Blount and Beyond Online Magazine - Magazine - Page 41
A Blast from the Past Articles from previous editions
TRAIN SAM: THE END OF THE LINE
By the late Eddie McClanahan
On the 13th of March 1917 a young man known as Samuel McClanahan passed away in a room at the Wonderland Hotel
in Elkmont, Tennessee now a part of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Sam had been working on a shay
locomotive as a fireman while working for Little River Railroad and Lumber Company. A train accident had happened on
the 6th of March and the shay boiler had exploded. The engineer Walter Hall and Sam McClanahan were on the shay
when boiler exploded throwing Hall a good distance from the cab but unfortunately Sam was not as lucky and was burned
over most of his body so bad and the steam had even burned out his eyes.
They finally got Sam to Elkmont, and he was carried up to the Wonderland Hotel where they put him in a room there and
Sam laid in that room a week no doubt suffering from his burns and not being able to see anything since his eyes had been
boiled out by the steam from the explosion on the shay.
Sam was the first born of William Henry and Callie Abbott McClanahan and was only 25 at the time of his tragic death.
Sam was laid to rest in the Tuckaleechee Cove Methodist Church Cemetery in what is now Townsend. The town had its
name changed from Tuckaleechee Cove to Townsend when W.B. Townsend started his railroad and lumber company
there.
Sam lays close to his parents and his grandfather Noah Abbott lays next to him as well as many of Sam's kinfolks are
buried there as well. A sad end to a young life but where this story should come to an end there is so much more to be told.
Sometimes when one life comes to an end another is only beginning. Sam passed that day the story goes on keeping Sam's
legacy rolling on. Sam may be gone but surely never to be forgotten. Rest in peace Sam you are thought of and talked
about often.
A picture of the train wreck Sam was burned so bad and died later.