FROM PAGE 1

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2016

STAR BEACON

A3

CRASH: Some seen

as heroes,
others villains
FROM PAGE 1

Brown said.
Leek warned all
the trains coming
into Ashtabula from
both east and west
what had happened
for 30 straight hours.
He saved many lives
and stayed alert and
cogent on the job for
around 50 hours,said
Bob Frisbie, director
ofAshtabula Maritime
and Surface Transportation Museum, which
contains a display on
the bridge collapse.
Another who gained
fame later for efforts
to help the injured
was passenger Marion
Shepard, Brown said.
She spent hours
trying to save trapped
passengers, even after
she herself was injured
in the crash, he said.
Like Leek, Shepard
received little recognition for her efforts
right after the accident
but was later called the
Angel of the Palatine
car for her bravery,
Brown said.
Shepard was said to
have taken large planks
and broken windows
to help passengers escape entrapment from
the burning railroad
cars. While she was
wounded, Shepard was
unaware of her injuries while helping the
rescue efforts, Brown
said.
Another unsung hero
was Dr. Freeman Case,
the towns doctor, who
tended to the injured
in homes and hotels
near the depot even
taverns. There was no
hospital in Ashtabula
at the time.
John Ducro, a cabinet
maker and undertaker
at the time, helped
remove and identify
bodies. His descendants still operate the
mortuary service in
Ashtabula.

WHOM TO BLAME
The deadly crash
didnt just create
heroes, however, as
investigators and
officials looked to find
answers.President
Rutherford B. Hayes,
whose cousinMary
Birchard died in the
crash, later ordered an
inquiry into the accident, Brown said.
Controversy and
death accompanied the
crash and investigation.
Charles Collins, the
bridge engineer for the
Lakeshore and Michigan Southern Railway,
died just weeks after
the accident from a
gunshot wound to the
head. His death was attributed to suicide, but
after his wife ordered
an autopsy it was ruled
a murder. To this day
the true cause of Collins death remains a
mystery, Brown said.
On Jan. 17, Collins
testified before a legislative committee in

Cleveland, Brown said.

Within a few days
after this he was found
dead. At the committee
meeting he referred to
the bridge built by engineer Amasa Stone as
experimental, which
infuriated Stone.
Stone, an engineer
and railroad executive
with vested interests
in both railroads and
metals, said his none
of his wooden and iron
truss bridges ever collapsed. However, the
Ashtabula bridge was
an all-iron truss bridge.
Though Collins might
have been murdered
by corporate interests
or angry relatives of a
victim, there was just
as much conjecture
that it was suicide,
Brown said. There was
a tremendous stigma
against suicide in those
days, and Mary Collins
might not have want
her husbands death
to be ruled as such, he
said.
Two other important figures, Cornelius
Vanderbilt, tycoon and
owner of the railroad,
and Stone, the designer, builder and businessman, also died not
long after the crash.
Vanderbilt died from
exhaustion, Jan. 4,
1876, just days after
the crash. He left a fortune of $100 million,
which is the present
day equivalent of almost $2.2 billion.
Stone committed suicide within seven years
of the accident. The
iron truss bridge he
had built in 1866 had
been ruled inadequate
for the loads it was
forced to carry.
After numerous
inquiries into the
cause of the accident,
it was ruled some of
the iron in the bridge
had bubbled and was
incapable of dealing
with the extreme cold
of the blizzard that hit
the day of the collapse.
Stone purchased the
iron for the bridge
from his brothers iron
forge in Cleveland, and
was ultimately found
responsible for the
bridge collapse.
Brown said Stones
power, wealth and the
laws of the day kept
him from prosecution,
but he couldnt escape
public scorn and ridicule. Despite his later
efforts in philanthropic
work, his name would
forever be associated
with the Ashtabula
Bridge Disaster.
Richard Mullen,
anAshtabula Maritime
and Surface Transportation Museum member, said more than
just Stone deserved
blame for the accident.
It wasnt just Stone
or even Vanderbilt, he
said. It was the corporate culture of the
time. Money was power
and that was the most
important thing to the
robber barons.

PARTY: Man shot in

Ashtabula Harbor
FROM PAGE 1

Medical Center and

then flown by medical
helicopter to a hospital
out of the area, Stell
said.
Preliminary medical
reports say the victim
is expected to survive.
We found several
shotgun shell casings
in the area, Stell said.
Police do not believe
anyone at the party
was involved in the
shooting.
There were no other
reported injuries.
Police are investigat-

ing the incident and

not releasing any more
details about the case,
Stell said.
Several shootings
have taken place in
Ashtabula this year,
with the most recent
occurring a little after
midnight Nov. 19.
Thats when 35-yearold Claudius Wright
was shot and killed
by another man in the
parking lot of Chicks
Bar, 1212 W. 38th St.
Killian L. Wells, of
Ashtabula, later turned
himself in and police
charged him.

WARREN DILLAWAY | STAR BEACON

Construction has begun on a new Circle K on the old Washington Elementary School property along Lake Avenue in Ashtabula.

