National Park After Dark - The Deadliest Avalanche in U.S. History: Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest

Episode Date: May 5, 2025

In 1910 two trains became stranded in Washington’s Cascade Mountains during a record-breaking snowstorm. After six harrowing nights, a massive avalanche swept them off the mountainside — the deadliest avalanche in U.S. history. More than a century later one question still lingers: could the disaster have been prevented?For a full list of our sources, visit npadpodcast.com/episodesListen to Watch Her Cook on Apple and Spotify! Follow us on InstagramFor the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials at:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!Thank you to the week’s partners!IQBAR: Text PARK to 64000 to get 20% off all IQBAR products and free shippingHarvest Hosts: For 20% off your order, head to HarvestHosts.com and use code NPAD.BetterHelp: National Park After Dark is sponsored by BetterHelp. Get 10% off.Ollie: Use NPAD to get 60% off your first box of meals when you subscribe today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Human history is marked by our attempts to dominate the natural world. To hold back rivers, to level mountains, and to build in the most inhospitable environments. Progress has often been measured by how effectively we can bend nature to our will with advancements in medicine, engineering, and technology. But time and time again, it takes tragedy to remind us just how powerful nature really is. Nature isn't something we can conquer. It's something we're a part of. We experience natural disasters often today. Things such as devastating wildfires and floods continue to demonstrate how fragile the illusion of control really is. And in so many of these cases, the tragedy is completely

by the fact that we saw these things coming. At the turn of the 20th century, one such tragedy struck in the Cascade Mountains of Washington State. It was an avalanche disaster that to this day, 115 years later, is still the deadliest in U.S. history. But what makes the story even more haunting is the lingering question. Was it simply an unexpected event of nature, or were the people involved responsible? Welcome. to National Park After Dark.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to National Park After Dark. My name is Danielle. And I'm Cassie. And today we're going to one of my favorite states of all time, and I am so, so excited that you're doing this story because it has been such a long time coming. And I feel like we keep saying that about episodes as of recently. But now's the time that we're taking everything from our back pockets and presenting them to you. Yes.

This has definitely been sitting in our back pockets for a long time. time. I actually downloaded the book that I'll go into more in this episode, but there's a book on it. And I downloaded this on my Kindle like a year ago. Well, did you fly through it though? Was it so good? It was really interesting. It was very historical based. But yeah, it was a really interesting, interesting read. And this was something I think that you put on my radar. I think you were the reason that I even downloaded the book. Because the trail is popular in Washington that goes up to this site and I haven't read the book or anything but there's certain stories that and I know you can relate to this there's certain stories that you really want your hands in and you want to be

researching and kind of behind the storytelling of but then there's some that you equally are interested in at that same level but you want to be told the story right and this is the story that I want to sit back and hear you tell me well you're in luck because I do have quite the story for you today and it's a long one um okay so Let me settle right in because we're going to be here for a while. Let me kick my feet up a little bit better. Okay. Perfect.

So today, like I alluded to in the intro is that we're going to be talking about the deadliest avalanche in U.S. history. And when you first think of that, you might think that it was at us. We've talked about on Patreon, we did a ski resort. The worst one at a ski resort. You think of the mountains on an expedition. things like that. But this was actually, this actually happened to a group of very unexpected travelers who were on a train, which makes this story just so much different because it wasn't someone expeditioning in the backcountry, it wasn't someone recreating in the outdoors.

They were simply traveling through avalanche terrain and this happened. So we will dive into that story. It was just before 2 a.m. on March 1st, 1910, when a railroad worker named John Wensel heard a deep rumble. He stepped outside and looked up at the mountain towering above him. What he saw he would never forget. He would later say, it seemed as if the world were coming to an end. I saw the whole side of the mountain coming down, tearing up everything in its way. Trees, stumps, and snow were rolling together in gigantic waves. It was a massive avalanche, over half a mile wide. Wensel could see right away that the little hotel he was staying in wasn't in the path of the destruction, but something else was.

Two trains parked on the side of the mountain with 125 people sleeping on board. Powerless to stop it, Wenzel watched as the massive slab of snow got closer and closer, and then swallowed the tracks completely. The two trains and all the people on board plummeted down into the darkness of the canyon below.

What might be the most shocking of all, the trains had been sitting in that same path of the avalanche on the edge of the Cascade Mountains for five days, before it hit. You might be asking yourself, how could this happen? And to answer that, we need to backtrack a bit. 1910 was the height of the quote, age of steam. It was a time when steam-powered trains absolutely transformed America. Previously, the only way to travel across the country was by horse. It was a dangerous journey that would take months at best, as you can imagine, traveling across the entire U.S. on horseback and uncomfortable, I imagine. I know. I'm good after,

if like solid like six hours on a horse is even as good I feel like I'm not as young in spry as I once was I get off a horse after like two hours and I'm like stretching out my legs my hips are tight I'm like I also don't ride very often so yeah it's kind of like yeah your body has to get back used to it and I because I've been taking I got back in the saddle as they say recently and I remember growing up like I never thought twice about being or or anything. And then after a couple lessons, I was like, oh, my, this is a full body workout. Yeah. And you just think, you know, you sit on a horse and it does all the work. A ho, you'd be mistaken. There's so much keeping yourself on. And you're not, when you horseback

ride, it's mostly in your legs and your abdomen, your core, yeah. And because really you're not supposed to use your arms that much at all. So it's really the lower half of your body that's taking it I definitely was sore as a child, but not in the same way. I was sore today. It's like all the good old days. I never looked better. Well, that tends to happen. Oh.

