Memorial Sunday for 100th anniversary of deadly train wreck

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MADISON TWP. — Somehow, the worst man-made disaster in Butler County history was “forgotten over the years,” said Sam Ashworth, former director of the Middletown Historical Society.

Ashworth, along with a group of railroad enthusiasts, are laying tracks to bring the deadly train wreck back to life.

On Sunday, July 4, a public memorial service will be held in Madison Twp., to commemorate an event that changed the lives of those in the Middletown area.

The outdoor service will be at 1 p.m. next to the Westside Feed Store, 5450 Trenton Franklin Road, close to the site of the original event.

One hundred years ago on July 4, 1910, just after 1 p.m., a southbound passenger train traveling at 50 mph struck a stationary northbound freight head-on just north of the West Middletown depot on the CH&D (now CSX) line, Ashworth said.

A miscommunication from a Dayton dispatcher led to the terrible wreck that killed 36 people and injured 50, Ashworth said.

Most of those killed were from the Dayton area, and since no Middletown residents died, the significance of the accident “didn’t stick,” said Alan Wise, a Middletown native and train enthusiast.

He added: “The collective memory passed.”

Ashworth said the train wreck, and the Great Flood three years later, led to the building of a Middletown hospital. Because there was no medical facility in the city in 1910, those injured had to be transported to hospitals in Hamilton and Dayton. Many died because they could not be treated quickly, Ashworth said.

Several years ago, Wise, 52, found some photographs of the wreck and began to research what led to the crash and the lives of the victims. He read articles in the Middletown Journal, Dayton Daily News and newspapers in Cincinnati and Columbus. He said all the coroners records — vital in his research — were destroyed in the 1913 flood.

As the centennial anniversary grew closer, Wise decided it was time to tell this story again, he said. He contacted fellow train buffs Judge Noah Powers and Jerry Feicht and they, along with local train modelers Arnold Baughman, Dan Conrad, William Krumm and Jeff Sabo, built an HO scale model of the actual wreck, based on the photographs.

The model is 1/87 scale, Wise said, which means people are about one inch tall.

Wise then asked Ashworth to create a documentary about the wreck. Once complete, the model will be displayed at the Historical Society and the DVD documentary will be available for purchase.

Contact this reporter at (513) 705-2842 or rmccrabb@coxohio.com.