The Crash at Crush

William G. Crush, the Katy's passenger agent, sold a wreck as entertainment. No admission was charged; the railroad's money was in excursion tickets, about $3.50 from anywhere in Texas, and more than thirty special trains ran. Estimates of the crowd reach 40,000, above the plaque's count. Both boilers exploded and killed two people. Photographer Jarvis Deane lost an eye and later won damages, reported as $10,000. Crush was fired and rehired within a day. Scott Joplin's Great Crush Collision March, copyrighted a month later, carries notes meant to imitate the impact.

What the plaque says

The Crash at Crush A head-on collision between two locomotives was staged on Sept. 15, 1896, as a publicity stunt for the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railroad. Over 30,000 spectators gathered at the crash site, named "crush" for MKT passenger agent William G. Crush, who conceived the idea. About 4 p.m. the trains were sent speeding toward each other. Contrary to mechanics' predictions, the steam boilers exploded on impact, propelling pieces of metal into the crowd. Two persons were killed and many others injured, including Jarvis Deane of Waco, who was photographing the event. (1976)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Hill County Courthouse — 14 mi
  Wesley C. Dodson's limestone Second Empire courthouse of 1890 on the Hillsboro square, gutted by fire on New Year's Day 1993 and rededicated in 1999 after a rebuilding that two Willie Nelson concerts helped pay for.
• Waco Mammoth National Monument — 15 mi
  A bone bed on the Bosque River where a nursery herd of at least 19 Columbian mammoths was trapped and drowned by floodwater 65,000 to 72,000 years ago, left in place under a dig shelter.
• Waco Suspension Bridge — 17 mi
  A Brazos crossing opened in January 1870 as the longest single-span suspension bridge west of the Mississippi, tolled until 1889, closed to vehicles in 1971 and now walked.
• Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum — 17 mi
  The official state repository of Texas Ranger memorabilia, opened in 1968 in Fort Fisher Park on the Brazos, named for a Ranger post of 1837 whose site no one has located.

More markers nearby

• West — steps away
• First Presbyterian Church of West — 0.2 mi
• First Baptist Church of West — 0.3 mi
• Church of the Assumption — 0.5 mi