Oxford’s Olden Days: The 1920s Wreck of the Bilbo, Many Students Injured

In 1928 the roads leading to Oxford were mainly gravel and dangerously muddy after a rainstorm. Many of the Ole Miss students traveled by train to Oxford to attend school at the University of Mississippi. One student from Batesville reported that he had to travel either to Memphis or Grenada and then to Oxford. There was no direct route for him to travel to the university unless he drove, which at times was impossible.

On Sunday June 10, 1928, a train coming from the south to Oxford through Taylor was plunged into a washout just two and a half miles from the Oxford Depot. The train had been nicknamed the “Bilbo” for the popular governor of Mississippi, Theodore G. “The Man” Bilbo. Bilbo was the Huey P. Long of Mississippi and would later be elected United States Senator from Mississippi.

The “Bilbo” was due in Oxford at 7:25 PM and was on time when in plunged into the washout. The train, had only one coach with a gasoline engine, was en route from Water Valley to Holly Springs when it plunged into a 25-foot break caused by a heavy rainstorm early Sunday afternoon and turned over several times and then landed upright. There were about 45 to 50 passengers and trainmen. One the train there were 38 tickets sold and a few were riding on train passes. On the train there were trainmen employed by the Illinois Central Railroad, that made up the balance of passengers.

Dr. N. B. Bond, a professor of philosophy at Ole Miss; J. J. Lenoir, a summer school student from McComb; and a porter brought news of the wreck to Oxford. They all ran the two and a half miles to the Oxford Depot in spite of their cuts and bruises sustained in the wreck. Oxford physicians, Dr. J. C. Culley and Dr. E. S. Bramlett, and two nurses started to the scene of the wreck in a small gasoline motor car, but the motor car refused to run and they made their way to the washout on foot. They worked on the injured students and faculty members for two hours before another train was sent from Oxford to bring the injured back to the University Hospital, the Oxford Hospital, and the Bramlett Hospital. The place in which the accident occurred was not accessible to automobiles.

An act of heroism was preformed by Dorris Johnson, a man who had suffered both bruises and cuts. He worked heroically to relieve the suffering of many that were pinned underneath the railroad car. After extricating many he staggered up the track to Oxford. Seeing many others come into the Oxford Hospital with worse injuries than himself, he gave his bed to another injured person. Conductor A. F. McNeil, of Canton, refused to be carried up the bank to the tracks until everybody else had received attention.

Many of the injured were Ole Miss summer school students that were to begin classes on Monday June 11, 1928.

After the wreck, the Oxford Eagle reported, “Although almost two weeks has elapsed since the wreck on the Illinois Central Railroad near Oxford when the “Bilbo”, local passenger train between Water Valley and Holly Springs went over an embankment into a ditch injuring 42 person, passengers and crew, on the train, there are still several of the victims confined in the Bramlett Hospital and Oxford Hospital.”

“Many of the most seriously injured are recovering slowly and it will be sometime before they are sufficiently recovered to return to their homes. Several of the victims, reported at the time of the wreck to be only slightly injured were found later, after careful examination at the hospitals, to be in serious condition.” The most seriously injured were Professor J. W. Bell, who was an economics and political science professor; Miss Alice Mayes, who was the librarian for the university; and Miss Lillie May Walker of Taylor, who was a student. Professor Bell had a fractured skull, Miss Mayes had internal injuries, and Miss Walker had a fractured spine.

The wreck of the “Bilbo” in 1928 plainly shows that Ole Miss students were not exempt from accidental injuries while traveling to the campus. Later a highway system would change the mode of transportation for students to Oxford. This would not ensure that students would not be injured. Over the years we have witnessed many accidents involving students on their travels to Oxford.

Jack Lamar Mayfield is a fifth generation Oxonian, whose family came to Oxford shortly after the Chickasaw Cession of 1832, and he is the third generation of his family to graduate from the University of Mississippi. He is a former insurance company executive and history instructor at Marshall Academy in Holly Springs, South Panola High School in Batesvile and the Oxford campus of Northwest Community College.

In addition to his weekly blog in HottyToddy.com Oxford’s Olden Days, Mayfield is also the author of an Images of America series book titled Oxford and Ole Miss published in 2008 for the Oxford-Lafayette County Heritage Foundation. The Foundation is responsible for restoring the post-Civil War home of famed Mississippi statesman, L.Q.C. Lamar and is now restoring the Burns Belfry, the first African American Church in Oxford.