Okay. So going back into this, so trains are created, and this is this pivotal moment in history that changed American society, culture, and the economy, of course, because trains allowed farmers and manufacturers to sell their goods. nationwide for the first time. And the railroad industry itself directly employed about one out of every 12 adult men in the U.S. at the time. So it really shifted the way jobs looked, farming looked, and it also opened up this whole new way of travel, like we mentioned with the horses and being on a train. The two trains in our story were part of the Great Northern Railway, which was one of the

largest and most powerful railroad companies in the country. By 1910, it operated around 8,000 miles of tracks running from St. Paul, Minnesota in the east to Seattle and Washington in the west. This was the Great Northern Railway's main line and was completed in 1893. The final segment of track was actually laid right near where the avalanche disaster would happen 17 years later in the tiny railroad town of Wellington, Washington, in a stretch of the Cascade Mountains called Stevens Pass. The land around Stevens Pass became part of the Washington Forest Reserve when it was established by the government in 1897. The reserve was then divided into multiple national forests in

2008. So when the disaster happened in 1910, the town of Wellington was within the newly designated Snowsquolome National Forest. Today, the area is known as Mount Baker, Snowsquolome National Forest after the two forests were combined in 1974. So we are talking about national forest today accounts for the podcast. It's outside. It's outside. If it's outside, if it's Outside it counts for the podcast. I'm sick of explaining it to people. I don't think we need to. I think it's just something that I have to say. Because every time I say it, people are like, we don't care. I don't think anyone has ever cared one time. But not a single time. For us, it feels like we have to do it. Well, going into the national forest itself, today the area is known as Mount Baker, Snowqualmie National Forest after the two forests were combined in 1974. Mount Baker, Snowqualmy National Forests. Mount Baker, Snow, National Forests. stretches more than 140 miles south of the Canadian border along the western side of the Cascade Mountains. It covers an area of more than 1.7 million acres and is about an hour's drive from Seattle. In addition to beautiful mountain peaks, the National Forest has around 800 alpine lakes.

It offers more than 50 recreation sites, seven downhill ski areas, and more than 1,500 miles of hiking trails, including parts of the famous Pacific Crest Trail. Stevens Pass is an area that gets heavy snowfall and is very prone to avalanches. The stretch of the Great Northern Railway that ran through it was known to be one of the most perilous stretches of the whole main line, built directly into the side of the mountains with snowy peaks towering above and rocky ravines down below. That winter in particular, the Cascade Mountains were hit by one of the most relentless snow seasons on record. February 1910 brought more than 11 feet of snow to Stevens Pass in just a single, nine-day period. Also, much of the track through Stevens Pass ran directly beneath mountain slopes

that were nearly deforested due to years of wildfires and clear-cutting by loggers. This further increased the avalanche risk by removing natural barriers that might have anchored the snow in place. James Hill, who built the Great Northern Railway, knew this. The company had spent millions of dollars to construct wooden snow sheds over the tracks in some high-risk areas, which were basically long roof structures to protect trains from the falling snow. But these sheds were limited in coverage and not always effective, and the work was still ongoing. In fact, on February 21st, 1910, the railroad announced that it was planning to spend an additional $2 million on improvements to the tracks in the Cascade Mountains.

Of course, the area where the two trains were hit was not covered by a snow shed. Having all of that information, let's really get into this story. IQ Mix is a zero-sugar drink mix from IQ Bar that hydrates, boost your mood, and promotes mental clarity. IQ Mix has three times the electrolytes of other sports drinks and is packed with electrolytes and nutrients shown to support sustained cognitive and physical performance. And IQ Mix comes in seven refreshing flavors like Passion Fruit, Pina Colotta, lemon lime, peach mango, pink lemonade, and raspberry lemonade. With over 20,000 five-star reviews and counting, more people than ever are starting their days on the right foot, with IQ bars brain and body boosting bars, hydration mixes, and mushroom coffees. I go to the chiropractor every Monday morning, and this week, the first thing he said to me was,

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Washington. Is it Spokane or Spokane? I think it's Spokane. I feel like it is too, but it's spelled like Spokane. I feel like it's a Nevada, Nevada thing, but I'm almost certain it's Spokane. I'm almost certain it's also Spokane. People will tell us. But people shouldn't put me on the end of it if they don't want me to say Spokane. So think about that. So I will refer to it. to it as Spokane, Washington, though, be out of respect. Yeah, right. Unless we're wrong, then she met Spokane. Exactly.

You get it. Thank you. Well, I'm just trying to cover all the bases. I appreciate that. A train called the Seattle Express made its final boarding call at exactly 7.30 p.m. right on schedule. The train pulled away from the station with snow lightly falling outside, starting what should have been an 18-hour overnight ride west through Cascade Bountains to Seattle.

Each passenger aboard the Seattle Express had their own personal reasons for making their journey that night. The book that I mentioned earlier is called The White Cascade by Gary Christ, and it tells the story of the disaster, and it also tells it from the point of view of a lot of different people, and he really brings their stories into life in vivid detail, but for the sake of this podcast and this episode, I've kind of honed in on just a couple of their stories, specifically a handful who were riding together in one of the first class sleeper cars. The sleeper cars on the Seattle Express represented the height of luxury travel at the time, which is similar to flying

first class today. The cars were steam heated with seats that converted into beds, elegant arched windows, and polished mahogany interiors. There was even a gentleman's lounge at one end in a lady's sitting room at the other. For the passengers that I'm going to talk about today and they'll pop up throughout the story. First, I'll introduce you to Ida Star It. She was riding in the sleeper car with her elderly parents and her three children, nine-year-old Lillian, seven-year-old Raymond, and her infant, Frances, who was still teething. Ida was a young mother and was recently widowed. Her husband had actually worked for the Great Northern Railway as a freight train conductor and was killed on the job just a few weeks earlier. She had received $500 in compensation from the company.

Ida was from Spokane, but her parents were encouraging her to move up to Canada, where they lived, to start a new life. Seattle was their first stop along the way. Ida wasn't sure if she wanted to make the move permanently, but she did agree to make this trip to go see them. A man named Henry White boarded a few stops down the line. Henry was a salesman for the American Paper Company and had come to the region to do business. Now he was heading back to his wife in Seattle. Alongside Henry White and Ida Star It in the sleeper car rode two other families with the city. young children, several lawyers heading to bring cases before the Washington State Supreme Court,

a female freelance journalist on a reporting trip, a 69-year-old grandmother of 22 children, and many other people that were also in the car. Wait, she had 22 grandchildren? Yes. And how old was she? 59? 69. Okay. Still, that's, she was a busy.

