 was eastbound from Kansas to New York while train #13 was headed west. The latter included a large number of Italian immigrants who were headed to mining jobs in Colorado. Perkins’ research showed there likely were many more than 23 immigrants on the train; the Wabash Railroad Company maintained fewer, but a number of eyewitnesses who survived the crash and others who had seen the railcars carrying the immigrants testified that the immigrants were packed into the two railcars along with their baggage. At that time, the railcars were lit by oil lamps and constructed of wood. The railcars with the immigrants aboard telescoped on top of each other at the impact of the crash, then caught fire. In a railway accident, telescoping occurs when the underframe of one vehicle overrides that of another, and smashes through the second vehicle’s body. Witnesses to the crash could do nothing but listen to the screams of the people burning to death.
“It was the custom of many railroads at the turn of the century to pack the lower-
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