Dickinson County train wreck

Dickinson County’s worst train wreck occurred at 6:30 a.m. on October 31, 1906, in a dense fog at Quinnesec Junction. A northbound freight train on the Lake Superior Division track of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway collided with a train used to transport miners to and from the Traders Mine. The freight train was composed of eight loaded and seven empty cars and the passenger train consisted of two coaches. When the two engines collided head on the impact was so great that the coal tender of the passenger train was driven back halfway through the forward coach. Five miners – Thomas Cowling, Leonardo Galli, Charles Morell, John Pleckinger and Joseph Trepanier – died and nine others were seriously injured. [Menominee Range Historical Museum]