The Story of America’s Worst Roller Coaster Disaster
On a warm July evening in 1930, the buzz of friendly conversation and laughter at Krug Park in Omaha, Nebraska, was suddenly shattered by the sound of cracking timber, screams, and a violent crash. Park-goers looked on in horror as the four-car train of a roller coaster known as The Big Dipper and all 23 of its passengers plunged 35 feet to the ground. “Within a few seconds after the crash the crowd was surging madly about the scene of the wreck wildly seeking relatives and friends,” wrote the Lincoln Star. “Mothers were calling to their children, sisters to their brothers, and friends to friends,”one witness told the Omaha World-Herald. “Until the ambulances came the spot was a veritable hell.” The next morning, newspapers reported four dead and over 20 injured, including the roller coaster’s cashier, who, after witnessing the crash, “became hysterical and collapsed shortly afterward.”
Among the dead was Mrs. Gladys Lundgren, 29, who was in town from Des Moines with her husband, A. L. Lundgren, to visit their friends, the Stouts. While their partners went to the swimming pool, Gladys Lundgren asked C. H. Stout, a 34-year-old cement salesman originally from Des Moines, to accompany her for a ride on the The Big Dipper. Neither would survive the ride. Likewise, 22-year-old Anthony “Tony” Politika, perhaps enjoying a day off from his job the Cudahy Packing…
