The pub­lic­ity stunt known as the “Crash at Crush” hap­pened on Sept. 15, 1896 [1. For more about the 100th anniver­sary you can read the Bay­lor Uni­ver­sity Lariat’s account here.]. It took place at the short-lived (one day, to be exact) town of Crush, TX., near Waco.

A loco­mo­tive crash staged sev­eral months ear­lier by the Colum­bus and Hock­ing Val­ley Rail­road near Cleve­land, Ohio, had been a great suc­cess, attract­ing 40,000 spec­ta­tors. William George Crush, a gen­eral pas­sen­ger agent at the Katy Rail­road, thought it would make for a great pub­lic­ity stunt, so he pro­posed a sim­i­lar event in Texas. The Katy wouldn’t charge for the event, only the price of train fare to get to the event. He ran the idea up the Katy flag­pole and was given full con­trol of putting on the spectacle.

Posters were made up for the crash, but lit­tle paid pub­lic­ity was needed since almost every major news­pa­per was pro­vid­ing free pub­lic­ity of the event. The crash was set for Sep­tem­ber 15, 1896 and the crowds filed in to cen­tral Texas the days pre­ced­ing, mostly aboard Katy trains.

Crush, a friend of P.T. Bar­num, bor­rowed a tent from the Rin­gling broth­ers to be used as a restau­rant and built a wooden jail in case there were pick­pock­ets and drunks. Crush, with the help of Katy engi­neers, laid out the logis­tics of the crash, set­ting up the impact point in front of a grand­stand filled with V.I.P.s. By the day of the event it is esti­mated that up to 50,000 peo­ple were at the site, cre­at­ing a town for a day, which was appro­pri­ately called Crush. In 1896, Dal­las had just 40,000 so for that one day Crush may have bested Dal­las for the title of Texas’ largest city.

At 5 p.m. the two loco­mo­tives set up about a mile from each other and put the ped­dle to the metal. Max­i­mum speed was reached at 90 miles an hour, and they set off cherry bombs laid on the tracks to cre­ate small explo­sions as the trains trav­eled along. The two trains met ten feet north of the des­ig­nated impact point, which was close enough accord­ing to the Katy engineer’s calculations.

Three large explo­sions quickly fol­lowed one after the other. The first explo­sion was the col­li­sion of the engines, then the next two explo­sions were the boil­ers of each train explod­ing. Both the pho­tog­ra­phers and V.I.P.s’ stands were imme­di­ately pelted with shrap­nel. The offi­cial pho­tog­ra­pher for the event, Jervis Deane of Waco, was hit by a piece of metal that put out his eye and embed­ded sev­eral pieces of metal in his head.

The storm of the shrap­nel occurred so quickly and the crowd was so closely packed together that it was impos­si­ble to run for cover. Three peo­ple died and sev­eral dozen spec­ta­tors were injured by the explod­ing locomotives.

One of those killed was sit­ting in a mesquite tree and was nearly decap­i­tated by a length of chain. The explo­sion was so pow­er­ful that a piece knocked a woman uncon­scious half a mile away. Some were even injured as they attempted to pick up the scald­ing metal on the ground as a souvenir.

The injured and the fam­i­lies of the dead were paid by the Katy. Crush was fired imme­di­ately, but rehired a few days later with­out the gen­eral public’s knowl­edge until he retired from the com­pany. The “Crash at Crush” was immor­tal­ized by famed Texas com­poser Scott Joplin in his march, “Great Crush Col­li­sion.” [1. Huh. Sheet music for the Scott Joplin piece can be found here.]