Virgil McGoodwin

THE STORY OF VIRGIL McGOODWIN

It was Supt. Greene who put the curves in the road at Pavilion Springs, the old Leeper House and the Buffalo Pasture. He hoped to slow down the powerful erosion effect of the rainwater and this remedy would solve the problem permanently.

In the Fall of 1908, Supt. Greene works on a plan to improve the road that leads to the South Side from the Pavilion Springs. As things now stood, every gully washer sent the runoff from the hilltop to the south down to the Pavilion Springs creating a quagmire.

The straight uphill-downhill shot of the road gave the water intense speed and created a situation where the entire road had to be rebuilt after every heavy rain. The old road also had many hills, hollows, rocky places and dips.

During dry weather, it was also hoped to abate the dust nuisance around the superintendent's residence, the Park office and the Pavilion Springs.

Today, one can readily see the rocks jutting up from the prairie on both sides of the road. The task of cutting a road was difficult with the primitive hand tools of the time. Sledgehammers and hand held 'star drills' were used to make blast holes in the hard-as-steel conglomerate rock. Mules were used to move the heavy loads.

Road building equipment called slips and scrapes were animal powered. The work was excruciatingly slow and tedious. Both man and beast reached their physical limits of endurance on these projects.

Dynamite was used to remove the largest amount of overburden possible. A two-man crew cut the blast holes into the surface of the rock for the dynamite. One laborer would hold the hand drill while the other would drive it with a sledgehammer.

A star drill was a steel rod or bar, six feet long, with a special hardened tip that resembled the shape of a star. Each time the top of the bar was struck, a tiny bit of rock would be chipped in the bottom of the hole. After each blow of the hammer the driller would turn the bit a quarter turn. This process continued until the hole was as deep as necessary for the dynamite. The rock was so hard that a blacksmith had to be kept on site just to sharpen the tools.

On the morning of November 9, 1908 the Park work crew assemble at the worksite as usual at 8:00 a.m. The gang is drilling and blasting rock in the new roadway just south of the Leeper House (Park Headquarters Building). It is a cool crisp Fall morning but the sky is clear and sunny. A dynamite shot is prepared and set off shortly after the crew arrives for work.

Most of the rock is loaded by the crew into dray wagons to be hauled away for fill elsewhere on the roadway. This morning the crew includes T. L. Robinson, laborer; D. F. Derryberry, teamster; Leonard Peppers, laborer; and Virgil P. McGoodwin, laborer.

Virgil, 34 years old and unmarried, had worked for the Park at a rate of $1.50/day for only six months but had greatly impressed all who worked with him for his kindness and unselfishness. Born on the frontier, Virgil never received any formal education but was well schooled in the world of work.

After the shot, the work of removing all the loose material began. Some of the laborers were loading debris into the wagon. Virgil went back to drilling more blast holes. As work progressed the crew came to a very large rock they could not load or move.

At 11:15 a.m., the teamster was called and Derryberry brought his team of mules over to the large rock. The laborers, Peppers and Robinson tied a chain around the rock and prepared to drag it to the side of the road.

The foreman yelled a warning to those nearby to step back and "watch out". Virgil, who had been drilling a new blast hole, was down only about three or four inches in the rock. Taking a step back to clear the large rock, Virgil left the drill sticking out of the hole. As the teamster began dragging the rock, it suddenly and unexpectedly flipped over striking the drill sticking vertically from the hole.

The rock struck the drill so forcefully that it either broke out of the hole or flipped out of the hole with such velocity that the drill struck Virgil in the left jaw and neck knocking him unconscious to the ground.

A doctor was called and Virgil taken to bed where Doctor Tucker of Sulphur sat at his bedside rendering such aid as was possible. Dr. Tucker noticed that Virgil's neck and throat was swelling to the point that Virgil could not breathe. A tracheotomy was performed. Virgil lay without moving until 5:15 p.m. that afternoon when he died.

Virgil had moved here from Texas some time earlier and obtained a job with the Park as laborer. Superintendent Greene thought highly of him and readily let it be known when the Sulphur News describing the accident published an article of total fabrication. Greene wrote the editor an angry two-page letter describing the accident and demanding that the editor print the correct story in the next issue.

It seems that the newspaper got their information from someone who was not even at the accident site. The newspaper article stated that McGoodwin had lit the fuse of a dynamite charge and when it didn't go off he walked up to the hole to see what went wrong. The dynamite then went off and killed McGoodwin.

At 3:00 p.m. the following day, the funeral for Virgil McGoodwin was held. A lot was purchased in the local cemetery and fellow Park employees dug Virgil's grave. Captain Clark, an elderly Union veteran and the Watchman at Bromide Springs, read a chapter of Scripture and said a prayer. After this, Supt. Greene spoke briefly of the esteem all had felt for the deceased.

McGoodwin was paid up till noon on the day he died. He had a total wage of $56.50 coming to him. The government deducted the cost of his funeral from his wages and mailed the remainder to a brother J. G. McGoodwin in Woodford, Oklahoma and a sister in Texas.

Patton & Leonard, undertakers, charged $43.00 for the funeral that included casket, hearse, robe, underclothes, and grave. McGoodwin was buried in the cemetery where the courthouse now stands.

And so, Virgil P. McGoodwin became the first person to die in the new Park. He also became the first Platt National Park employee to die in the line of duty. As far as can be determined at this point, he may have been the first National Park System employee to die anywhere.