On a hot and dry Saturday night, August 13th, 1939, the $2,000,000 Streamliner, City of San Francisco sped through the Nevada desert with 220 passengers aboard. At 9:33 P.M., it was about 11 miles from Beowawe, west of Carlin, Nevada, when it suddenly left the tracks.
Of the seventeen cars, five cars fell from a bridge, and passengers were thrown from windows, tossed about inside, and crushed beneath the weight of the huge mass of twisted metal. In all, 24 were killed, and 121 injured.
Many of the killed were workers; waiters, cooks and porters. The dining car was the most damaged, and some survivors recalled how they had just left a card game in the dining car to go to bed. A missing 7-year-old girl had gone to the dining car to get a glass of milk.
Engineer Ed F. Hecox survived and was stunned by what he and other survivors saw. This was the worst train wreck in U.S. history.
As the investigation into the wreck began, it was determined that sabotage was the cause, and a hunt began for the man, or men, who had caused this mass death. A reward of $5,000, offered by Southern Pacific grew to $10,000. Many people named suspects; a man with mangled ears, a drifter, a mental patient. But none ‘panned out’.
Alexander then surprisingly confessed to the crime of sabotaging the City of San Francisco. He said that he had wanted to rob the passengers.
After undoing the tracks, he hid in a tunnel to watch. But as the dying and injured passengers screamed in pain, he became frightened and ran.
Alexander seemed to enjoy the attention and requested that reporters write his life story. He was removed to Beowawe, Nevada and charged with murder.
But at his arraignment in Eureka, Nevada, as the charges were read, he changed his story. He refused to admit to killing a woman, and insisted that he was in Enid, Oklahoma at the time. Alexander was eventually released from custody, and Sheriff Olin Johnson never received a reward.
In spite of several confessions, and many years if investigations, the true killer of so many innocent people has never been found.
The City of San Francisco ran from Chicago to Oakland and back. A trip of only 39 hours and 45 minutes, one way, was a remarkably feat. After the wreck of 1939, the City of San Francisco was ‘reborn’ and continued in service.
In January, 1952, the train was stranded in huge snow drifts near Yuba Pass for 6 days. By January 19th, the 196 passengers and 20 crew members were rescued and the train was freed from the snow.
