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Casey Jones is a folksong hero based on accounts of John Luther Jones, a railroad man. The song was written by his fireman, Wallace Sanders.
Famed railroad engineer J. L. "Casey" Jones moved from Jackson, Tennessee to Water Valley in Yalobusha County, Mississippi in 1893. In 1896, four years before his death in a train wreck which brought him fame, Jones moved back to Jackson.
Jones was killed in a railroad disaster in Yazoo County, just north of Vaughan, Mississippi, in 1900.
Jones' picture appeared on a 1950 United States postage stamp honoring railroad engineers.
Joe Hill used Jones as an anti-hero in his parody song "Casey Jones, the Union Scab", later sung by Harry McClintock and Utah Phillips, among others.
There was a TV series of the same name in the 1960s.
Casey Jones was also the name of a character from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He was typically a friend of the turtles (particularly Raphael) in addition to being a part-time vigilante whose trademark was the use of sports equipment as weapons and armour.
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