Casey Jones

Casey Jones 1864-1900, American locomotive engineer celebrated in ballad and song, probably b. Jordan, Fulton co., Ky. His real name was John Luther Jones, but at the age of 17 he went to Cayce, Ky., and there he was employed as a telegraph operator; from the name of the town he was given the nickname "Casey." In 1888 he entered the service of the Illinois Central RR as a locomotive fireman and soon (1890) was promoted to engineer. He was famous among railroad men for his boast that he always brought his train in on schedule and for his peculiar skill with a locomotive whistle. Given the "crack" assignment of driving the Cannon Ball express from Memphis, Tenn., to Canton, Miss.—a particularly dangerous run on which several accidents had occurred—Casey Jones was determined to bring the overdue train in on time but met with disaster. On the morning of Apr. 30, 1900, confronted with a stationary freight train ahead of his speeding locomotive at Vaughan, Miss., he ordered his fireman to jump. He applied the brakes, and although the Cannon Ball crashed and Jones was killed, the passengers were saved. A fellow railroad worker, Wallace Saunders, soon composed a popular ballad about him; one version of it, Casey Jones, was published by T. Lawrence Siebert and Eddie Newton. Monuments commemorating Jones stand at Cayce, Ky., and Jackson, Tenn. He was buried at Jackson, Tenn.

Bibliography: See biography by F. J. Lee (1939).

Casey Jones, railroad engineer hero of a popular ballad that tells of his fatal last trip in the cabin of a “big eight‐wheeler,” which was “eight hours late with the western mail.” His attempt to arrive in “Frisco” on schedule results in a head‐on collision with another train. As with most ballads, there are many variants of both music and verses, and no definite origin is known. It is claimed that the original engineer was John Luther Jones, killed in a wreck on the Chicago and New Orleans Limited (March 18, 1900). The song has been attributed at various times to three railroad workers, Wallace Saunders, Cornelius Steen, and “Wash” Sanders. It may have been revised from a ballad about a black fireman, Jimmie Jones, but certainly has its roots in the tradition that “there's many a man killed on the railroad, and laid in his lonesome grave,” which also produced The Wreck of the Six‐Wheel Drive, Ol' John Brown, and Charley Snyder. A vaudeville version of “Casey Jones” was published in 1909 by T.L. Siebert and E. Newton. The hero's career has become a folk legend, and is the subject of a famous labor‐union song and of Robert Ardrey's play Casey Jones (1938).