By: James Neuhouser
“Come All you rounders if you wannna hear; The story about a brave engineer: Casey Jones was the roller’s name: On a 6-8-wheeler he rode to fame”
Casey was an imposing man, 6 ft.4 and built like a linebacker. He couldn’t remember when he wasn’t famous and this would carry out his entire life, until he was even more famous in death.
John Luther Jones was the first of four boys and one girl. Living somewhere In the backwoods of Southeastern Missouri their father was an itinerant country school teacher. When Casey was 13, his father packed the entire family in a wagon, and moved them on a 6-day trip to Cayce, Kentucky, in search of a better teaching job. A 3-day trip to Birds Point Mississippi, crossing on a ferry to Hickman, Kentucky then a 3-day trip to Cayce, Ky.
At Hickman he saw his first train, and then Cayce was a water stop on the M & O railroad. John spent every spare moment, talking to the engineers, as they took on water, and they would even let him oil the drive piston. In the small towns baseball was king and Casey became famous as a catcher, and home run hitter for the ” Cayce Dreadnoughts.”
When Luther was 17 he asked his parents if he could go and work for the railroad, but his mother would have none of it. The engineers told him there was an opening for a telegraph operator so his mother finally consented. The day Luther left early in the morning, there was a game with the “Jordan Nonpareils,” but he never made the game. The engineers had told him to ask for a Mr. Galloway in the telegraph office.
After a 14 mile walk Luther arrived at Columbus in the early afternoon. As he stepped into the telegraph office 20 eyes recognized him immediately. There was John Luther Jones in the flesh. Mr Galloway immediately offered him a job, and by that evening he had secured a job, found a room at a boarding house, met the girl he was going to marry, and became the first baseman for the “Columbus Kats,” the team sponsored by the railroad. He also received a new name. Since the railroad already had five Jones’, he would be the Jones from Cayce, Casey Jones.
There was one small problem, Casey would not get paid until he became proficient at sending and receiving Morse code, which would probably take 8 months. Casey studied every spare moment, and two months later, when the telegraph operator didn’t show he took over and did a superb job. Friday when the pay train came there was an envelope for Casey Jones. In that a year he would become a fireman, in less than other year he was a full fledged engineer. After two years he was offered a job on a brand new railroad, lllinois Central that traveled from Chicago to New Orleans, where He had to start all over as fireman again
“Casey Jones, claimed in the cabin; Casey Jones, orders in his hands; Casey Jones leanin’ out the window; Taking a trip to the promised land”.
ln a few years he was their top engineer. Then came that fateful night. Casey had a reputation for getting the mail train there on time and once had run five legs in a row. Since last night, he had run 3 legs, and got into Memphis with train # 4 at 11:35 p.m. on the advertised time. Casey was a advised that train 21 was coming in from the north it could be double back because engineer Sam Lafe was ill.
He called his wife and she came down to say goodbye, and he pulled out of the station at 12:50 a.m., 1 hour and 15 minutes late, which would have to be made up as this was a passenger train and also carried the mail. He asked for his engine #382 and determined to make up the time. They were reaching speeds of over a 110. Telephone poles were flying by like pickets on a fence. Number 382’s whistle could be heard screaming for miles.
“On the rail was a northbound train; Blood was boilin’ in Casey’s brain; Casey said hey now look out ahead; Jump Sim, jump or we’ll all be dead”
At 3:28 a.m. they had made up the time, but trouble loomed ahead. A freight train on a siding was too long for the siding and left three cars on the main line. That night the telegraph operator broke into the office at Vaughn broadcasting that the brave engineer was dead. Early that day the telegraph operator at Memphis went to tell Casey’s wife, but his two sons didn’t find out until they were in school. One of their classmates came up to them and said, “If my father had been killed last night I wouldn’t be at school today.”
