On the night of December 29th, 1876, a howling blizzard swept through the town of Ashtabula, Ohio. 160 passengers and crew members boarded the Pacific Express before heading west. Traveling through the blistering snow, the train approached a 157-foot-long bridge over the Ashtabula River.

While crossing onto the other side, the engineer heard a loud crack and felt the rear of the train drop. The bridge collapsed as multiple passenger cars were sent plummeting 60 feet into the ravine. At the bottom, piles of twisted metal caught fire from onboard oil lamps and stoves. High winds then quickly accelerated the flames into an inferno, burning those trapped in the wreckage. That night, a total of 83 people died and 60 were injured. This was known as the Ashtabula Train Disaster, one of the deadliest railroad accidents in U.S. history.

In the late nineteenth century, railroad accidents were commonplace as workers frequently made mistakes and railroad companies often rushed to profit from their investments. Multiple investigations followed the disaster to shed light on possible causes of the accident.

Amasa Stone, director of the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railway had used the popular Howe-truss design for the bridge. Stone, whose brother owned an iron-fabricating firm in Cleveland, insisted on using iron braces instead of the usual wooden braces. It is theorized that air bubbles in the iron castings weakened with extreme cold temperatures and repeated crossings over the 11 years that led up to the bridge's collapse.

Though remembered as a tragic event in American history, the Ashtabula Train Disaster prompted several positive changes in railroad construction and reform in railroad safety.
Improvements included standardization of reliable bridge designs and state-mandated inspections of railroad bridges.

Today, a 37-foot-tall obelisk in the Chestnut Grove Cemetery marks a memorial where 19 unidentified bodies from the disaster are buried.