Miraculous rescue of an infant in Salt Lake City
Published October 5, 2026 at 9:44 PM
Contributed by
Millennial Star Research
An infant crept onto a railway track in the 6th Ward of Salt Lake City. An approaching train's engineer reversed the engine upon seeing the child, and the train came to a stop just as the pilot wheel was about to strike the child. The child's mother snatched the infant to safety at that same moment.
Fuller account of this event (as retold in The Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star, Vol. 46, No. 42 (20 October 1884)):
An infant which had crept on the railway in the 6th Ward, Salt Lake City, came so near being run over by a passing train that the locomotive, which the engineer had reversed upon seeing the child's danger, came to a standstill just as the pilot wheel was about to touch its body, which lay across the rail. The frightened mother arrived at the same instant and snatched it from its perilous position.
In Their Own Words
“An infant which had crept on the railway in the 6th Ward, Salt Lake City, came so near being run over by a passing train that the locomotive, which the engineer had reversed upon seeing the child's danger, came to a standstill just as the pilot wheel was about to touch its body, which lay across the rail. The frightened mother arrived at the same instant and snatched it from its perilous position. — Millennial Star 46:42”
Sources & References
The Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star (Manchester, later Liverpool, England, May 1840–1970), 20 October 1884 (Vol. 46, No. 42). https://archive.org/details/per_utah-and-the-mormons_the-latter-day-saints-millennial-star_1884-10-20_46_42 (account extracted verbatim from the issue's Internet Archive OCR text; research confidence: high) Fuller account: The Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star, Vol. 46, No. 42 (20 October 1884) https://archive.org/details/per_utah-and-the-mormons_the-latter-day-saints-millennial-star_1884-10-20_46_42
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