Kate Shelley

Kate Shelley Photos

The actions of 15 year old farm girl Kate Shelley on the fateful night of July 6, 1881 were perhaps the greatest act of heroism in American railroading history. The real life drama & tragedy of the events surrounding the Honey Creek disaster have been told and retold many times over the years. We are pleased to be able to share the following historical & on location photos.

    The depot museum at Moingona, Iowa. This is not the original building, it was moved here from nearby Beaver, Iowa.

Sign at the depot museum. Click to see better detail. Update: On Oct. 1, 2009 Union Pacific dedicated the new $55 million dollar Kate Shelley High Bridge, the longest, highest double track railroad bridge in North America, see photo below.

Photo display inside the museum of the CNW Des Moines River bridge that Kate Shelley crossed.

The abandoned Des Moines River bridge as it looks today. This view was shot standing on the Moingona side. It is 673 ft. to the other end, much farther than it looks. Imagine a girl crawling across the rail in the pitch black, driving rain (the lantern had gone out) over a treacherous, debris filled, raging river, the same river her younger brother had drowned in a year earlier, knowing at any minute that the express train was due to cross the bridge.

2 of the 30 bridges & trestles that once stood between Boone and Moingona.

Views of the inside & outside of the museum.

The Kate Shelley High Bridges, 1901 & 2009.

Street sign in Boone, Iowa.

The most famous railroad lantern in the world, at the Boone County Historical Society.

    The Tiffany gold medal given to Kate Shelley. The inscription reads:
                        Presented by the State of Iowa, to Kate Shelley,
                              with the thanks of the General Assembly
                          in recognition of the Courage and Devotion
         of a child of fifteen years whom neither the fury of the elements,
            nor the fear of death could appall in her effort to save human life
            during the terrible storm and flood in the Des Moines Valley
                              on the night of July 6th, 1881.

The monument near Kate Shelley's grave. The inscription says:
Here is a deed bound for legend; a story to be told until the last order fades and the last rail rusts. On the night of 6th July 1881, Kate Shelley, then a girl of 15 years, crossed the Des Moines river bridge at Moingona Iowa, in tempest and flood and prevented a C. and N. W. passenger and express train from plunging into rain-swollen Honey Creek where two men had died when a bridge collapsed under their locomotive. Her heroism saved the train and those aboard and led to rescue of survivors from the Honey Creek disaster.

A railcar exibit at the Boone & Scenic Valley Railroad.