It was 11 p.m. onJuly 6 , 1881 , when 15 - year - old Kate Shelley heard a fearsome noise amid a violent violent storm that was nettle in cardinal Iowa .
Kate quickly realized the dissonance was the solution of the collapse of a railroad span that span nearby Honey Creek . The bridge gave out when a work railway locomotive carrying four men hap over . Any train that fall out would careen over the edge into the swollen creek — and Kate recognize that a rider train , theMidnight Limited , was due in less than an hour . The only way to get to the other side in sentence to admonish the depot was to frustrate a50 - foot - tallwooden trestle bridge deck that was hundreds of foot long .
unshaken , Kate grabbed a lantern and started crawling . The storm was still raging , and some of the railroad tie on the bridge circuit were up to 3 foot apart . To make affair worse , as Kate made her means inch by inch , her lantern blew out . even so , the teen hold on — but even when she reached the other side , her job was n’t done . After her harrowing experience on the bridge , Kate had to run a half - mile to get hold of the Moingona depot .
story from the Railroad// Public Domain
She was successful , save the lives ofmore than 200 passengerson the midnight string — and she still had more unexpended to give . The exhausted girl managed to lead a rescue party to the site of the crash , where two men from the locomotive that had crashed were stillclinging to treesin the urine . The body of a third proletarian was later found in a corn field , washed there by the swirling flood lamp body of water . The quaternary man wasnever find .
Her incredible tale spread quickly . citizenry wrotepoemsabout her . Donations swan in to pay off the Shelley mortgage . Giftsincludeda life runway qualifying , $ 200 hard cash , a gold watch , a atomic number 79 medal made by Tiffany & Co. , and even a job — years afterwards , the Chicago & Northwestern ( C&NW ) Railroad made her post master at the depot she had cannonball along to that stormy night [ PDF ] .
unhappily , though Kate live that night , shediedat the young historic period of 47 , succumbing to Bright ’s Disease in 1912 . While her health was go bad , the C&NW partitioning superintendentprovidedhis secret railroad machine so Kate could travel in comfort . In 1956 , the Order of Railway Conductors and Brakemen donated a brass to honor the 75th anniversary of her human action . It was put up behind her headstone at Sacred Heart Cemetery in Boone , Iowa .
Stacy Conradt
A new nosepiece replaced the honest-to-god trestle 20 years after that tempestuous night ; still - thankful citizens named it after her , if unofficially . And while Kate may have died more than a C ago , her human action is still the stuff of legend : In 2009 , Union Pacific opened a more innovative bridge that runs parallel to the now - decommissioned one name after Kate in 1901 . The companyinsistedon honoring the namesake of the original , and thus , the Kate Shelley Bridge still stands today . check off out this cool drone footage of the dual bridgework :
