Kate Shelley, to whom the Iowa Legislature has just given a gold medal
and $200, is fifteen years old. She lives near Des Moines, at a point
where a railroad crosses a gorge at a great height. One night during a
furious storm the bridge was carried away. The first the Shelleys knew
of it was when they saw the headlight of a locomotive flash down into the
chasm. Kate climbed to the remains of the bridge with great difficulty,
using an improvised lantern. The engineer’s voice answered her calls,
but she could do nothing for him, and he was drowned. As an express
train was almost due, she then started for the nearest station, a mile
distant. A long, high bridge over the Des Moines River had to be crossed
on the ties—a perilous thing in stormy darkness. Kate’s light was blown
out, and the wind was so violent that she could not stand, so she crawled
across the bridge, from timber to timber, on her hands and knees. She
got to the station exhausted, but in time to give the warning, though she
fainted immediately.
—_Detroit Free Press_, May 13th, 1882.