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MULHALL SHOW IN A SMASHUP
Accident Happened at Kansas City Friday
In Convention Hall

The State Journal, 29 Apr 1910


From Sunday's K. C. Journal

Maybe its what the arena directors would call show ethics, but the spectators at the Convention hall Friday night pronounced it "nerve" when Colonel Zack Mulhall ordered two of his daughters from their injured sister's side to the tanbark where the crowd expected them to smile and entertain. Miss Georgia Mulhall lay in the directors' room with her left elbow crushed and broken. She may never use this arm again.

A team of "livery" horses dashed a stage coach to pieces against the arena fence in the Mulhall Wild West shows' most sensational act and three of the four cowgirls in the coach were buried for several minutes in the debris. Blanch Wilson's left leg was broken and her left hip crushed. May Turner arose after being taken from the wreck, but at once became unconscious and was carried from the arena, and it is believed she is injureed internally. Lucille Vernon, the fourth woman in the coach, escaped without injury.

Ambulances from police headquarters and the Walnut street station brought surgeons and, at the direction of Colonel Mulhall, the injured women were taken removed to thre Century hotel where private physicians were called. Charley Mulhall, who drove the ill-fated coach, was not injured, despite the fact that he went with his horses over the front of the coach and was dragged about the arena.

Colonel Mulhall said that he doesn't believe his daughter, Georgia, will ever be able to regain the use of her injured arm.

Every Wild West show has its stage coach hold-up scene and it was just yesterday that the Mulhalls paid $350 for the Deadwood coach they use in the act. It is a rickety old-timer which has not been used since 1856 until it came into their possession. Cowgirls make up the passenger list in the act and a cowboy with a Winchester rides on the box as a guard.

Ordinarily but two horses have been used on the coach but recently Charley Mulhall has decided to drive four and so a pair of "liveries," meaning horses not belonging to the show, have been added nightly. It was the "liveries" that caused the runaway last night.

The stage went dashing around the arena until it came down the west side and the Indians were sighted. The guard began discharging his Winchester and the lead team bolted. Charley Mulhall,t he drive, lost control. Another bolt and the "kin-pin" was severed and the driver and guard went headlong after the excited four. The coach was pitched through an arena entrance and the four girls pinioned under broken timbers inside.

"Buffalo" Vernon, a young cowman, watched the runaway from the main entrance. He saw the driver had lost control. Vernon's wife, Louise Vernon, was in the coach, and the cowman mounted the nearest horse and dashed into the arena. Police Sargeant Edwards and a squad of four kept the Indians and other performers back while Vernon mastered the four runaway horses. Colonel Mulhall himself was superintending the work on the wrecked coach. The injured women were carried to the directors' offices at the front of the hall.

Not a minute did the crowd wait - the Misses Lucille and Mildred Mulhall had been sent to the arena by their father, and there they smiled and did fancy roping until the forces had again been organized.

It was necessary to give Georgia Mulhall morphine before she could be removed from Convention hall. Louise Vernon took her place in the next act.






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