 At one time I was a member of the Texas Transportation Museum also, but we had some differencing of opinions as to how things should be pursued and I decided that it wasn't in my best interest to just stay with them. I have some photographs that are with the museum, the San Antonio River Heritage Museum, as acquired from the Institute of Texan Cultures and we have paid for those so that we can use them in events such as this. So anyway, these are some of the old depots that were in San Antonio during the time of the Hatties Street Bridge being built and also the explosion on March 18th in 2012, or not 2012, hey, you are back. 1912. This is Sunset Station with engine number 85 next to it. Getting to the boiler explosion, here's the Elmendorf Depot, which the city of Elmendorf sold to someone. They don't know who it was, they don't have the invoice, and so they have no record as to where it went. Here are some of the photographs, and I'm going to pass this around so that you can look at it, of the boiler explosion itself. What I'm going to do, I've got three different accounts of that explosion. One by F.A. Schmidt, which Mr. John King and I were discussing earlier, or kite, sorry. We're discussing earlier that his father may have been a contributor to Mr. Schmidt in writing this document. It's a very interesting read, but I'm going to also take the time to read what the Texas State Library and Archives Commission has on their website. The Great Southwest Strike was not the last incident in Texas that showcased the dangerous working conditions and labor unrest in the railroad industry. The caption of this photo reads, view of the wreckage caused by what was supposed to have been the explosion of the boiler of a passenger locomotive in the terminal yards of the Southern Pacific Railroad in San Antonio, March 18th, which killed 26 men outright and seriously injured many others. Most of the men killed were strikebreakers employed by the shops of the company situated closed to where the explosion took place. Railroad work was extremely dangerous. Nationally between 1890 and 1917, a staggering 72,000 men or employees were killed and over 2 million injuries were on the railroad tracks themselves. An additional 158,000 were killed in repair shops and roundhouses, just like the explosion in San Antonio. The total casualties from this period are more than combined the casualties of every war fought by the United States. Steam boilers were a particular hazard. Since the beginning of the steam area, there have been literally thousands of explosions. It was an everyday occurrence then. Some of those horrific loss of life. Back in 1865, the steamship Sultrana exploded with a loss of 1,238 lives. Most of them Union POWs just released from Southern prisons, so dating back to the Civil War. In 1905, the naval gunship Bennington exploded killing 62 sailors and an explosion at the Brockton Shoe Factory in Massachusetts killed 58 and leveled the factory. Explosions of railroad steam boilers took place on a regular basis. On the morning of March 18, 1912, dozens of men at the Southern Pacific yard in San Antonio were working around an engine of the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio railroad. These men were firing up the engine to test it and ready for the train for service. One of the interesting things about this is that that engine had just been wrecked in Seguin back in December of 1911. So they had taken the locomotive, brought it from Seguin to San Antonio to rebuild it. The railroad was very good at taking scrap materials or damaged locomotives or rail equipment and rebuilding it for future service. And the reason why is because the materials that they used were expensive. You know, we think of a pound of steel not that expensive nowadays, but the thing is that in order to process that steel from the ore, the entire process, that adds up in dollars. Let's see here. At 8.55 am, the boiler exploded, sending the engine and many tons of railroad parts flying in every direction. The pressure wave and flying debris leveled the nearby railroad shops and ripped out into the neighborhood, snapping trees and smashing into homes. As the explosion spin itself scattered metal and human remains rained down for blocks in every direction. The front of the engine, almost intact, came to earth seven blocks away, flattening a house and killing a woman inside. The force of the explosion could be felt for miles. Just like what we had discussed earlier, 20 miles away it could be heard. Well, in one of these accounts, they talked about someone on the west side of downtown being able to feel the percussion wave. It was the worst railroad boiler explosion in U.S. history. Back at the train yard, survivors were trapped under fallen buildings and debris and in danger of being burned alive as fire spread through the wreckage. Remember, you've got a steam locomotive. It's got a fire in the fire box creating that steam from the water that's being pressurized in the boiler. San Antonio firefighters and police and military personnel and railroad workers frantically worked to free the survivors and fight the fire. Eerily, an engine damaged in the blast that was near 704 had its whistle bent open and screamed for two hours as the boiler pressure subsided enough to shut down the noise. The final toll, according to this document, 26 killed and about 50 injured and about 10 men unaccounted for and presumed dead. In the days that followed, speculation focused on the labor troubles at the yard. Six months earlier, boiler repairmen, copper fitters and other craftsmen, machinists, et cetera, who maintained the locomotives had gone on strike and had been replaced by strike breakers. Some of these strike breakers came from Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Jersey, all from the northeastern parts of the country where steam was very, very popular and prevalent in its use. Most of these men were from out of town and knew to their jobs and many were working under assumed names. The assisted foreman at the yard was so sure of the trouble that he openly carried a pistol. Many people were convinced that the boiler had been sabotaged. From today's perspective, the sabotage theory seems unlikely and the probable cause of the explosion is thought to be a combination of human error and mechanical failure. I've read another account where, like Mr. Houston mentioned, the two pop-off valves, is what they call them, were in a locked position, meaning that they would not operate as they were required to. So naturally when that pressure builds up, something's got to give and it's the boiler. Another thing about how the railroad employees lived, like Gary said, that they lived in areas close to their work, a lot of the homes were paid for by the railroad for their employees to live in. And this was common throughout the nation. In fact, if you look at what Mr. Pullman did, he was a car builder who built a lot of the passenger cars that were used in American passenger trains across the country. He built an entire city up in Illinois where his cars were built and had all of his employees live in that community. He had a school for all those employees' children to go to school in and were educated in. And it was just a common practice for that type of living condition in those days. I'd just like to take a couple of minutes to let you know about the San Antonio Railroad Heritage Museum. We're kind of the new kids on the block. We've been around since 2006. We are a 501C3 organization now for profit charity. We are new enough on the block that we don't have a place to hang our hat and call home yet. We are working towards that goal. But one of the things that we, as Gary mentioned earlier, one of the major projects that we have is the maintenance and future restoration of the Southern Pacific locomotive number 794, which is currently at the beautiful sunset station. We go out there and work on mechanical parts of it. We've been inside the smoke box, which is the silver part of the locomotive in the very front of it. Looking at the tubes and flues that go through the boiler, where all the steam pressure would be, we have a professional steam locomotive rebuilder working with us. His name is Scott Lindsey. He runs a company called Steam Operations Corporation out of Muscle Shoals, Alabama. He has rebuilt 38 different steam locomotives since he started his own business and was brought up working in the Norfolk Southern Steam program. But anyway, if you'd like to, pardon the bun, get on board with us. We'll be grateful to have you as members of the museum. You can fill out a membership application off of our website at www.sahm.com. Thank you for your time, ladies and gentlemen. Enjoy your weekend.