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Crush Town

Crush, Texas, was a temporary "city" established as a one-day publicity stunt in 1896. William George Crush, general passenger agent of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad (popularly known as the Katy, from its "Em-Kay-Tee" initials), conceived the idea to demonstrate a train wreck as a spectacle.[1] No admission was charged, and train fares to the crash site were at the reduced rate of US$2 from any location in Texas. As a result, about 40,000 people - more people than lived in the second biggest city in the state - showed up on September 15, 1896. Unexpectedly, the impact caused both engine boilers to explode, resulting in two or three fatalities and numerous injuries among the spectators.