Busy bee. Her children were busy bees. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. But I'm assuming she had several children to have 22 grandchildren, I hope. One would hope. I just, I know this is going to be awful, but just taking a moment to think about that train

and especially the first class area that you're describing, if I was meant for something, it was that and then the Titanic in quick succession. Like just the I. The avalanche? The train. But you're saying you were meant for the. Like a train like that. Oh, okay. Not the disasters that happened on the Titanic and the strain. I feel like maybe, but that's a separate conversation. I'm talking about, yeah, just like the elegance of. This is your vibe. It's such my vibe. I would absolutely love to have been around at that time and experience. Like they just don't make things like that with the detail and the mahogany like you were describing. And there are some pretty cool trains that you can still take around.

you know, the U.S. and stuff. And I know there's some historic ones as well, but like on average, I mean, the train we took in, uh, the last train I was on was in Egypt and it was not like this at all. This is not true. You are on a train in Peru to Machupeachu. Oh, yeah. No, but I'm saying like a sleeper one. Like we slept overnight. Oh, right, right. You know what I mean? Yeah. There was no mahogany in sight on that train. That's really messed up. I know. And I felt like, I was not where I belonged, but that's okay. I'm still an experience. Anyway, sorry. I just wanted to take a moment for the train because I would love to- You should look into trains in Europe because there's a lot of historic, really beautiful trains that cross in different countries in Europe, and I feel like you would

find a vibe there. Yeah. I've been on some really pretty trains in Europe before. I took one from Paris to Switzerland, and it was a really, really pretty ride, not just because of the views, but also the train itself that we were in. There's one in Vermont. I've sent it to you, I think. Did I send you the real? It's like a very art deco looking and it's a historic train and it runs through Vermont. Yeah, you have. I look, I've never had a reason to go on that train, but I currently have been looking at the train from Vermont to New York City because I'm like, oh, that would be fine. Like, what would that be like? But it's like a nine hour train ride and it's a four and a half hour drive. So. Yeah. But you're exchanging one thing for another. Like it's the experience, right? It's not really a

nice fancy train though. Oh, I'm talking. I'm not talking about like the Amtrak or the T. I'm talking about it's the Amtrak. Yeah. Okay. No, that's not part of it. Don't do that. Drive. I will not be doing that. Well, you have a reason to take that train in Vermont. I don't even know where it goes, but you're looking at her. You're staring at her right now. This is, that's your reason. You can take me. All right. I'll be. All right. I'll book my ticket. Okay, I'm going to stop talking because I know you just said this episode is really long and I just can't shut up. So it's okay. It'll just be. I'm going to mute my mic. Please don't. I'll feel alone. I'm in the midst of gearing up for camping season. I just re-registered my camper and I'm planning out the weekends that I can go out with it this summer. And if you have a

camper or an RV or a renting one, you need to listen up because this one is for you. This podcast is sponsored by Harvest Hosts. With a Harvest Host membership, you get unlimited, no-fee overnight RV stays at 9,500 locations across the U.S. and Canada. Simply sign up for $79 per year, book your favorite destinations, and enjoy unique RV stays all year long. I have had my fair share of parking my camper at lackluster rest areas, but with Harvest hosts, you can spend your overnights in such cool places. We're talking wineries, orchards, museums, farms, golf, courses, drive-in movie theaters, and so much more. Add adventure to your travels, all while discovering new destinations and supporting unique businesses across the country. Seriously, scanning the locations

they have, everything from Lavender Farms in Vermont to Alpaca Havens in Colorado, I am wanting to plan all of my travels around these unique locations while I complete my travel. It's on my list list. Also, their mapping tool is such a big help for trip planning because you can filter by different things, like attraction type, rig length, and more to show you all the host locations that are on your route. So head over to Harvesthost.com and use code NPAD for 20% off of your Harvesthost membership. Once again, that's Harvesthosts.com for 20% off and make sure you use our promo code NPAD so that they know we sent you. Okay, going back into the story. At 1.30 a.m. on Wednesday, February 23rd, the Seattle Express pulled into the town of Levin North in the Foothills

of the Cascade Mountains. At that point, most of the passengers had been asleep for hours. The snow had changed from flurries to heavy snowfall. A helper engine was attached to the front of the train to prepare it for the climb through the mountains. A few more passengers boarded, bringing the total number of riders up to 55, not counting train crew members. A new conductor also came on board and took charge of the train for the overnight shift.

His name was Joseph Pettit. He was a friendly man who loved his job and took his duty to his passengers' very seriously. There was one more person who plays a central role in this story and perhaps the most central of all. The superintendent of the Great Northern Railways Cascade Division, who was responsible for keeping all the trains moving and the western half of Washington State. His name was James O'Neill. He was 37 years old, a chain smoker, he was handsome and hardworking. He was born in Canada and moved as a child to the town in the Dakota territory before it had been split into states north and South Dakota.

So his father could work on the Great Northern Railway. O'Neill couldn't wait to do the same. And he didn't have to wait long because he got a job working for the railroad himself when he was just 13 years old. And with that, he was promoted to Conductor by the age of 17 years old. At the time, that was practically unheard of. But O'Neill was this prodigy that joined the railway station. From there, he moved up quickly through the company's ranks, from conductor to

train master to superintendent, this track record reflects his devotion to the job. He became famous within the railroad for working side by side with his crewmen to solve problems in the field, on the tracks and in the snow, despite his seniority. This earned him popularity and respect among his crew. By February 1910, he had been in the position of the Cascade Division Superintendent for three years. Bad weather and mountainous terrain made this a chaotic job, but O'Neill was good at it. In those first three years, there had been zero, passenger deaths in his territory. Usually by late February, he'd been through the worst of the bad weather. But again, this was an exceptionally snowy season. And that day, the snow was coming down. To make matters more complicated, the railroad was also dealing with a strike of railway

switchmen at the time, leaving them understaffed. O'Neill knew looking at the storm that the telegraph lines to his station in the mountains would probably go out. To stay on top of things, he would have to go out into the field to direct operations. So earlier in the day on February 22nd, before the Seattle Express had even left Spokane, O'Neill kissed goodbye his young wife, Bernice, and their six-month-old daughter, Peggy Jane, and took a train up to the most weather-vulnerable stretch of his territory, Stevens Pass. And even more specifically, he went to the Cascade Tunnel, which connected the tracks on the east and western sides of the mountain range. He stationed himself at the first stop on the west side of the tunnel, a tiny town called Wellington, Washington. From his post in Wellington, O'Neill monitored

