Bliss and Tragedy: The Ashtabula Railway-Bridge Accident of 1876 and the Loss of P.P. Bliss, Paperback

The 1876 accident at Ashtabula had all the elements of a classic tragedy: cold, snowy weather that lent eeriness to the dark of night; height, as in the 70 feet from bridge to river; modern technology in an experimental iron bridge; mechanical power in locomotives; human beings fighting for their lives; fire, water and ice all at once; the evil of robbers preying on the injured and dying; the good in heroes and heroines who risked their lives to rescue the needy; the event striking the unknown, and the world-famous, such as P. P. Bliss. It is difficult to imagine a worse happening to a little village of 2,500 citizens.

Thomas E. Corts was President of Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama for 23 years. A graduate of Ashtabula High School 1959, and of Georgetown College in Kentucky, he held M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Indiana University. He first learned about the bridge disaster and P. P. Bliss during his childhood in Ashtabula. He was married to the former Marla Ruth Haas of Ashtabula. Before his death in 2009, he was appointed coordinator for the President's International Education Initiative at the U. S. Agency for International Development.