• 1910 – The deadliest avalanche in United States history buries a Great Northern Railway train in northeastern King County, Washington, killing 96 people.

Wellington, Washington

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Coordinates: 47°44'58"N 121°07'10"W


Wellington depot before the 1910 avalanche

Wellington (later known as Tye) was a small unincorporated railroad community in the northwest United States, on the Great Northern Railway in northeastern King County, Washington.

Founded in 1893, it was located in the Cascade Range at the west portal of the original Cascade Tunnel under Stevens Pass. It was the site of the 1910 Wellington avalanche, the worst in U.S. history, in which 96 people died.

1910 avalanche


Train wreckage caused by the avalanche

The Wellington avalanche was the deadliest avalanche in the history of the United States, marked by the total death count of 96.

For nine days at the end of February 1910, the Wellington area experienced a severe blizzard. Up to a foot (30 cm) of snow fell every hour, and, on the worst day, eleven feet (340 cm) of snow fell. Two trains, a passenger train and a mail train, both bound from Spokane to Seattle, were trapped in the depot. Snow plows were present at Wellington and others were sent to help, but they could not penetrate the snow accumulations and repeated avalanches along the stretch of tracks between Scenic and Leavenworth.

Late on February 28, the snow stopped and was replaced by rain and a warm wind. Just after 1 a.m. on March 1, as a result of a lightning strike, a slab of snow broke loose from the side of Windy Mountain during a thunderstorm. A ten-foot high mass of snow, half a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide, fell toward the town. A forest fire had recently ravaged the slopes above the town, leaving very little to impede the avalanche.

The avalanche missed the Bailets Hotel (which also housed the town's general store and post office), but hit the railroad depot. Most of the passengers and crew were asleep aboard their trains. The impact threw the trains 150 feet (45 m) downhill and into the Tye River valley. Ninety-six people were killed, including 35 passengers, 58 Great Northern employees on the trains, and three railroad employees in the depot. Twenty-three people survived; they were pulled from the wreckage by railroad employees who immediately rushed from the hotel and other buildings where they had been staying. However, the work was then abandoned because of the adverse weather conditions, and it was not until 21 weeks later (late July) that the last of the bodies were retrieved.

This was not the only avalanche in the region that winter. Three days later, 63 railroad workers were killed in the Rogers Pass avalanche nearby in British Columbia.


Debris — including wrecked train cars — resulting from the avalanche.

Aftermath

Wellington was quietly renamed "Tye" during October because of the unpleasant associations of the old name. In the same month, the Great Northern Railway began construction of concrete snow sheds to shelter the nearby tracks. The depot was closed when the second Cascade Tunnel was completed in 1929; the town was then abandoned and it eventually burned.

Considered a ghost town, the old track and snow sheds remain and have been preserved as part of the Iron Goat Trail, which is accessible from U.S. Highway 2 near Stevens Pass or near Scenic, east of Everett.

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Great Northern Railway Company Wellington Disaster records, 1907-1911

Overview of the Collection

Creator Great Northern Railway Company (U.S.)

Title Great Northern Railway Company Wellington Disaster records

Dates 1907-1911 (inclusive)
1910 (bulk)

Quantity .42 cubic feet, including 12 photographs, (2 boxes)

Collection Number 1995.51 (accession)

Summary Great Northern Railway Company records, including photographs, from the avalanche disaster near Wellington, Washington

Repository Museum of History & Industry, Sophie Frye Bass Library

P.O. Box 80816
Seattle, WA
98108
Telephone: 2063241126 x102
library@mohai.org

Access Restrictions The collection is open to the public by appointment.

Languages English.

Historical Note

On February 23, 1910 , two Great Northern Railway trains--the "Seattle Express" local passenger train No. 25 and Fast Mail train No. 27--were stalled on the tracks at the Cascade Tunnel Station on Stevens Pass, thwarted by heavy snows and slides. By late the following evening, crews were able to move enough snow to allow the trains to pass westward over the summit through the Cascade tunnel, where they were stopped again just past Wellington, a small railway town where many Great Northern employees lived. As the train sat under the slope of Windy Mountain and above Tye Creek, crews worked around the clock to clear the snow but were unable to keep up with the continuous heavy snowfall and frequent slides. The situation was complicated by insufficient coal to run the plows, tired and underpaid snow shovelers walking off the job, and the loss of communications when telegraph lines went down. On the last day of February, an electrical storm arrived, bringing winds, thunder and lightning, all threats to the stability of the varied layers of snow on the mountainside. Previous clear cutting and forest fires had cleared the slopes above the tracks, contributing to the ideal conditions for an avalanche. During the early hours of March 1, either thunder or lightning caused a break in the integrity of the heavy top slab of snow; as the weaker layers below gave way, the enormous slab began to slide down the slope, carrying with it everything in its path. The avalanche pushed both trains 150 feet down into the Tye River Valley, where the cars were buried in snow and debris. Ninety six people died--thirty-five passengers and sixty-one railroad employees-- making the Wellington avalanche one of the worst train disasters in United States history. Over the following days, rescue crews transported bodies down the mountain on toboggans; the injured were taken to Wenatchee. The last of the victims was not recovered until the end of July.

The Great Northern Railway Company spent three weeks repairing the tracks before trains were able to run over Stevens Pass again. In the aftermath of the disaster, the town was renamed Tye to avoid the negative associations of the name Wellington. By 1913, the Great Northern had constructed snow-sheds over the nine miles of tracks between Scenic and Tye to protect trains from snow slides. The depot at Wellington was closed with the opening of the New Cascade Tunnel in 1929.

In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, accusations against Great Northern by the survivors, the labor unions, the press and the public became so intense that a coroner's inquest was held to determine officially whether human fault played a role in the disaster. Though the verdict placed the cause of the accident "beyond human control," it also listed three points of criticism--the insufficiency of coal, the laborers' low wages, and the decision to place the train in an unsafe location--which could be used for future lawsuits against Great Northern. Indeed, the company subsequently had to contend with a flood of legal claims from victims' relatives, freight customers, and employees. The company resolved some of these claims without admitting liability by making humanitarian payments to families. Eventually the Great Northern legal team brought a test case to trial--a $40,000 claim brought on behalf of a child whose father died in the disaster. Though the jury ruled in favor of the plaintiff, the verdict was reversed on appeal, and the Great Northern Railway Company was ultimately found not negligent or liable for the disaster at Wellington.

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