A Freight Train Chases Three Horses Into Newport
One of Ed G. Harris's horses is struck near Hardscrabble, then driven miles into town by an eastbound freight before City Marshal Jenne puts the injured animal down.
A horse belonging to Ed G. Harris, of Hardscrabble, was so badly injured by a Great Northern train on Wednesday that it had to be killed. Harris had turned three of his horses loose at Hardscrabble and they wandered onto the right-of-way of the railroad. An eastbound freight happened to catch them on the track and struck one of them, nearly severing a foreleg. The frightened animals remained on the track and were chased by the train all the way from Hardscrabble to Newport, the injured animal leading most of the way. When the animals arrived in Newport they were chased off the track and went to the north end of the city. City Marshal Jenne killed the injured animal.
“The frightened animals remained on the track and were chased by the train all the way from Hardscrabble to Newport, the injured animal leading most of the way.”
The story is a reminder that early railroads and open-range livestock shared the same ground, often with brutal results. Modern readers may see a stray-animal emergency and a public-safety response; in 1908 it was a farmer's loss and a marshal's unpleasant duty.
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