The Crash at Crush

 

(Wikipedia) Crush, Texas, was a temporary "city" established as a one-day publicity stunt in 1896. William George Crush, general passenger agent of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad (popularly known as the Katy, from its "Em-Kay-Tee" initials), conceived the idea to demonstrate a train wreck as a spectacle.
No admission was charged, and train fares to the crash site were at the reduced rate of US$2 from any location in Texas. As a result, about 40,000 people showed up on September 15, 1896, making the new town of Crush, Texas, temporarily the second-largest city in the state.
Unexpectedly, the impact caused both engine boilers to explode, resulting in several fatalities and numerous injuries among the spectators. Continued