The Wellington Avalanche Disaster

A view of Wellington, Washington before the 1910 avalanche.

During the early morning hours of Tuesday, March 1, 1910, the crack Northern Pacific Railroad passenger train, the Spokane Express, sat on the tracks in the station at Wellington, Washington.

Wellington was a tiny town just west of the tunnel at Stevens Pass along the summit of the Cascades Mountains.

The train had been stranded at the station for well over a week by powerful blizzards that had been sweeping the Cascades along with another Northern Pacific train, the Fast Mail. The superintendent for the railroad believed that the trains were safe as they sat parked on the tracks at Wellington.

As a powerful snowstorm replete with lightning and thunder raged over the mountain pass during those pre-dawn hours on March 1st, a frightening roar awakened those sleeping in the train cars and in the little town. A powerful avalanche was breaking loose on the mountain hundreds of feet above the railroad tracks. Hundreds of tons of ice, snow and rock came hurtling down the mountainside.

It swept the locomotives, sleeping cars, day coaches and mail cars over a steep ledge. Before the rolling stock came to a halt, it had fallen over one thousand feet and lay buried under forty feet of ice and snow. The depot at Wellington was also swept away.

It would be the most disastrous avalanche in United States history. Ninety six people lost their lives, including many women and children and workers who were sent to battle the persistent snows. No other avalanche in U.S. history comes close to this one in terms of death toll.

It was most likely started by the loud thunder caused by the unusual electrical storm.

The Northern Pacific Railroad was found negligent, but the decision was overturned. The court said that the disaster was an “act of God.”

– Bill Murray

bill.murray@theweathercompany.com
Follow my weather history tweets on Twitter. I am wxhistorian.

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