Casey Jones

The song outlived the facts, and it began with a coworker. Wallace Saunders, an African American engine wiper for the Illinois Central and a friend of Jones, wrote the original ballad. The railroad's own report blamed Jones for the wreck at Vaughan on April 30, 1900, citing a flagman, though historians have questioned that finding. Fireman Sim Webb, who jumped before the collision, said he saw no flagman and no flares and heard no torpedoes. Jones was the only person killed. Joe Hill later wrote a parody, Casey Jones, the Union Scab.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Triangle Cultural Center — 22 mi
  A 1904 school on Main Street in Yazoo City that survived the great fire of that May and now holds the county's historical museum, in a town rebuilt in brick on the same lots.
• Blue Front Cafe — 23 mi
  A cinder-block juke joint in Bentonia, opened in 1948 by Carey and Mary Holmes, home of the Bentonia school of blues and a stop on the Mississippi Blues Trail.
• L.V. Hull Legacy Center — 31 mi
  A folk artist's legacy campus on Allen Street in Kosciusko, opened in June 2026 a few doors from the National Register home and studio of L.V. Hull, the Unusual Artist.

More markers nearby

• Edmund Scarborough and John Scott — 6.4 mi
• Robert G. Clark Jr. — 11 mi
• O.E.S. Birthplace — 11 mi
• Civil Rights March — 12 mi