Fall Lunch & Learn Program is September 23rd.

Fort Caspar Museum Association's
Fall Lunch & Learn"
Cole Creek Train Wreck"
Saturday, September 23, 2023
Optional lunch: 12:00* / Lecture:  1:00 pm

*RSVP for lunch by September 21st.

Lunch cost is $5 for FCMA Members & $8 for nonmembers

On an unusually stormy September evening in 1923, 69 passengers boarded train no. 30. Departing the Burlington Depot in downtown Casper, the train expected to reach Denver, Colorado the following morning. Just an hour into its voyage disaster struck. The locomotive and most of the passenger cars plummeted through the dark night into a void left by the washed out Cole Creek Bridge. The result was Wyoming's worst passenger rail disaster. While the photographs and story of the wreck are well known, the stories of the people affected have been largely forgotten. From the up and coming politician from Douglas to the miss-matched couple on their way to their wedding, and from the courageous Pullman conductor to the Federal narcotics agent with a thief on his heels, this program will tell their stories from that fateful night. Learn how a sleek modern passenger train on a well inspected line met with disaster and how the cleanup was completed. 

Con Trumbull, president of the Fort Caspar Museum Association, is a fifth generation Wyoming rancher from Casper. His love of history and railroads led him to the Nevada Northern Railway in Ely, Nevada where he is the Trainmaster as well as the Archivist. He brings first hand knowledge of operating century old steam locomotives and passenger cars to provide a unique insight into the Cole Creek Wreck. He co-authored Images of America: Casper and was the author for Images of Rail: Central Wyoming Railroads as well as a children's book series The Adventures of Dirt the Shop Cat.