Near here on September 27, 1903, the Southern Railroad's southbound mail express train No. 97, traveling from Washington to Atlanta, careened from a curved wooden trestle and crashed into Still House Creek 45 feet below. Excessive speed was blamed for the disaster. The train generally averaged 40 miles per hour on its 640-mile trip, but when "Old 97" approached Still House Trestle just before 3 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon, it was running one hour behind schedule and moving at a high rate of speed; eyewitness estimates ranged from thirty-five to eighty miles per hour. After the wreck, hundreds of canaries escaped from cages in the baggage car and circled the wreckage singing. Train No. 97, pulled by Locomotive No. 1102, had two postal cars, an express car, one baggage car, and a crew of eighteen. Eleven crew members were killed, six were injured, and only one escaped injury. The accident became widely remembered because a ballad immortalized the wreck, using a tune based on "The Ship That Never Returned." In 1924, Vernon Dalhart's version sold more than 6,000,000 records, becoming the first country music song to sell more than a million copies. Four days after the wreck, a temporary spur line was laid to remove the engine from the ravine, and after being towed to Southern Railroad shops in Spencer, North Carolina, Engine 1102 was rebuilt and remained in service until 1930, when it was scrapped.
