"The Ballad of Casey Jones" is a traditional song about railroad engineer Casey Jones and his death at the controls of the train he was driving on April 30,1906. Casey was driving the Illinois Central's Cannonball No. 638, making a run for a friend who was ill. It tells of how Jones and his fireman Sim Webb raced their locomotive to make up for lost time, but discovered another train ahead of them on the line, and how Jones remained on board to try to stop the train as Webb jumped to safety. Soon after Casey’s death, the song was first sung by engine wiper and friend of Casey’s named Wallace Saunders to the tune of a popular song of the time known as "Jimmie Jones". He was known to sing and whistle as he went about his work cleaning the steam engines. In the words of Casey’s wife: "Wallace's admiration of Casey was little short of idolatry. He used to brag mightily about Mr. Jones even when Casey was only a freight engineer". But Saunders never had his original version published, and thus there is no way of knowing precisely what words he sang. It passed into use in vaudeville but no one seemed interested in claiming the copyright for it until 1909. It was recorded by Billy Murray as "The Ballad of Casey Jones" (1912), Furry Lewis as "Kassie Jones" (1928, Anthology of American Folk Music), Pete Seeger, Burl Ives, Johnny Cash, Milt Okun (1957), The New Christy Minstrels (1964), Elizabeth Cotten (1965), Grateful Dead (1970), Joe Hickerson, Spike Jones and his City Slickers and others. It appears in the Anthology of American Folk Music. It was printed in Alan Lomax's The Folk Songs of North America. It is #3247 in the Roud Folk Song Index.