HENRY VIGIL
Obituaries
Eagle Valley Enterprise page 1 - November 4, 1940
Three Killed on Railroad Crossing
THIRD PERSON IN CRITICAL CONDITION IN HOSPITAL—AUTOMOBILE DRIVEN IN FRONT OF TRAIN AT NOGAL CROSSING IS DEMOLISHED WITH FATAL RESULTS TO OCCUPANTS . An automobile -train accident which took the lives of three people and critically injured another occurred at the railroad crossing at the Nogal place just across the river north of Eagle , Thursday evening September 26 , when a Buick car driven by Lee Coco , drove onto the railroad track in front of an approaching freight train . Mrs. Frances Lenz , 50 , of Grand Junction , was killed instantly in the resultant collision . N . J . Skeffington , 53 , of Silt , died while enroute to the hospital . Henry Vigil , 42 , of Mora , N . M ., instantly killed. Coco , who was driving the car , suffered three broken ribs , one of which punctured a lung , and other internal injuries.
Mrs. Lenz conducted the Nevada rooming house in Grand Junction and had left home on a collecting trip, employing Coco, also of Grand Junction, also of Grand Junction to drive for her, the car belonging to her.
Sheffington, a white man, and Vigil, a Mexican, are both sheep herders, who had joined the party. Vigil worked for Andrew Christensen of Eagle at one time as a sheep herder, and was known around here as "Big Henry". He has a brother who is now employed by Mr. Christensen, and at the time of the accident was located in a sheep camp on Greenhorn mountain, north of Eagle. The party was enroute to the camp to see this brother when the fatal accident took place.
The party had stopped for a time in Eagle, getting a lunch here before proceeding on their trip, leaving town shortly before 8 o'clock in the evening.
Passenger train No. 1 had gone west a few minutes previous to the accident, followed by the freight train. Slow signals were set for the freight as it came into Eagle, and the train was not traveling very fast. The engineer says he saw the car approach the crossing, and that he thought it had stopped, but it suddenly shot onto the track in the path of the locomotive. The car had nearly cleared, apparently , but the rear end was caught and the car thrown against the side of the heavy moving engine. The right side and rear end of the car were demolished, with slight injury to the left side. Vigil and Coco, in the front seat were thrown from the car, as was Mrs. Lenz. She lie partly under the car, which had to be lifted from her legs before her body could be got ... out of the wreck. Skeffington was still in the car when rescuers , summoned from the train crew, arrived on the scene, and was still alive.
Paul Andre took Skeffington and Coco in his ambulance to Glenwood, but the former died enroute. Coco has been hovering between life and death since arriving at the hospital, with the doctors giving him a bare chance to recover. He has a family, wife and three children living in Grand Junction.
Mrs. Lenz's body was shipped to Grand Junction, at request of relatives.
Vigil's family in Mora, N.M. was advised, and the first of the week two brothers arrived from there and took the body back home with them in a car.
Skeffington has a sister in Santa Anna, Calif., and a son, Winnie Skeffington, living in Ontario, Ore. Both were notified by sheriff Wilson and the son responded and was expected her Thursday to take charge of his father's body.
While in Eagle, it was noticeable by those with whom they came in contact that all of the party had been drinking heavily of liquor. In the wrecked car they could beat it to the crossing tle..., one partially empty and one full of liquor. In their evident condition they probably misjudged the distance the train was from them, and thought they could beat it to the crossing.
Grand Junction Daily Sentinel page 1 - September 27, 1940
Grand Junction Daily Sentinel page 4 - September 28, 1940