the storm and the status of all the trains. The eastern edge of his territory was the Leavenworth Station where the Seattle Express pulled in at 1.30 a.m. on Wednesday, February 23rd. At that point, it had been snowing all day, but things were under control. Not far behind the Seattle Express was another train called the Fast Mail. This was the highest priority train on the entire line because it was one of the most profitable. It had been introduced the previous September with a promise to deliver mail across the country in less than 50 hours. O'Neill was under immense pressure to keep it running on time. From Leavenworth, it would have been possible for O'Neill to reroute the trains onto a different Great Northern affiliated track through the Cascades to avoid the dangerous weather, but doing so

would have put them several hours behind schedule. The storm wasn't particularly intense at the time, and his team was used to storms, so this one wasn't raising any particular alarms. Plus, snowfall in that area almost never lasted more than a day. It'd already been snowing since 4 a.m. Tuesday, so O'Neill figured it must be letting up soon. He opted not to reroute the trains and instead sent a rotary plow to meet them at Leavenworth. To give you a vision of what a rotary plow is, picture a train with a massive circular fan on the front, but with sharp blades that cut through deep snow and hurl it off the tracks as it spins. And that is exactly what a rotary plow is. As conductor Pettit was making the

final preparations to leave Leavenworth, one passenger named Blanchett Painter abruptly requested to get off the train so she could spend the night in Leavenworth with some friends. Little did she know at the time, this spontaneous decision may have saved her life. Leaving Blanche behind around 2.30 a.m., the Seattle Express pulled out a Leavenworth station behind the rotary plow and headed up into to the Cascade Mountains. On Wednesday morning, passengers aboard the Seattle Express awoke to an eerie stillness. The train wasn't moving and outside, snow was falling so heavily that they could barely see. They were supposed to be nearing Seattle, but something was clearly wrong because they were nowhere near their destination. Instead, they were stranded at the Cascade Tunnel Station,

a small railroad outpost at 3,300 feet on the eastern side of the tunnel. Built around 20 years earlier to house rail workers, it was barely a town, just a few buildings, not many residents, and a reputation for being harsh and unpleasant. The train had been stopped because a rotary snowplow clearing the tracks west of Wellington had gotten stuck. These massive machines could handle snow up to 13 feet deep, but in the cascades, snow could pile far higher after snow slides. When that happened, crews had to shovel manually. O'Neill, the supervisor overseeing the route, had around 300 shovelers. Most were temporary workers and often immigrants who would go out and hand shovel these big snow pits that would come from these avalanche slides. Conductor Pettit assured passengers the delay

was temporary and arranged breakfast at the only place in town, a rundown eatery called the beanery. Despite the humbling setting, the food was good thanks to the cook, Harry Elker, and waiter John B.erson. on. After breakfast, passengers returned to the warm train. The fast mail train soon arrived as well and waited behind them. How many passengers are there? Like 50 something, you said at this point? At this point, yeah, there's about 55. Just on this one train, there's also the mail train. Yeah, I just, I got a flashback to every trip we do that's not like camping. And if we have to have a meal somewhere, I always, like, send a silent thank you and prayer to the wait staff and the cooks when we come in because we always have a group of like 20, 25 people.

There's so many people to feed and to serve and get the food out in a timely manner and make sure it's cooked well. And that's not just, and that's not in a dilapidated one horse town in the middle of the mountains. Yeah, that's expecting like a handful of locals to come in and not a whole train full of people. God, I just got anxiety for them a hundred years ago and more. But from all accounts, the two of them were great. They were super friendly, welcomed everyone, brought them in, made them food, made them all feel comfortable. Imagine they're like, look how much money we're about to make. Yeah.

I haven't seen this many people in a long time. We're like, please, come on in. We've got food. We need this. And locals at this time were already saying that this was the worst storm that they had ever seen. The Seattle Times that day called it, quote, the worst storm of years. O'Neill still hoped it would pass by December. day's end, but conditions worsened. Around 9.30 a.m., he made the tough call to suspend all westbound

trains, an expensive but necessary move as problems could easily snowball in storms like this. The storm was unrelenting, and by the afternoon it was clear they'd be spending the night where they were. They returned to the beanery for meals, then settled into the train for sleep. O'Neill barely rested, as he was outside at 2 a.m. weathering the storm and shoveling with his men. The stuck rotary plow finally reached Wellington, but worsening conditions meant O'Neill sent it back to keep clearing. On Thursday morning, snow was still falling. Passengers again ate at the beanery, whilst shovelers cleared the buildup around the trains. O'Neill rode another rotary through the tunnel to assist, even grabbing a shovel himself again.

Finally, by 5 p.m., the Seattle Express and the fast mail trains started moving west again. Unfortunately, bad news was waiting for them. The rotary plow that had been stuck, freed, and then sent back west the previous night had encountered another major snow slide and accidentally hit a tree stump buried in the snow, which destroyed its inner mechanism. So the train line west of Wellington wasn't cleared up after all, and they couldn't go any farther. As they exited the tunnel, the Seattle Express moved to a passing track along a narrow ledge beneath Windy Mountain waiting for the plow to clear the line ahead.

Windy Mountain towered over 2,000 feet or 609 meters above them. Across from them was another track for the fast mail train to wait on, and on the other side was a sheer drop. It put them in a dangerous position. On one side, there was this steep mountain looming above them, and the other was a deep canyon, but they had no choice but to wait for the railway to be cleared. That night, passengers dined at the Ballots Hotel in Wellington, a tiny settlement carved into the mountain side with just over 100 residents. Compared to the beanery, this place felt luxurious. Over dinner, the hotel keeper said it was the most snow he'd seen in the 17 years that he had been there.

The passengers spent a third night sleeping on the trains, and O'Neill spent a third night getting very little sleep. Temperatures on Thursday had risen 10 degrees, which after heavy snowfall meant a recipe for avalanches. And sure enough, around 4 a.m. on that Friday, February 25th, an avalanche hit Cascades Tunnel station. tragically, it ran directly into the beanery. Its ramshackle wooden structure didn't stand a chance. Harry and John had been inside and they were killed instantly. Oh my God. Oh no.

Imagine. And they were just there and they had just spent so much time with them and they were so nice. And they had just left. Barely missed this. Oh, no. I did not even consider that there was additional slides going on, which makes total sense. Yeah, this whole area is so dangerous. Yeah.

