A Cow on the Track, a Freight Train in the Air, and Two Dead Railroad Men

A freight train on the Seattle road was wrecked near Latona yesterday afternoon by a cow that wandered onto the track. Two railroad men were killed and thirteen cars were thrown from the rails.

The train was running at about twenty miles an hour when the engine struck the animal. The engine jumped the track and the cars behind it piled up in a tangle of splintered wood and twisted iron. The tender crashed into the cab; for a time the dust and steam were so thick that nothing could be seen. When they cleared, the mill workers who had rushed to the scene found the demolished cab and the bodies of two men.

The dead were Frank Parrott, a brakeman, and Charles J. Black. Parrott's head had been severed and was placed beside his body. The bodies were laid alongside the engine and covered with green brush to hide them from the curious spectators gathering from Latona, Brooklyn and Fremont.

The engineer, who escaped, said he saw several cows on the track, sounded the whistle, and reversed the engine, but it was too late. “It was too late to stop,” he said, “and in an instant the cow disappeared about the cowcatcher. The cars rose in the air, came down on the rails, and tore along at the rear.” He shut off the steam and was in the act of springing from the cab when something struck him and he was thrown clear. He saw enough to convince him that Parrott and Black were dead; the coal heaver was missing, but later turned up without a scratch.

I. E. Spray of Hartford, Snohomish County, was in Latona looking at shingle-mill machinery and saw the wreck. “I did not see any cow,” he said, “and I wondered what made the locomotive leave the rails.” He described the engine going up in the air, the cars crashing into one another, and a cloud of dust and steam hiding the wreck. He ran toward Fremont to flag the north-bound passenger train and overtook the engineer, who was “all broke up over the affair and could scarcely talk.”

Conductor Milton and Rear Brakeman Huskey were in the caboose. Milton sent Huskey back to flag the south-bound passenger due in twenty minutes, while he rushed ahead to flag the north-bound passenger due out of Fremont a few minutes later. Within half an hour a passenger coach and car, drawn by a special engine, left for the scene. The wreck was cleared and traffic resumed after delays.