• The 1910 Wellington Train Disaster

  • Mar 1 2021
  • Length: 38 mins
  • Podcast

The 1910 Wellington Train Disaster

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  • Just after one o'clock in the morning, on a frigid, starless night in March 1910, more than a hundred souls aboard Great Northern Railway's Spokane Local No. 25, a passenger train, and Fast Mail Train No. 27 slept tightly bundled in their cars. They'd been stuck near Wellington in King County, Washington, for almost a week...waiting as railroad crews attempted to clear the tracks of snow, which had been accumulating at a record pace. Each time they tried, their enormous rotary plows either broke down, ran out of fuel or got stuck, forcing crews to try digging out from the five-to-eight-foot snow drifts by hand while passengers hunkered down and waited for the blizzard to pass. But it didn't pass. The snow just kept on coming. High above them loomed the peak of Windy Mountain, and below them, the Tye Creek ravine. On the last day of February, the snow turned to rain. Lightning and thunder erupted across the Cascade Mountains, and one fateful lightning strike touched off the deadliest avalanche in United States history. So where exactly is Wellington, Washington? If you guessed somewhere near Burlington, Arlington, and Darrington, you'd be in the right general vicinity. But if you're looking for it on a map, you might have a tough time finding it. Its name was changed after the tragedy and the town itself was eventually abandoned and burned to the ground in the following years. Heading east from Everett on US Highway 2, travelers will pass through the towns of Monroe, Sultan, Startup, Gold Bar, Index, Skykomish, and Scenic before reaching the summit of Stevens Pass high in the Central Cascade Mountains. Heritage adventurers just might be interested in taking a short detour to hike along the 6-mile Iron Goat Trail, so named because the Great Northern railroad that used to travel along the route featured a stoic mountain goat in the company's logo. It's a fantastic hike with only about 700 feet of elevation gain from beginning to end. If you want to learn more about the trail, its history and some great tips and tricks to make your hike unforgettable, go pick up a copy of the book, Day Hiking Central Cascades, by my friend Craig Romano. At the summit of Stevens Pass is the fabled ski area to the south. On the north side of Highway 2, however, is a nondescript gravel path called Tye Road that would likely be overlooked by travelers passing at freeway speeds. But turning on to this road and looking up into the trees will reveal handmade signs directing visitors to the Wellington trailhead just a little over three miles or 15 minutes away. The Iron Goat Trailhead provides explorers with ample parking spaces, interpretive signage, and relatively clean pit toilets. Hikers have two options from here, but turning left will lead to the original Cascade Tunnel—a short, dead-end trail with a number of historical panels that help visitors understand the context of life in a railroad town in the early 1900s. Wellington was once a vital coal, water and rest stop for trains heading through the mountains and was the only town for miles where workers could purchase supplies from the Henrich Brothers' general store and gather overnight at the Hotel Bailets. Visitors today can still find remnants of that long-forgotten lifestyle along the trail…if they look in just the right places. For example, standing atop the ledge looking down into Tye Creek (also known as Tye River), eagle-eyed adventurers can spot an old, rusty railroad tie sticking out of the side of the hill. Wellington, circa 1900, showing the hotel, general store, individual cabins, and massive clearcutting uphill from the town. Along the trail, explorers will also find the footing of Great Northern's coal tower, built in 1910. It's an enormous cement foundation that once supported the lifeblood of the railroad industry. Workers would load coal into the bottom, and a conveyor would raise it up to the hopper where it would await the next locomotive to park benea...
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