I just looked at myself. I feel like a train conductor. I can see you as a train conductor. No, like what I'm wearing. I know. I can envision it. Like I think because this is like corduroy and like I have my little handkerchief. I feel like you need one of those smoking pipes.

I picture train conductors with like a pipe in their hand while there. Yeah. But you're pretty close. I'm on my way for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Anyway.

Next career goal. Not the beanery. Not the beanery. When this news. made it to the passengers later Friday morning, they were obviously very horrified. It was not lost on them that if they hadn't come to Wellington when they did, their train would have been part of the avalanche and they could have been caught in it as well. The vibe at that point shifted from annoyance because people were just annoyed at the delays to an extreme fear that they were now

actually in a really dangerous situation. With the avalanches on their mind, some of the women on the train began to raise questions about whether the trains were stationed in the safest place. They could see that a huge bank of snow had accumulated on the mountain side above them. Some asked Conductor Pettit whether it would be safer to move the train into the tunnel. He replied that it wouldn't be because there was no ventilation in the tunnel, so it would have filled up with toxic smoke from the cold that they were burning to keep the cabins warm. Based on his knowledge, the safest position for the trains was where they were standing. He told them that, quote,

never in the 17-year history of the Great Northern Rail Line through Stevens Pass has there been a snow slide at the place where the train now stood. There was, well, it doesn't mean that it could never happen. Never say never. I hate when people do that. Yeah, it's never happened before so it can't happen. It's like, no, not super true. That makes no sense, but okay. Yeah. And to know, there was no snow shed protecting the tracks there. And part of that was because they thought that no protection was needed because nothing

had ever happened there in the past. Gotcha. Okay. Meanwhile, O'Neill was faced with another issue because they were running out of coal. A delivery had been delayed due to the strike, and the plows had burned through supplies trying to keep the railway lines clear. By Friday night, frustration was growing. A group of passengers, including lawyers and the paper salesman named Henry White, who I mentioned earlier, formed a committee and requested a meeting with O'Neill. He never showed. Instead, he worked through the night again, attempting to clear the snow, and only napping in brief intervals. So he basically said, I have work to do. I can't meet with you guys and I know you're frustrated, but that's not my problem. I have to try and get you

out of here. But each time a rotary plow made any progress, another snow slide blocked the way. By Saturday, February 26th, after four nights on the train, some shovelers paid just 50 cents an hour for dangerous labor began quitting. That night, the final working rotary plow became trapped between two slides, effectively ending any chance of clearing the track at all. O'Neill was met with an ultimatum, raise wages to their request, vested 50 cents an hour or lose his remaining shovelers. He offered 20 cents and the workers refused. Wait, how much were they getting paid before? 15. Okay. And they're demanding 50 and he's offering 20. I feel like in this circumstance you can't give a little more. Can't really bargain. And it's like maybe

maybe it's a temporary solution because they're working in these grueling conditions. They're in the middle of a blizzard's shoveling. The snow is falling faster than they can shovel. They're asking for more pay because what they're doing is worth more pay. And O'Neill says no. O'Neill says, you know what, both of our rotary plows are broken. We can't do anything anyway. So why even pay you since we can't really do anything? And he dismisses them. I mean, I don't want to say like I get it, But at the same time, if they're legitimately just not able to make any sort of meaningful progress, then... It's like, what are we going to do? Because you said a bunch of them were quitting.

So with the people remaining, would they have been able to actually do anything to get them out of that situation at the time? Probably not. Yeah. And I think the idea was that if he raised the pay, then no one would quit. Because the people quitting are still stuck there too, right? They're just going into town. I'm like, sorry, we're not working. They were just locals that lived in the town.

So, yeah, he was being... But that being said, the snow is falling faster than they can really move. So how much work with it they have gotten done, who knows? But it wasn't given an opportunity to find out because he just dismissed everyone and refused to me. No, we're good. Yeah. He's like, it's fine. The storm will stop.

It's never done this before. It's never done this before. It'll be over soon. Everything's fine. But boy, he was wrong. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Recently, it's felt like we are kind of backtracking a little bit as a society, but there's something that we've got to give flowers to.

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Local residents strongly discouraged it because even though the hike was only four miles down the train line to the next train station in a place called scenic, the stretch was highly prone to avalanches and the storm was raging on. It would be a very, very dangerous hike and the locals were just saying, wait it out. It'll stop, just wait it out. It's too dangerous to go. A group of male passengers nonetheless became set on the idea once they heard that O'Neill had made the same hike himself. One of the snow slides had taken out one of the telegraph wires, and O'Neill had to hike the same path to scenic by foot earlier that morning to send out an update about their situation.

Once they found that out, they were determined to do the same. and five male passengers set off shortly after 9.30 a.m. The hike proved more treacherous than they expected. At one point, they seriously considered turning back, but they pressed on. Finally, after almost four hours on the trail, they reached an area where an avalanche slope led directly from the trail 1,000 feet down into scenic. It was steep, but they had made it too far to give up at this point.

The five men tucked their coats under their butts and slid down the mountain. surprised to reach the bottom totally unharmed. Just a few hundred yards away was the scenic hot spring hotel where they found O'Neill. From there, the passengers were able to board a new westbound train from scenic, and they arrived in Seattle around midnight. So they had made the right decision. They gambled and came out on top on that one for sure. Yeah. And I can just imagine being a thousand feet up in the air and being like, all right, let's slide down this thing.

We got to send it. What else are we doing? The ultimate tubing adventure. Yeah. I imagine you move a little bit slower, though, on your jackets versus a tube. Like, you can stop yourself a little better. Especially that type of jacket that they were likely wearing. Yeah. They probably weren't moving too fast. No. It's like a slow slide. Even if it was like, hold on, guys. And they're like going super small. Five hours later. And back in Wellington, morale was at an all-time low as the threat of an avalanche loomed overhead. A second group of passengers decided that they would also try to hike out the next day, and Conductor Pettit decided to join them. Food was starting to run short at the Ballots Hotel,

and he knew that a relief train carrying supplies had made it to scenic. Pettit also figured that this trip would allow him to judge the possibility of evacuating the passengers by foot. So they wouldn't feel abandoned. He promised he would make the trip there and back within the same day. Everyone aboard the Seattle Express tucked in for the sixth night, listening to the rumble of avalanches coming down around them in the distance. Despite the worsening weather, the hike went smoother. Petit and the others reached scenic in under 90 minutes, far faster than the first group.

