News: Unity - Auto & Train Deaths (01 Nov 1915)

Contact: Robert Lipprandt

Email: bob@wiclarkcountyhistory.org 

Surnames: Adler, Daul, Githens, Schroeder

----Source: The Sheboygan Press (Sheboygan, WI) 11/01/1915

Four Prominent Marshfield Men Killed By Train

Marshfield, Wis. Nov. 1.  -  (Special)  -  Four of Marshfield’s best known businessmen had their lives snuffed out in an automobile accident Sunday afternoon near Unity when the car in which they were taking an initial ride was struck by a Soo line passenger train.

Three of the four were instantly killed, the fourth, owner and driver of the car, retained consciousness for thirty minutes after the accident and dying of internal injuries.

The dead:

Peter Daul, 47 years old, driver of the car, proprietor Eagle hotel.

Philip Adler, 63 years old, capitalist, owner of the Adler opera house, several business blocks and prominent in banks, instantly killed.

Robert H. Schroeder, 43 years, old, alderman Second ward, instantly killed.

Charles A. Githens, 42 years old, real estate operator and former resident of Waupaca, instantly killed.

The party in Mr. Daul’s car were on their way to Dorchester, on the Ashland division of the Soo. Mr. Daul was driving. One mile south of Unity the road crossed the track through a cut about ten feet deep. Brush conceals the view of the tracks both ways. Here they were struck by Soo line passenger No. 11, northbound and said to have been twenty minutes behind schedule time.

Parts of the car were hurled from fifty to 300 feet, while the four men struck the ground close together, within fifteen or twenty feet. Cattle guards at the crossing were torn off by the impact.

Schroeder, Alder and Githens probably died instantly. Nearly every bone in their bodies were broken. Daul died in the Unity depot a few minutes after being taken there.