1911 Indianola Train Wreck

This past May 29th marked the 100th anniversary of a deadly train wreck that happened at about 7 am a half mile west of Indianola Nebraska. There are two photos in Nebraska Memories that show the severity of this crash. Looking at these pictures it’s hard to image how hard these trains had to collide for the engines to be destroyed and to push one train car on top of another. Over the years, as I’ve talked with people about Nebraska Memories, one comment I’ve heard multiple times is the desire to know more about the images in the collection. I completely agree unfortunately most of the time we don’t have any more then what is provided. When a photo is 100+ years old our knowledge is limited to the information that someone in the past has recorded. Maybe this desire to know more is the reason that I’m drawn to these two photos of the Indianola train wreck. Surprisingly we know a lot about this particular crash thanks to The McCook Tribune and the Library of Congress’s Chronicling America Historic American Newspapers project. This project is an effort to digitize newspapers from all U.S. States and territories and make them available online. Luckily for us one of the papers included in this project is the May 30th 1911 edition of The McCook Tribune. On the front page of this issue is a story all about the “Appalling Accident” near Indianola. If you share the desire to know more, take the time to look at the images of the wreck in Nebraska Memories and read about this “Appalling Accident” that happened 100 years ago. You will learn a lot about the accident including the engine numbers of the trains involved, a list of people killed and even the names of people “not expected to recover”. Visit Nebraska Memories to search for or browse through many more historical images digitized from photographs, negatives, postcards, maps, lantern slides, books and other materials. Nebraska Memories is a cooperative project to digitize Nebraska-related historical and cultural heritage materials and make them available to researchers of all ages via the Internet. Nebraska Memories is brought to you by the Nebraska Library Commission. If your institution is interested in participating in Nebraska Memories, see http://nlc.nebraska.gov/nebraskamemories for more information, or contact Beth Goble, Government Information Services Director, or Devra Dragos, Technology & Access Services Director.