Petit sent a telegram saying, Tell the passengers they can come out over the trail, but the message was never delivered due to down wires. Still, Petit returned with food and reassurance that the hike was doable. Meanwhile, after six nearly sleepless days and nights back on the Seattle Express, passengers were at their wits end. Petty conflicts were arising. Some were feeling claustrophobic as the trains had become practically buried in the absence of snow shovelers. And to make a bad situation worse, the train was starting to smell. The toilets

were clogged and nobody had showered in nearly a week. The mood improved when Conductor Pettett returned that afternoon with the news that the hike was doable. However, it was too late for another group to leave that day. But many passengers started making plans for the morning. White, the paper salesman, an active member of the passenger committee, was skeptical. There was a passenger committee? Yeah, remember when I mentioned they formed like a passenger committee to request O'Neill's presence to speak with them. Henry was like the leader of that.

Okay. But he was skeptical of this idea to evacuate passengers out. He thought that it was going to take a lot of effort. And he also thought that it didn't really, it wasn't including the people who were not physically capable of hiking four miles. there were elderly people on board. There were people who had physical limitations that were on board. And he's saying, wait a second, you're going to evacuate everyone except for how are you going to evacuate these people?

Right. He also was upset at this like loostering evacuation plan when he thought that the Great Northern Railway should send word of an official evacuation that they would be executing and making sure that the passengers were safe and including everyone if that was the route to take. So he was like, this is very unofficial. What's going on here? This isn't inclusive of everyone. He was just overall not stoked with the plans that were happening. And valid points. Yeah. So that afternoon, he helped draft a petition that was signed by 34 passengers addressed to O'Neill directly requesting he meet them on the train that night to discuss possible solutions. Which is very formal. And I love this. formal and like it's eloquent it's just like he's like all right if we're going to get things done we're going to make a petition we're going to form a committee like you know this guy was like on top of his stuff back home he was you know this guy was a capricorn yeah had to have been i like his style regardless yeah so he sends his formal petition to o'neill but o'neill still didn't show up and it was because he was busy he was trying to get the rotaries back on course he was trying to get the trains to be able to get moving so he never showed up. But instead, he sent someone else. The second in command at Wellington, a train master named Arthur Blackburn, eventually did show up to address them. He initially refused the passenger committee's request for men to be brought up from scenic to help the passengers

evacuate on foot. So they had asked for people to come down to help them. He still believed that there was greater risk of being hit by an avalanche on the trail more than there was where the train was parked. He's like, the train is the safest place to be. Don't go out there. He was especially resistant to allowing women to undertake the risk, but he did ultimately agree to let a handful of crew members already in Wellington assist male passengers who wanted to hike out the next day. And he promised to take care of the sanitation problems on the train to make people feel happier about their stay there. Even this felt like a victory to the passenger committee. Having finally been heard out by someone in authority, they had lifted spirits and they decided to

throw a party. They finally had a plan. They were going to make it out. And for hours into the night, passengers of all ages, played cards, sang and told stories. And it just morale was up. It was like, okay, there's an end in sight. We've got through to him. Like, things are going to happen. And many were also making plans to hike out in the morning. Ignoring Blackburn's ban on women. There were specifically two solo travelers named Nellie Sharp and Libby Latch who searched for men's clothing that they could wear to make the trip because they said no, just because we're women doesn't mean we're going to sit in a train. Like we're out of here too. It's like we're also going to get away from here. So yeah, it's like we're women and we're totally capable. By 1 15 a.m. on March 1st, everyone had turned in

for the night. Around 119 people slept aboard the two trains, including some local workers who believed the trains were safer than their cabins. Then what felt like out of nowhere, a rare thunderstorm rolled in. The rain and warming temperatures, desaversed. the snowpack above them. At exactly 1.42 a.m., a massive avalanche broke loose from windy mountain and thundered down the slope directly towards the trains. Most passengers were still sleep when the avalanche hit, but some, like Henry White, remember the exact moment. The shrill sound of all the windows imploding at once, the weightlessness when the avalanche first lifted the trains up, and then the chaos of plummeting down the mountain into the canyon below.

Many of the train cars burst open. Some people miraculously were thrown out of the tumbling cars on the way down and landed unharmed in pockets of snow. Henry White was one of them. But most weren't that lucky. When the tumbling finally stopped seconds or minutes later, Henry recalled saying, Everything was still. I expected to hear cries and groans, but I heard nothing. And I knew then that the death toll would be appalling.

Townspeople from Wellington were awoken by the loud roars of the avalanche and almost immediately started descending into the dark canyon to help the survivors. The first two were railroad engineers who were in such a rush that they forgot to grab any digging tools. They came upon a man and a woman who were still alive but buried up to their necks in snow. They started frantically trying to dig them out by hand, but in the rainstorm the snow was quickly becoming hard and compacted. The two engineers climbed back up to Wellington as fast as they could. to get shovels, but by the time they had returned, both the man and the woman had died. Other workers came down to help, digging where they saw outstretched hands from the snow or heard people's voices under it. It was a harrowing scene with detached body parts strewn

about the snow. The rescuers were able to save some people, but many others died buried in the canyon. When you're hit by an avalanche, you might think it's hypothermia that would kill you. But if you've listened to some of our other episodes on that, you would know that a third of avalanche deaths are actually from trauma, from hitting things on the way down or being caught in snow and having some type of trauma in that. But often, more often than not, it's actually from suffocation. Either being trapped under the snow and running out of oxygen or having the pressure of tons of snow on your chest, making it impossible to breathe. But in this case, the train wreckage created some large air pockets under the snow that made it possible for some passengers to find a safe space

even buried underneath the snow. Back up in town, the sound of the avalanche had woken up the couple that owned the Ballots Hotel. When they came outside, they saw a man climbing up from the canyon carrying a young boy. It was Ida Starr its seven-year-old son Raymond. And remember I mentioned her at the beginning of the episode she was traveling with her family. She was going up to Canada because she had recently been widowed and she was thinking about starting a new life in Canada. Her son Raymond had a three-inch piece of wood sticking out of his forehead. He was half conscious and clearly in pain. The ballots decided to turn their dining room into a makeshift hospital.

