The Ashtabula Horror: America's Worst Rail Wreck of the 1800s

On the frigid night of December twenty-ninth, eighteen seventy-six, the Pacific Express was crossing a wrought-iron bridge over the Ashtabula River gorge in northeastern Ohio when the bridge gave way. The train plunged about seventy six feet into the ravine below. Within minutes, the wreckage caught fire, and the flames spread so quickly that many passengers, trapped in the overturned cars, could not be reached.

Ninety-two people died and sixty-four were injured, making the Ashtabula disaster the deadliest railroad accident in American history up to that point. Only one engine made it across; the coupling to the following cars broke just in time to save the locomotive. Everyone behind it fell.

The bridge had been designed by Amasa Stone, president of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, who had no engineering credentials and who overruled the concerns of trained engineers during construction. A subsequent investigation found that the bridge had been improperly designed, poorly built, and inadequately inspected, yet Stone had certified its safety repeatedly in the eleven years it stood.

Among the dead was Philip Bliss, one of the most beloved gospel songwriters in America, composer of hymns still sung today, including the music to It Is Well With My Soul, whose words were written by Horatio Spafford. He survived the initial fall but went back into the burning wreck to find his wife. Neither made it out.

The public outcry was immediate and lasting. The disaster led directly to the creation of a federal system for investigating fatal railroad accidents. Amasa Stone, consumed by guilt, died by suicide seven years later. The catastrophe changed how Americans thought about corporate accountability for public safety infrastructure, a debate that had only begun.