1916 Southern Cambria RR Company Streetcar Wreck

An old 1920 picture of Nanty Glo passengers boarding a Southern Cambria Railroad Company streetcar is shown below. The caption under the picture describes a train wreck that occurred on August 12, 1916, in which 27 people died and 80 were injured, including one Nanty Glo resident who was a fatality and several others who were injured.

Now, DiAnna Goughnour, whose father and grandfather were lifelong Cambria County residents, has transcribed an old 1916 Pittsburgh Press newspaper article about the details and cause—brake failure—of the disastrous train wreck, with vivid pictures at the scene. (See web page.)

Her grandfather, David Jonus Goughnour, was a Southern Cambria conductor who assisted with the dead and injured at the time of the accident. A listing of all the train victims is provided in the article. Two families, each with five members, were wiped out in the accident, and a Mrs. Archie Cook from Nanty Glo was the one borough fatality.

The accident occurred near a location called Echo, located between Parkhill and Mineral Point, about 5 miles northeast of Johnstown. See map.

Again, we at the Nanty Glo web site hopes this article helps to broaden knowledge of Home Country history from the past.

— Frank Charney 

A Christmas joke

On the day after Christmas, Father O'Malley was looking at the cradle in front of Saint Patrick's Church when he noticed that the baby Jesus was missing from among the figures. He turned and saw little Jimmy Flanagan with a red wagon, and in the wagon was the figure of the Baby Jesus. So Father said to the lad, "Well, where did you get Him, Jimmy?"

The little boy replied, "I got him from the church."

"And why did you take him?"

"Well," the boy replied, "about a week before Christmas I prayed to Baby Jesus and I promised Him if Santa gave me a red wagon for Christmas I would give him a ride around the block."

— Sent by Catholicity  

Advent thought for today

Christmas, my child, is love in action. Every time we love, every time we give, it's Christmas.

— Dale Evans Rogers  

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