A white marble obelisk at South Jordan Cemetery marks the deadliest school bus railroad crossing accident in US history — 23 students and their driver, December 1, 1938.
10630 S 1055 W, South Jordan, UT 84095
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
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Free
South Jordan Cemetery is a public cemetery. The memorial obelisk is freely accessible during cemetery hours.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Paved cemetery paths; flat terrain
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Est. 1938 · Deadliest school bus railroad crossing accident in US history · Led to national school bus railroad crossing safety regulations · 75th anniversary memorial unveiled 2013
The morning of December 1, 1938, brought heavy fog and blowing snow to the Jordan Valley. A school bus carrying students from the South Jordan area toward Jordan High School reached the Denver and Rio Grande grade crossing near Jordan Narrows (approximately 10400 South and 400 West) at 8:43 a.m. Bus driver Farrold H. Silcox stopped and looked, but the conditions — thick fog layered over a snowstorm — made it impossible to see the freight train running north at over 50 miles per hour with 80 loaded cars. The train crew spotted the bus and applied the brakes immediately, but the physics were irreversible. The collision killed 24 people: 23 students ranging in age from roughly 14 to 17, and Silcox himself. Sixteen survivors faced lasting physical and psychological injuries.
The scale of loss was staggering for a small farming community. A 1938 news account noted that nearly every South Jordan home had lost a son, daughter, niece, nephew, cousin, or friend. The grief was not abstract; it was concentrated in a single small valley.
The crash prompted lasting changes to school transportation law. Requirements that bus drivers stop at railroad crossings and open their door and driver-side window to look and listen before crossing trace directly to this event, as does the subsequent push for mechanical crossing arms at grade crossings nationwide. Those regulations have protected generations of schoolchildren since.
A white marble obelisk was erected at South Jordan Cemetery, bearing a bronze plaque with the names of all 24 victims. The 75th anniversary in 2013 brought a formal unveiling ceremony attended by survivors, descendants, and community members. Historical markers have also been placed at the crash site vicinity. The accident is documented in the Utah State Archives and on the National Register of Historic Disasters.
Sources
No documented paranormal tradition attaches to the South Jordan Cemetery memorial or to the original crash site at Jordan Narrows. This is consistent with many mass-casualty sites from the early 20th century, where community mourning took institutional rather than folklore form — safety regulations, annual commemorations, and formal memorialization rather than haunting narratives.
The 75th anniversary gathering in 2013 drew survivors and descendants together at the obelisk, emphasizing memory and meaning over spectral framing. Descendants of the 24 victims still live in the greater Salt Lake Valley.
The absence of ghost lore here is itself notable. The crash killed nearly an entire year's worth of teenagers from a single farming community in a single moment. The community response was collective grief channeled into change: lobbying for crossing safety, fundraising for the monument, maintaining the names on the plaque. The memorial asks visitors to remember 24 specific people on a specific winter morning, not to speculate about what might linger.
A white marble obelisk with a bronze plaque listing the names of all 24 victims stands within South Jordan Cemetery. The plaque records the 23 students and their bus driver Farrold H. Silcox, who were killed at the Jordan Narrows railroad crossing on December 1, 1938. The collision site itself — near 10400 S and 400 W — no longer has a physical marker; the cemetery memorial is the primary commemorative site.
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