NB: The dates of all newspaper stories, letters, telegrams, and other primary sources, unless otherwise specified, are from 1910.
Abbreviations Used in Notes
CIT | Coroner’s Inquest Testimony |
EDH | Everett Daily Herald |
GN | Great Northern |
NP | Northern Pacific |
NYT | New York Times |
SCT | Superior Court Transcript |
SDC | Spokane Daily Chronicle |
SEC | Spokane Evening Chronicle |
SIH | Spokane Inland Herald |
SPI | Seattle Post-Intelligencer |
SS | Seattle Star |
SSR | Spokane Spokesman-Review |
ST | Seattle Times |
SUR | Seattle Union Record |
TDL | Tacoma Daily Ledger |
WDW | Wenatchee Daily World |
The book’s opening quotation—“The difference between civilization and barbarism …”—is cited in Albro Martin, James J. Hill and the Opening of the Northwest (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), p. 403.
The recovery and identification of Archibald McDonald’s body was described in newspaper accounts of the time, including articles in the Seattle Times, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Everett Daily Herald, and Wenatchee Daily World (July 27-30). Details about the life and experiences of William J. Moore (including the quote about “cordwood”) come from an August 2004 interview with his son Barney Moore and an unpublished letter from the elder Moore to Ruby El Hult, dated June 7, [1960] (Ruby El Hult Papers, Washington State University Manuscripts, Archives and Special Collections, Pullman, WA).
On the postavalanche salvage and recovery efforts, see newspaper accounts, especially ST, March 6-14; WDW, April 22. Also: “Great Northern’s Cascade Division Snowsheds: 1910 to 1929” by Stuart Vesper (Great Northern Railway Historical Society Reference Sheets Nos. 179 and 183, June and December 1991). Unsalvaged items left in the canyon as observed on-site by the author and as photographed (eighty-seven years later) by Martin Burwash, Cascade Division (Arvada, CO: Fox Publications, 1997).
On the character of working life at “the end of the world” (as the Cascade Division was known), see “The Wellington Disaster—March 1, 1910: Reminiscences of Basil J. Sherlock” (Washington State Historical Society, Tacoma, WA). “I will never forget this” is from the margin notes in Bill J. Moore’s annotated copy of Ruby El Hult’s Northwest Disaster (Portland, OR: Binford & Mort, 1960), kindly lent to the author by Barney Moore.
Details of the beanery slide come mainly from contemporary newspaper accounts (especially the EDH of February 25) and from recollections of telegrapher Warren Tanguy as recounted in the ST of November 15, 1959, pp. 2-3. “Howling, cantankerous blizzard” is a quotation from the SPI of February 24. Particulars of the Mace, Burke, and Rogers Pass slides, as well as those involving the horse barn and the bobsledding cabin, are from reports in ST and WDW from February 28 to March 10.
“So fierce is the storm” is from the ST of February 24. “Passengers by Sunday were in a frantic state” is a quotation from John Rogers cited in the ST of March 2. Details about the three families come from Hult, p. 4, from a front-page article on the Starretts in the Spokane Inland Herald of March 3, and from other newspaper accounts. “We knew we were in a death trap” is from a March 18 letter from Anna Gray to Luther Covington (Covington/Brokaw family collection).
“To hike out is to take your life in your hands” was said by J. J. Mackey (Coroner’s Inquest Transcript, p. 92.) “He had scarcely gone a step” was quoted in the Spokane Spokesman-Review of March 3. “The final victory of man’s machinery” is a quotation from Simon Patten, as cited in George E. Mowry’s The Era of Theodore Roosevelt and the Birth of Modern America, 1900-1912 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958).
Second-guessing about culpability for the disaster as reported in contemporary newspaper accounts, particularly in the Seattle Union Record, and in the following court documents: Coroner’s Inquest Transcript (hereafter CIT), “In the matter of the inquiry into the cause of the death of John Brockman and eighty-seven, or more, others, Deceased” (Testimony taken before King County Coroner J. C. Snyder, commencing March 18, 1910); and the Superior Court Transcript (hereafter SCT), “Statement of Facts: Topping vs. Great Northern Railway” (Superior Court of the State of Washington, in and for King County: Case No. 11,949).
The opening quotation—“This winter is hell of a time”—is from a court affidavit by Nyke Homonylo in the archives of the Wenatchee Valley Museum, Wenatchee, WA.
“Cold Wave Is Hieing Hither” was perpetrated in the February 21 edition of the EDH. Other specifics about weather and the resulting railroad difficulties come from surviving GN telegrams (unless otherwise attributed, all telegrams cited are from the private collection of Robert Kelly, Renton, WA) and from regional newspapers. The quote by James E. Vance is from his book The North American Railroad: Its Origin, Evolution, and Geography (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), p. 214. The high Cascades as “snowiest region” derives from snowfall data available from the U.S. National Climatic Data Center (www.ncdc.noaa.gov).
