Home of Casey Jones

Jones had left the freight runs in February 1900 for the Memphis-to-Canton passenger run. Accounts differ on why he took No. 1 that night: one has him covering for an ill engineer, another has him turned around at 9 p.m. He left Memphis 75 minutes late in engine 382, not his usual 384, and made up most of it. At Vaughan the rear of a freight sat on the main line. Fireman Sim Webb jumped about 300 feet before impact, and Jones slowed the train to roughly 40 miles per hour. He was the only person killed.

What the plaque says

Home of Casey Jones This is the house where John Luther Jones was living, at the time of his death at the throttle of his engine, "Old 382", at Vaughan, Miss., April 30, 1900. A folk song has immortalized his name. "All the switchmen knew by the engine's moan's, that the man at the throttle was Casey Jones."

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Pinson Mounds State Archaeological Park — 15 mi
  The largest group of Middle Woodland mounds in the United States, about two thousand years old, with the second tallest mound in the country, a museum and paved trails.
• Tina Turner Museum at Flagg Grove School — 23 mi
  The one-room Black school Tina Turner attended in Nutbush, moved to Brownsville in 2012 and opened as a museum in 2014 beside Sleepy John Estes's house.

More markers nearby

• Union University — 0.9 mi
• Lambuth College — 3.0 mi
• John Luther Jones — 3.4 mi
• Lane College — 3.5 mi