Bad Wreck on the Central Washington Railroad

From the "History of The Big Bend Country."

1904

Tuesday, August 13th, 1895, there occurred a bad wreck on the Central Washington railroad just east of Almira, which resulted in the death of Fireman Prytz and serious injury to Engineer Hobart. The train consisted of fourteen cars of cattle belonging to W.H. Fleet, of Coulee City, en route to Chicago, and one car of horses owned by Griffith Jones, consigned to Wisconsin. The train was coming down grade at a rapid rate, and when the curve was reached, near Almira, the engine and the entire train with the exception of the horse car, a cattle car and the caboose, went over the ditch twenty feet below, piling one car of live stock upon another making a frightful wreck. Of the 314 cattle 150 were either killed or maimed, making their destruction necessary. Fireman Prytz fell under the boiler and was killed almost instantly by scalding water. Conductor Roberts, Brakeman Downs, W. H. Fleet and three or four others were in the caboose and escaped injury.