A telegrapher, who happened to be the son of a doctor, sterilized a razor in boiling water, and cut the wood out of Raymond's head. Was it in his skull? I'm confused. How was it three inches long and in his forehead? It's like the thinnest skin on your... Yeah, it seems like it was like lodged into his, like, I don't think it was like fully through him. his skull, but it was like stuck in it. Oh, it was three inches long, but stuck it, not three inches into his house. Yeah, it was three inches long, not three inches into his skull. Yeah, makes sense.

So that's happening. And then they turn the spot in their hotel into a makeshift hospital, and it's not long before more people start coming in and they're injured and they start catering to all of the people who are coming in. People in town knew that they had to get the word out about the avalanche as soon as possible, but all the telegraph lines. lines were down. The only way was by foot. The route to scenic would be especially dangerous in the storm at night, as more snow slides threatened to come down at any time. Nonetheless, a train engineer named J.J. Mackey volunteered and set off. Word of the snow slide finally reached O'Neill and the others at Scenic around 8 a.m. six hours after the avalanche had come down. O'Neill immediately

sprung into action, rounding up a group of 40 men to hike to Wellington and assist in the rescue. The Telegram lines were down in scenic as well because of the storm, so they also had no way to contact outside sources either. Because of this, as soon as O'Neill got this group together, he set off on foot in another direction, taking a nine-mile hike to the next town down the line in hopes of reaching help there. He did arrive at around 11 a.m. and was finally able to send a telegram out for help, unknowing exactly how catastrophic the damage was at that time. By the late morning, back in Wellington, the rescuers had been working tirelessly to pull out survivors from the wreckage, but as the hours continued to go by, the hope of finding more of people alive dwindled.

It was 11 hours after the avalanche had struck, and they had switched gears to make this a recovery mission. But it was just as they were switching gears that they suddenly heard a cry from underneath the snow, and they quickly began digging. Shortly after, they discovered Ida Star It. She had been pinned beneath a big tree trunk with her infant friend. Frances underneath her, totally buried under the snow. She could barely wiggle her fingers, but she had enough air trapped around her that she didn't suffocate. Tragically, at some point while she was trapped, her baby died in her arms. Ida was going in and out of consciousness during the 11 hours suffering from hypothermia. It took rescuers several more hours to saw

apart the tree Ida was pinned under. Finally, in the afternoon, they freed her. Ida was the last of 23 people rescuers found alive. After that, it turned into a recovery operation. So she lost her infant and her other older son. Because Raymond is good, but she had three kids, right? Yeah. Okay. And I'll get into that a little bit too.

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Plus, they offer a happiness guarantee on their first box. So if you're not completely satisfied, you'll get your money back. That's O-L-L-I-E dot com slash N-P-A-D and enter code N-P-A-D to get 60% off of your first box. At the time, nobody knew exactly how many bodies there would be in the canyon because at the time, they didn't know how many people were asleep on the train that night because, as I mentioned earlier, some of the train workers decided to sleep there, so they weren't sure the exact number. To prepare, they turned Wellington Station's baggage room into a makeshift morgue. Some bodies they found were identified right away.

others were mutilated beyond recognition. When the 40 men from Scenic arrived, they were impressed to find that the survivors in the makeshift hospital were mostly in good shape. Even 7-year-old Raymond was stable despite his head injuries. Perhaps the biggest concern was actually Ida's mental state. Though she was recovering from her hypothermia, she was practically catatonic from shock and trauma. In addition to feeling her infant Francis died beneath her,

at the hospital she learned that her father and 9-year-old daughter had perished in the Avales. Blanche as well. Oh, wait. Oh. So her son, Raymond is alive. Right. Oh, sorry. Maybe I thought she had three sons and I was confused. So her daughter and her dad died. Yes. And her infant. And she almost died and her husband had died like a couple weeks before. Yeah. God. It's awful. It wasn't until the following afternoon, Wednesday, March 2nd, that O'Neill was finally able to make it back to Wellington to assess the scene himself. At that point, the record breaking winter storm had finally stopped. But the threat of another avalanche continued to loom overhead. Pushing his emotions to the side, O'Neill joined the rescue efforts down in the canyon. By Thursday afternoon, 29 bodies had been recovered. Over the next week, the number of deceased continued to

climb, including in that number, was Conductor Pettit. Most of the survivors were actually in good enough condition to hike down to scenic to evacuate. But nine of them had serious enough injuries that they needed to continue waiting in Wellington for the railway to be cleared so they could evacuate by train. Finally, on Thursday, March 10th, the eastern side of the line was cleared and the first train reached Wellington after the avalanche. More than two weeks after leaving Spokane, the nine remaining survivors were brought back to Spokane to be properly hospitalized. It took another two days before the westward line was finally cleared too. In the days after the accident, journalists and family members of passengers also began to arrive on the scene.

The excruciating details of the real story would become known to the public before long that 96 people had perished in the avalanche. On March 18th, a formal coroner's inquest was held in downtown Seattle to officially determine whether human fault played a role in the disaster. The survivors were split on whether O'Neill was the hero of the story, doing the best any man possibly could and impossible assertion. circumstances, or if he was the villain, who should be personally blamed for every death. The loudest voice in the latter group was Henry White, who adamantly believed that O'Neill could have prevented this tragedy. Ultimately, a jury ruled that the snow slide was beyond human control. However, they added three points of criticism to the verdict, all of which reflected poorly on O'Neill and the Great Northern Railway itself. They thought the trains could

and should have been moved to a safer location. They blamed the Great Northern Railway for not having sufficient coal to deal with the emergency. And they believed the snow shoveler should have been kept at Wellington throughout the crisis, regardless of their wages. So the verdict was basically half blame and half saying it was nature. I think I aligned with that pretty well. Yeah. I think that if he had at the beginning, if O'Neill had made the call to send them on the longer route that would have made them delayed, it would have avoided this entire thing that he sent them through a dangerous spot.

