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Mountain Line
Cuyahoga Falls News
Press
Thursday June 7th, 1962
By Linda Breen
Reviews Accident
of Falls Trolley
It
was early evening, June 11, 1918, around dinner time, when the Mountain
Line Trolley Car made its usual run around the sharp Water Street curve
and across Glen Bridge toward Front Street. But it never crossed the
bridge. It plunged instead 98 feet to the river below, killing four of
its six occupants.
It is
believed that the fatal flaw which caused this tragedy was an
accumulation of cinders in the tracks.
For
three hours after the accident, a gang of men including the Falls Fire
Department worked frantically to get to the bottom of the pile of
wreckage, seeking for more victims of the disaster.
The
car had apparently turned end on end as it fell and landed nearly upside
down. The roof and sides were crushed by the impact like a eggshell by
a hammer. In fact, the woodwork was so demolished that a small boy
could have lifted the remains with ease.
Three
large holes were cut into the upturned floor of the car to extricate the
victims.
The
four dead were identified as Every Pryor, a Cuyahoga Falls business man;
C. C. Haye, a Cuyahoga Falls res.; O. D. Gilmore, trolley conductor; and
Luzzi Pellegione, a young Akron resident.
The
injured were motorman Leroy Bessemer, with a scalp wound and a broken
leg; and Henry Van Loosen, a falls machinist, with a possible skull
fracture.
The
whole town was aghast with horror. Even now, if you look especially
hard, when the water is low, you can see the remains of the wreckage
below the bridge lodged between the rocks in the river.
This
happened June 11, 1918, yet some senior citizens still remember the
accident well, and could describe it in detail as though it happened
only yesterday.
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