Tuesday, Aug. 27, 1889, probably seemed like a normal day for William Roberts.
On the day in question, he was the brakeman on Western and Atlantic Railroad freight train No. 6, which departed Chattanooga, Tennessee, that morning.
When the train reached Greenwood Station, about two miles south of Ringgold, around 10:30 a.m., it stopped to take on water and coal. At that point, it would seem nothing was out of the ordinary…