Listen to award winning author Mike Cox discuss one of America’s wackiest and tragic stories at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 31, a free live event at the Allen Public Library that will also  be shared virtually at  allentx.swagit.com

On September 15, 1896, the town of Crush provided the staging ground for a publicity stunt ramming two trains together at top speed. Showrunner and Katy Railroad official William Crush thought he had planned for every contingency.  But the extravaganza quickly unraveled into one of the Lone Star State’s most confounding tragedies. On September 16, 1896, The Dallas Morning News declared, “a scene that will haunt a man…make him nervous whenever he hears an engine whistle and disturb his dreams with black clouds of death-dealing iron hail.”

The soon-to-be famous Scott Joplin commemorated the debacle in “The Great Crush Collision March,” and entrepreneurs like “Head-On Joe” Connolly of Iowa continued the tradition of the staged locomotive duel for decades. In the first-ever book on the subject, writer-historian Mike Cox finally tells the full story of the Crash at Crush.

Elected to the Texas Institute of Letters in 1993, along with James Michener and Bill Moyers, Mike Cox is the best-selling author of more than 35 nonfiction books and hundreds of magazine articles, essays, and newspaper columns.

In recognition of his body of work, Mike received the A.C. Greene Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011. Two of his books -- a work on Texas disasters and a two-volume history of the Texas Rangers -- are included in the 101 Essential Texas Books by Glenn Dromgoole and Carlton Stowers.

The library is located at 300 N. Allen Dr.  Call 214-509-4911 for additional information.