THE KATE SHELLEY BRIDGE

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 37, 13 February 1929, Page 18

THE KATE SHELLEY BRIDGE

Some friends of mine recently returned from a visit to America. While there they visited the little town of Boone, in lowa, in which they heard the story of its heroine—Kate Shellev. They told the .story to me, and now'l ehall tell it to you. In the summer of 1881 repeated rains It'll in the wide Des Moines valley; day after day came drenching etorms, tijl tne rivens and (streams were brinimin<* over their banks. ° On a July night the storm reached the climax; never had the oldest settler known such a tempest. The floods descended on .the swollen waterways until the valley was like.a eea, and the dark flood whirled abont the piers on to the top of the wooden bridge that carried the train line over Honey CreekKate was 15 years old, and her father being dead, there was no one but her to let the cattle out of the pens so that they might reach higher lands and safety. After performing the task the girl (struggled back home, but blinded by the wind-and rain ahe found it a difficult task, She, became aware of the faint rrnnb^, of a«.engine. Kate knew that it*j*as the locomotive eent out now and again to-help heavy trains on the plopo ficajpi 3fbingona, a station across the while the engine went by. lightning showed her two men on-' the', footboard aiLahead. The engine "throbbed on its way to Honey Creek, then suddenly there came a ciash—the little water-logged bridge had given way, and the engine had crashed into thc'svvbften stream —probably the men were drowning. Behind the engine Kafe knew the midnight passenger train was roaring on its way heavy with human lives. In a simit lime, it would reach the ruined bridge. The larit stop before the bridge was Moingona If she could reach there nhi- might save the train. She set oil" with a.email lantern, but the gale P'ion made an end of that, so she was forced to struggle on unaided. She could not .2" along the railway, which was the fhortuet track, because of the flood. The only way was to mount the hill behind her and get down another way. Moon she came to the Des Muinee bridge., another wooden structure, in place of which now stands the new brie!;:;- named after her. There w<us no footway across this bridge. The only possible crossing was by moans of the croes tie*. i*lippery and wet with rain. The river roared beneath like a hungry cabiract. Shr dared not stand upright;* on her hands and kneed she went, dragging her, elf yard by vard. *«i?n 7 M 3g£SiA l fc mi S ht I* Mown off or kL into the flood. thß ,nonrentthe w ß lg& O r* r o '*L W of thought— lighted .f ¥ iui agi nation bridge, -.g* * B *« tne broken eoiches, agoW ttfK^* 1 ? wr eeked

minutes left, and half-a-mile to <»o She struggled on. Stumbling, falling, and arrived at Moingona station just a<s the train came steaming in. She had eaved the train.

Perhaps the railroad company whose line runs over that district knows how easily a name is forgotten in a vast continent, and they had the happy idea of making Kate Shelley remembered by naming after her the new bridge across the Dee Moines river.