But at the same time, he didn't know how bad the storm was going to be. And it wasn't unusual for snow. I do think he should have made the call and not sent them there to begin with. But I also don't think he could have ever known that an avalanche was going to hit them directly where they were sitting. Yeah. It feels very like not very. But to me, because I can always connect things back to the Titanic in like a really

young kid anyway. And I feel like, I know. But it's kind of like how the captain, you know, had the iceberg warnings like right in his hand and he pushed forward. And there was like some peer pressure going on with Bruce's May and like a couple other people of like really making headlines and stuff and wanting to push forward at like a high rate of speed regardless of the dangers. And there some other things and stuff. And they, so they basically had the information but chose to ignore it to try and save time. And it's the same type of thing. It's like, okay, we know the risks here, but I don't want to delay operations. So we're going to, you know, so it's kind of like that parallel that I. Yeah. And if you remember from before O'Neill, this railway, the mail

train was this new operation that was hugely profitable and it was their reputation was on the line because they promised under 50 hours and that had been trilled into O'Neill like get this make sure this train gets here in under 50 hours because that's what's promised. Yeah. So I don't know when they were kind of going over his his fault and guilt and the whole thing. He was clearly working hard to deal with the situation and combat it in the ways that he felt he could. And I know there was definitely some, he dropped the ball on a few different things and I wasn't there. But I feel like he did the best that he could once he was, I don't know, I don't know then, because then he was like, yeah, everyone can go except the women. And he lost me there, I guess. Yeah. So, I don't know.

I just feel like it's hard to pin anything on anyone 100% when there's an element of a natural disaster within it. Yeah. I mean, they could have never predicted that the avalanche was going to hit the train at the time that they were there. And they were sitting there for five days in that exact same location. And, you know, if they had moved everyone into the hotel, they would have been okay. You know, it's just like, but there's no way that they could have known that. But I think that the biggest part where they really dropped the ball here was when the storm was when the storm was in and they had an alternate route that they could take that wasn't through Stevens Pass, which was known for avalanches, which was very well known for avalanches. That wasn't a secret that he decided

to still go that way because it was faster. And I think that that is the moment where he really dropped the ball. And after that, he did everything he could to mitigate and help the situation. But the damage was done. The damage was done. Yeah. The Great Northern Railway offered small sums of money to the families of the workers who had been killed. They offered $1,000. which amounts to about $33,000 in today's money for families of married men and $500 for families of unmarried men. In exchange for signing away their rights to sue or ask for money, they gave them this. It was like, don't sue us. Here's your payout.

Conductor Pettett's wife, who now was caring for five children with no source of income, petitioned to increase her payment to $2,500. But the company refused. From the families of the deceased passengers, Great Northern Railway was hit with multiple civil suits alleging negligence. Most of the cases were quietly settled out of court, but one case finally went to trial in 1913, seeking to cast blame on the railway and O'Neill. O'Neill, who at that point had been promoted to assistant general superintendent for a much larger territory of Great Northern Lines, so he was promoted after the fact of this tragedy,

provided a very matter-of-fact in convincing testimony in defense of his decision-making, but Henry White's testimony also made a big impact. jury ruled in favor of the plaintiff that the victim had died, quote, through the negligence of the Great Northern Railway and its officers. However, the decision was overturned shortly thereafter in an appeal. So the Great Northern Railway ended up walking away from the deadliest avalanche event in American history without any criminal charges or formal liability. Ida Starrett did end up moving to Canada with her son Raymond and her mother, Mrs. May, who suffered no permanent injuries and lived healthily into her 80s. Ida later moved back to the Seattle area where she ran a grocery store,

got remarried, and eventually moved out onto a chicken ranch. For decades, she refused to even talk about the accident. She lived to a ripe old age like her mother, but did spend the last years of her life in a wheelchair due to lingering issues from her Wellington injuries. Raymond grew up tall and handsome with a successful career in the Puget Sound Power and Light Company. He had only a few scattered memories of the saga. being a clog dance that conductor Pettit had performed to entertain the restless kids during their fourth day stuck on the train, but he carried it with him every day in the form of a permanent scar on his forehead. Following the disaster, the Great Northern Railway constructed a new

cascade tunnel at a lower elevation by passing the dangerous stretch of track altogether. It was completed in 1929. The town of Wellington, which has been renamed Ty in an effort to distance it from the tragedy was eventually abandoned. Nature gradually reclaimed the area. Today, Wellington is a ghost town, but remnants of its history remain, most notably through the Iron Goat Hiking Trail, which traces the old northern line. A few remnants of the town are still visible near the trailhead, but that might not be the only thing that the Wellington tragedy left behind. Some visitors swear that the ghosts of the 96 people who died there on March 1, 1910, still haunt that stretch of Stephen's pass. Hikers have allegedly heard screams and whispers and even felt ghostly hands grabbing at them

when they pass through the area. And that is my story of the deadliest avalanche in U.S. history. Wow. Thank you for finally telling it. It's just as terrible as I imagined it would be. And I know that we've gotten a couple people right into us with trail tales of that particular trail. And I think somebody, did we read? it we must have read it years ago and they attached a photo do you remember the photo of in the looking into the tunnel and it looks like there's a silhouette of somebody with like at first it looks like they're swinging something like an axe or something but now i'm thinking about it maybe it's the shovel oh i do kind of remember that it was a really long time ago it was an old it was probably

like in our first original email we used to use okay maybe i'll never find it so if you're still it was a i feel like it was one of our beginning trail to episodes, but I do remember that. And we've gotten a few trail tales from that trail itself. Yeah. And it's just, it's a, that's such a crazy story. And I think that it's really unique that you can still hike up to the area where that happened. And I know there's some interpretive signs and stuff up there about the disaster, but of course, not in any sort of, um, detail. Grave detail. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. It was a tough one. for sure. It's an interesting story. And I felt like, I mean, it's one of the worst disasters in

U.S. history. I felt like it needed to come onto the podcast at some point. So, all right, well, thank you everyone for tuning in this week. We hope that you enjoyed. That feels like an awful word to say. But hope you liked learning about this tragedy that happened. Stay safe out there. And in the meantime, enjoy the view. But watch you're back. Bye, everyone. Bye. Thank you for joining us again this week. you love National Park After Dark and want to hear exclusive bonus stories, join us on Patreon or Apple subscriptions. Patreon subscribers have access to our National Park After Dark book club, live streams, discord, and much more. If you prefer to watch our episodes, video episodes are now

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