Maine State Archives shares railroad accident report of the death of Civil Rights Leader James Weldon Johnson
On June 28, 1938, while vacationing in Maine, the car Mr. Johnson was traveling in with his wife, Grace Johnson, was struck by an oncoming Maine Central Railroad train at the railroad crossing on what is now Route 1, in Wiscasset.
At the time, railroad accidents such as this one required investigation by the Maine Public Utilities Commission. That investigation file, and others like it, are now held by the Maine State Archives. The complete file can be seen at https://digitalmaine.com/hist_docs/15/ .
The Maine State Archives, a bureau within the Department of the Secretary of State, maintains approximately 100 million pages of official state records considered to be permanently historical and valuable.