Run, Kate Shelley, Run

Historical Account by Julia Pferdehirt

July 1881

Kate Shelley’s Home

Kate watching the trains as a child.

Kate Shelley looking after her younger

siblings after her father’s death.

Friday

By Saturday, the ground was muddy and it was still raining.

By Sunday, the roads were thick sponges sucking at boots.

Wednesday

The rain stopped, so Kate rushed to hang the laundry before it rained again.

After all the rain, the creek became wild.

The barn became flooded and Kate rushed to save the animals.

Kate looking out the window, while

the other children were asleep.

Kate heard a crack like thunder, and another, and another. With a sounds like a cannon fire, the Honey Creek bridge, the engine, and four terrified crew members crashed into the roaring water.

Kate pulled on her barn coat and battered straw hat.

“I’m going” Kate said. Kate’s mother gripped her arm. “No, Kate. You could be killed in that storm!” Kate grabbed that railroad lantern. “If Pa Were out there I’d go.” She said. “I have to do it, Ma.”

The water tossed trees and twisted metal like toys. Two men clung to branches surrounded by wreckage, they were screaming for help. The other two crew members had been washed away. Kate waved her lantern to say “Hold on. Just hold on. I’ll do something.”

“The midnight express was scheduled to come through in less

than an hour. The train, its crew, and two hundred passengers were

right now, right this minute, headed toward Honey Creek, not realizing that the bridge was out.”

Before Kate could think of a way to help the men a terrible thought struck her head.

It had sounded like cannon fire when Number 11 went down. It would sound like an entire war if the midnight express crashed into Honey Creek. Over 200 people could die. She had to stop that train!

Kate stumbleling Along the rail way tracks.

Suddenly lightning flashed

Kate saw a tree hurtling towards the bridge

Kate could see the station lights

The station agent telegraphing six miles west to Ogden

The railroad workers and Kate boarded a pusher engine.

At Honey Creek The bluffs had collapsed into the water.

Puffing engine

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Kate Shelley Iowa Heroine