“Casey Jones” is the classic American railroad ballad, born from a real disaster: on April 30, 1900, the Illinois Central engineer John Luther “Casey” Jones died at the throttle of his train near Vaughan, Mississippi, staying aboard to brake as it struck a stalled freight.
The first ballad about him was made almost at once by Wallace Saunders, an African American engine wiper at the Canton, Mississippi, roundhouse who had known Jones. Saunders never copyrighted his song; railroaders carried it up and down the line, vaudeville performers reshaped it, and a published version — credited to T. Lawrence Seibert and Eddie Newton — appeared by 1909. It was that version the early recording industry spread.
The ballad became a permanent part of the American songbag, sung in country, folk, and bluegrass alike. The banjo player Tony Trischka recorded it on his 2024 album Earl Jam.
