On April 30, 1900, railroad engineer John Luther "Casey" Jones died when his Illinois Central train, the "Cannonball," collided with a stalled freight train in Vaughan, Mississippi. Jones, who once lived and worked in the railroad town of Water Valley, was credited with saving the lives of his passengers and crew. A native of Cayce, Kentucky, the source of his nickname, Jones was born in 1863 and began working for the Illinois Central as a fireman in 1888. Two years later he joined the Water Valley Lodge of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Fireman, and at some point moved to the city, which housed a major roundhouse and shop for servicing locomotives. In 1891 he was promoted to engineer, and in 1900 began working on the Memphis-to-Canton, Mississippi, run of the New Orleans special, or "Cannonball," which carried passengers and mail between Chicago and New Orleans. Around 1 a.m. on April 30, Jones and his fireman, Sim Webb, boarded engine No. 382 in Memphis, where the train had arrived an hour and a half late. Jones was almost back on schedule as he approached Vaughan shortly before 4 a.m., but as he rounded a curve he encountered a stalled train. He ordered Webb to jump and died with his hand still on the brake as he crashed into the train's caboose, while his passengers suffered no major injuries. Although none achieved more acclaim than Casey Jones, his exploits, true and otherwise, became popularly celebrated only years after his death. After the wreck, Wallace Saunders, an African American worker at the Canton roundhouse who knew Jones, composed a ballad, with some verses reportedly added by fellow employee Ike Wentworth, that spread widely among railroad laborers. Saunders' ballad was first published in a railroad magazine in 1908, and in 1909 the first sheet music version appeared, credited to T. Lawrence Seibert and Eddie Newton. In 1910, a recording by vaudeville singer Billy Murray reputedly sold over a million copies, and the first country music version was recorded by Fiddlin' John Carson in 1923. The first issued blues recording was Furry Lewis' two-part "Kassie Jones" from 1928; Mississippi John Hurt recorded "Casey Jones" earlier that year but it was never released, and in the 1960s he recorded multiple versions. Bluesman Jesse James and Bob Howard both recorded "Southern Casey Jones" in the 1930s, and later artists included Johnny Cash, Sidney Bechet, Spike Jones, and the Grateful Dead. The story was also popularized through newspaper and magazine articles, stage and cinema productions, a TV series, toys, trading cards, a comic book, and museums.