Avalanche! The 1910 Great Northern Railway Disaster

Overview

In the late winter of 1910, a relentless blizzard trapped two Great Northern Railway trains, bound from Spokane to Seattle, in the rugged Cascade Mountains. Six days of frantic efforts to reach the passengers and crews failed. Early in the morning on March first, an avalanche one-half mile wide and fifteen feet deep crashed down from the mountainside during a thunderstorm. It swept the trains off of the tracks, killing at least 96 people. The avalanche was America’s worst avalanche disaster.