The early career of James H. O’Neill is outlined in a magazine profile by Walter E. Mair, “O’Neill of the Great Northern,” which appeared in the May 1932 issue of Railroad Stories. Other personal history is from newspaper features (“I never saw more pluck”: ST, March 6) and obituaries, as well as 1910 U.S. Census records. Quotations from O’Neill’s telegrams and letters, as well as personal information about Berenice, their courtship, and their marriage, come from family scrapbooks in the possession of Jeanne Patricia May, their granddaughter.
The “call of the railroad” as quoted in The Story of American Railroads by Stewart H. Holbrook (New York: Crown, 1947), p. 3. The description of the division superintendent’s job is from a Scribner’s article, “The Freight-Car Service,” by Theodore Vorhees, later collected in The American Railway: Its Construction, Development, Management, and Appliances (New York: Scribner’s, 1889), pp. 274–75. The average annual snowfall at Stevens Pass (over fifty feet) as reported in “The Pacific Extension and Cascade Switchbacks: 1889–1892” by W. C. Hartranft (Great Northern Railway Historical Society Reference Sheet No. 172, December 1990).
The literature on early Everett is unexpectedly rich and often delightful. Louis Tucker registered his dislike of the place (“a city with none of the social graces,” “as a terrior yaps at a great Dane,” etc.) in his Clerical Errors (New York: Harper and Bros., 1943). A more sympathetic view is presented in three highly enjoyable if often repetitive memoirs by journalist Max Miller, particularly The Beginning of a Mortal (New York: Dutton, 1933) and Shinny on Your Own Side (New York: Doubleday, 1958), which provide an atmospheric portrait of the city from a child’s perspective. The city is also blessed with an intelligent and elegantly written history: Mill Town: A Social History of Everett, Washington, by Norman H. Clark (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1970). Other information from the 1910 Polk’s City Directory and from Everett: Past and Present by Lawrence E. O’Donnell (Everett: Cascade Savings Bank, 1993).
The railroads’ transformation of the West is a subject dear to the hearts of many American historians, covered in works ranging in scholarliness from Robert H. Wiebe’s opaque but brilliant The Search for Order: 1877–1920 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1967) to Dee Brown’s highly readable Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow (New York: Holt, Rine-hart and Winston, 1977). “All of that land wasn’t worth ten cents” as quoted in Holbrook, Story, p. 5. The rhetorical flourish from Miles C. Moore (“the true alchemy of the age”) was cited in D. W. Meinig, The Shaping of America, vol. 3, Transcontinental America, 1850-1915 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), p. 6. But the most directly pertinent single work on the topic is Sarah Gordon’s excellent Passage to Union: How the Railroad Changed American Life, 1829-1929 (Chicago: Ivan Dee, 1996).
Washington’s late connection to the railway network is most vividly illustrated in the maps reproduced in John Stover’s Routledge Historical Atlas of American Railroads (New York: Routledge, 1999). Population growth statistics for Seattle and other Washington cities come from a variety of sources, including O’Donnell, p. 30; “The Promotion of Emigration to Washington, 1854-1909” by Arthur J. Brown (Pacific Northwest Quarterly 36, [1945]), pp. 3-17; the WDW of February 11; and Works Project Administration, Washington: A Guide to the Evergreen State (Portland, OR: Binford & Mort, 1941), pp. 217-20. Ray Stannard Baker’s comment, “Everything seems to have happened within the last ten years,” was made in his article “The Great Northwest,” published in the Century Magazine of March 1903 (vol. 65, no. 5), p. 653.
The term “instant civilization” is from James Bryce, as quoted in Carlos Schwantes, Railroad Signatures Across the Pacific Northwest (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1993), p. 182. Mark Sullivan’s characterization of still-raw Western settlements—“towns with a marble Carnegie Library at 2nd Street”—is from his always evocative Our Times: America at the Birth of the Twentieth Century, originally printed in 1926, modern edition by Dan Rather (New York: Scribner, 1996), p. 39.
The GN’s plans for line improvements in 1910 were announced in all of the local papers, including the EDH of February 21. In this chapter, as in subsequent chapters, train movements and other operational details are culled from a variety of sources: Great Northern telegrams; a court document, “Movement of Trains and Rotaries on the Hill from February 22d on to Slide”; excerpts from the Operations Diary of J. C. Devery—all from the Robert Kelly collection—as well as court testimony from CIT and SCT.
The opening quotation and other details about doings in Spokane on that Washington’s Birthday Tuesday are from the SIH of February 22.
Lewis C. Jesseph’s story is told in a memoir, “We Escaped the Wellington Disaster,” printed in Confluence, vol. 5, no. 1 (North Central Washington Museum, