Wreck of the Ol' 97

"The song doesn’t say who saw the affair, but somebody must have, and it could just as well have been people like those in the wagon. I put ’em in anywhow." —Thomas Hart Benton

Benton’s inspiration for this scene was a folk ballad based on the wreck of Southern Railroad’s Train No. 97 at Stillhouse Trestle, outside Danville, Virginia, in 1903. The tragedy resonated for decades, in part because the ballad became the first record to sell a million copies in the United States. Despite the widely known details of the accident, Benton exercised artistic license for his interpretation. He changed the locale from the Virginia mountains to the Midwest and heightened the drama by introducing a horse and wagon into the scene.