Post Civil War

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Entries - Entry Category: Post Civil War - Starting with T

Titan II Missile Accident (1965)

Titan II ICBM Launch Complex 373-4 near Searcy (White County) was the site of an accident on August 9, 1965, in which fifty-three workers were killed—the largest loss of life ever suffered in a U.S. nuclear weapons facility. Titan II ICBM Launch Complex 373-4 was one of eighteen Arkansas launch complexes operated by the 308th Strategic Missile Squadron headquartered at the Little Rock Air Force Base in Jacksonville (Pulaski County). Construction of Launch Complex 373-4 had commenced on January 3, 1961, and was finished on July 31, 1962—the first of the 308th’s sites to be completed and the first to go on alert (meaning that it was fully operational and ready to respond) on May 16, 1963. After it had …

Titan II Missile Explosion (1980)

The Titan II Launch Complex 374-7 in Southside (Van Buren County), just north of Damascus (Van Buren and Faulkner counties), became the site of the most highly publicized disaster in the history of the Titan II missile program when its missile exploded within the launch duct on September 19, 1980. An Air Force airman was killed, and the complex was destroyed. The Titan II Missile Launch Complex 374-7 Site was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on February 18, 2000. Complex 374-7 had already been the site of one significant accident on January 27, 1978, when an oxidizer leak sent a cloud of toxic fumes 3,000 feet long, 300 feet wide, and 100 feet high drifting across U.S. Highway …

Troop Train No. 571 Wreck of 1918

aka: Garland Troop Train Accident of 1918
A northbound St. Louis Southwestern train (No. 571) derailed on the morning of May 21, 1918, at Moyston Station near Garland (Miller County). The train was bound for St. Louis, Missouri, and was carrying a detachment of thirteen soldiers from the 619th Aerial Squadron at Camp MacArthur near Waco, Texas. The locomotive, a Baldwin K1 2-8-0, pulled one baggage car, two Pullman tourist cars, two Pullman sleeping cars, and a caboose. The train left the station at Texarkana (Miller County) around 7:15 a.m. and derailed at trestle number 972, about 4.3 kilometers (2.7 miles) north of McKinney Station. The trestle measured 140 meters (460 feet) long and 2.4 meters (11 feet) high, except that it rose to a height 7.9 …