NEW: Circle K under construction

FROM PAGE 1

The renderings we
have seen are very
impressive and this is
going to be a nice
looking building, he
said. They have
included brick facades
both for the building
and the columns for
the awning over the gas
pumps.
The convenience store

and gas station chain

received the zoning
permits and approval
from the citys Planning
Commission to locate a
filling station at the new
site, he said.
All other building
permits were obtained
at the Ashtabula County
Building Department.
Circle K will own
the new building and
the property. They cur-

rently rent the space at

833 Lake Ave. and plan
to vacate it, Timonere
said.
Northeast Ohio Development Co., owned
by Ronald Kister of
Ashtabula, bought the
former school and
property almost six
years ago for $150,000
from the Ashtabula
Area City School District.

Shortly thereafter,
Kister demolished the
school and planted
grass on the site. It
remained a vacant lot
until Circle K recently
purchased it.
Kister could not be
reached for comment
Thursday.
Circle K currently has
11 stores in Ashtabula
County, according to
circlek.com.

INDUSTRY: Ashtabula was ground zero

for the beginning of real change
FROM PAGE 1

growing, Brown said.

Many across the nation
were calling for stricter
safety standards and
more regulatory oversight. Because of the
1876 tragedy, some
change to make railroad
bridges safer actually
took place.
Ashtabula became
ground zero for the beginning of real change,
Brown said. The nation, already frustrated
about railway safety,
was both riveted and
shocked when word of
another train wreck hit
the wires. As the story
unfolded, grief swept
the nation. In essence,
it was the Titanic of its
day and the rallying cry
for a movement that
demanded change.
He said with the
aid of the telegraph,
mass media like Harpers Weekly Magazine
quickly spread the news
of the crash to a national audience, helping
rally public support for
change and regulation.
Following the crash,
three separate investigations were launched
a local investigation by the Ashtabula
coroners jury, a state
investigation by a state
legislative committee
and a third by the newly
formed American Society of Civil Engineers,
he said.
These investigations
all helped bring about
state and national regulatory oversight and
greater transportation
safety for the average
rail traveler in America
at the time, Brown said.

Richard Mullen,
anAshtabula Maritime
and Surface Transportation Museum member
and research expert on
the Ashtabula Train Disaster, said these changes did not come quickly,
despite public outrage
after the accident.
In 1875, there were
1,201 train accidents in
the country, he said.
In 1888, there were
8,216. In the 1870s, 40
train bridges failed. In
the 1880s, 200 bridges
failed. Change came
about very slowly.
Mullen said the legislative proceedings after
the disaster had little
teeth and it wasnt until
the early 20th Century
that the federal government became involved
in standardization and
real regulation.
The fires at the disaster, which caused so
much loss of life, were
allowed to burn, he
said. Railroad company
policy forbade putting
out the fires, even if it
meant lives could be
lost. There was no real
federal authority regulating activities during
accidents until 1905.
Before that, company
policy was all that mattered.
Bob Frisbie,Ashtabula
Maritime and Surface
Transportation Museum
director, said the policy
was meant to allow the
companies to recover
raw materials.
The fires were allowed to burn because
when all the wood
burned away from the
metal, that made it easier to clear the tracks
and recycle the metal,

he said. It was standard policy for derailments.

Mullen said another
reason the fires at the
disaster were so devastating was that even
company policy wasnt
followed if it meant
money could be saved.
The oil lanterns and
stoves were supposed
to be self extinguishing, he said. But the
were never installed, all
for bottom line reasons.
It was too costly.
Frisbie said the volunteer fire department
didnt know what to
do when the accident
occurred, even though
water was all around.
The pump engine
was only 600 yards
away and wasnt used,
he said.
It was called the
Ashtabula Horror for
good reason, Mullen
added. The fires were
so hot, all that could
be found when people
went looking for remains were shoes with
feet in them.
During the design and
development stage of
building the Ashtabula bridge in the early
1860s, one of the lead
engineers, Joseph Tomlinson, quit the project
to protest design problems, Brown said.
Engineer and designer Amasa Stonewas
reportedly furious with
Tomlinsons rejection
of the all iron bridge.
Stone built the bridge
from metal forged
at his brothers iron
works. Some of the
bridges iron may have
bubbled in the cold
after micro-fissures de-

veloped, Brown said.

There was no carbon
in the iron to prevent
rust and decay from
exposure to the elements, Mullen said.
Stone was later found
to have been at fault
for the Ashtabula Train
Disaster by various
inquests and legislative
committees, Brown said.
The sudden collapse
of the all-iron Ashtabula
bridge became a turning
point in the national
debate on railroad safety, Brown said. The
Ashtabula accident,
although one of thousands of railroad accidents, spurred multiple
investigations because
it happened during a
time in America at the
beginnings of political
and cultural movements
challenging authority,
questioning big business and demanding
action regarding unaddressed safety issues.
Mullen said on
Jan. 12, 1877, the Ohio
General Assembly hosted a legislative session
to determine the cause
of the bridge failure
and to see how railroad
could be made safer,
but it wasnt until at
least 1905 that federal
standardization took
place.
The Ashtabula Train
Disaster became a yardstick for what needed
to be done to make
things safer, but it
wasnt until at least 30
years later that things
became law, Frisbie
said. It was known all
around the world what
happened, but it still
took a long time to do
anything about it.

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