Camp Creek Trestle

Spirit activity is reported on the McDonough Square, where the bodies of those without identification were laid out for families to claim, and many say you can still hear the train trying to cross the broken bridge at Camp Creek. A weeping woman has been seen and heard in the old Globe Hotel building, where survivors stayed, and the building that housed the funeral home that handled many of the bodies, now a bistro, is among the sites linked to activity. On the night of June 23, 1900, Southern Railway's northbound No. 7, running behind schedule from Macon to Atlanta, stopped at the McDonough depot before continuing toward a trestle over Camp Creek that days of heavy rain had quietly washed out. Engineer J.T. Sullivan couldn't stop the train in time, and it plunged 60 feet into the flooded creek and burst into flames; 39 of the 45 people aboard died in what remains the deadliest train wreck in Georgia history, with only the ten passengers riding in the rear Pullman car surviving. A historical marker near the site honors the dead along with flagman J.J. Quinlan, porter T.C. Carter, and the McDonough residents who rushed to help.