Kansas, Deaths and Burials, Index, 1885-1930 about Baird Allen
Name: Baird Allen
Gender: Male
Race: White
Birth Date: abt 1890
Birth Place: United States
Death Date: 10 Oct 1904
Death Age: 14
Death Place: Warrensburg, Missouri
Marital Status: Single
Occupation: School Boy
FHL Film Number: 1404801

29 DEAD IN WRECK.
MISSOURI WORLD'S FAIR TRAIN IN HEAD-ON COLLISION.
SIXTY PERSONS INJURED.

FREIGHT ENGINEER WHO LEFT SIDING TOO SOON IS BLAMED.
MET SECOND SECTION OF PASSENGER TRAIN ON CURVE, BOTH TRAINS RUNNING AT FULL SPEED -- ENGINE TENDER TELESCOPED COACH, KILLING AND MANGLING THE OCCUPANTS -- MANY OF DEAD ALMOST UNRECOGNIZABLE -- DISASTER NEAR WARRENSBURG.
Warrensburg, Mo., Oct. 10. -- Twenty-nine persons were killed and sixty injured by a head-on collision of Missouri Pacific trains three miles east of Warrensburg today. The trains were the second section of a passenger train from Wichita for St. Louis and an extra freight train. Most of the dead were residents of Missouri and Kansas, as are the injured.
The dead:
MRS. A. J. DARSK, and twelve-year-old son HUBERT, Dexter, Kans.
W. H. ALLEN and two sons, BAIRD and FRANCES, Pittsburg, Kans.
DORSEY GREEN, Pennsboro, Mo.
T. F. DORES, Bronaugh, Mo.
MISS NELLIE SULLIVAN, Cedarvale, Kans.
ADA KANE, Pittsburg, Kans.
DOLLIE SULLIVAN, Cedarvale, Kans.
T. H. ALLEY, Cedervale, Kans.
G. A. WEBER, Forestville, Pa.
DICY REAM, Bronaugh, Mo.
CAL REAM, Bronaugh, Mo.
GERTRUDE LOUD, Bronaugh, Mo.
CLARENCE, OLLIE, and JESSIE HERRING, Coffeyville, Kans.
DR. H. P. McILHENY, Kingman, Kans.
BESSIE McILHENY, Kingman, Kans.
MRS. SUSAN COOPER, Kingman, Kans.
PHIL BAGEL, wife, and son, Edna, Kans.
HARRY CARR, Sedan, Kans.
MR. SEIDL, brakeman, Jefferson City, Mo.
MRS. J. J. CASEMENT, Sedan, Kans.
JOSIE GREGG, Sedan, Kans.
An unidentified woman, riding in the cab of the passenger locomotive.
Some of the Injured.
Among the injured are:
D. D. HALE, Dexter, Kans., thigh broken.
MRS. HALE, wife of above, leg and body injured; serious.
AMELIA ENGLAND, Dexter, limbs badly crushed.
L. G. DRESSEL, Eatonville, Kans., serious.
E. L. BARNES, conductor passenger train, slightly.
E. D. ROSSAN, engineer passenger train, badly scalded.
MR. HOTOU, engineer freight train, serious.
PERRY M. ALLEN, Coffeyville, Kans., legs badly crushed.
MILT TWITMAN, Cedarville, Kans, cut about body, injured internally.
AMELIA TRAUTWINE, St. Louis.
E. S. NICHOLSON, Dexter, Kans., hurt about head.
RUTH STEWART FOURMAN, Independence, Kans., serious.
W. E. FOURMAN, Independence, serious.
WILLIAM J. DARST, Dexter, Kans., slightly.
MISS N. J. WOOD, Dexter, Kans., slightly.
FRED BARNES, Oxford, Kans., scalded, arm hurt.
ELIZABETH COWEDLY, Adrian, Kans., serious.
F. N. CUNNINGHAM, of Mannington, W. Va., lacerated about the head.
T. C. DRESSEL, postmaster at Eastonville, Kan., was taken out from under a heap of seven bodies, suffering only a broken leg.
The passenger train, consisting of two day coaches, a Pullman, and a caboose, was loaded with World's Fair excursionists from Southwestern
Kansas and Southwestern Missouri. The Wichita passenger train had been cut in two at Pleasant Hill on account of the heavy load and a locomotive attached to the front car without a baggage car as a buffer.
The extra freight had been sidetracked at Montserratt for the first section of the Wichita train, which carried signals that a second section was following. A local passenger train passed and the freight crew took the local for the second section of the Wichita train and pulled out of the sidetrack.
Three miles west the freight met the second section. The impact telescoped the tender of the passenger locomotive and the front car, which was full of passengers, and it was here that the sacrifice of life took place.
The passenger conductor E. L. BARNES, ran all the way to Warrensburg to report the wreck. Every physician in Warrensburg and hundreds of citizens hastened to the wreck to assist the wounded. Twenty persons were killed outright and seven died within a few hours. The dead were placed on flat cars and brought to Warrensburg.
A coroner's jury is now seeking the person responsible for the wreck. The conductor of the freight train says he was dozing while his train was at Montserrat, and when the local train passed Engineer HORTON believed it was the second section of the Wichita train, and, thinking the track clear, pulled out on the main line.
Dawn had hardly begun to break when the wreck occurred, and neither crew was aware of the approach of the other train until they were almost upon each other. The impact of the collision was terrific. The sleeping passengers were hurled in every direction. The most of the killed were in the forward coach, which was well crowded.
The spot where the wreck occurred was in a narrow cut, and this fact, with the darkness, added to the difficulty of the situation. The greatest confusion ensued after the first lull following the crash, and the groans of the injured were added to the escaping steam of the wrecked locomotives.
It was some time before word was sent back to Warrensburg and word of the wreck was spread. Relief trains carrying physicians were sent out as quickly as possible from surrounding towns, and everything possible was done to aid the injured. The dead were carried up the track and laid in rows in an open space until the relief train arrived, while the injured were cared for as well as could be.
The scene of the wreck was on the down grade, on either side of which there was a steep rise. Both trains had put on extra steam to carry them up the opposite hill, and when they met at the curve at the lowest point they were running at a terrific rate.
When the trains met the heavy freight train pushed the passenger engine back into the first coach. The tender of the passenger engine literally cut the coach in two in the center and never stopped until it had plowed itself half way through the car and its passengers, killing those in the forward end instantly, and mangling all within reach in a most horrible manner.
Half a dozen who were not killed outright were so terribly injured that they died before they could be removed from the debris. Many of the dead were almost unrecognizable. Arms and legs were dismembered in several cases, and, together with baggage and pieces of wreckage, were tumbled together into a confused mass of bleeding human forms.
The next two coaches were badly damaged, seats being torn up and windows smashed, but in these cars the passengers fared better, all except a few escaping with slight injuries. The Pullman remained upright, and none of its occupants was hurt beyond sustaining a shake-up.
The train crews, with the exception of Brakeman SIDEL, escaped miraculously, the engineers and firemen sustaining only minor hurts.
The injured were taken to Sedalia, Missouri and the dead to Warrensburg, Missouri (Magnolia Opera House). At Warrensburg the coroner immediately set about making preparations for holding an inquest.
The Washington Post District of Columbia 1904-10-11
"Twenty-nine persons were killed and sixty injured by a collision of Missouri Pacific trains three miles east of Warrensburg at 4 o'clock this morning," The Wichita. Daily Eagle reported on Oct. 11, 1904. "Twenty seven of the dead are in undertaking rooms of the city, and the seriously wounded are in the railroad hospital in Sedalia, Mo."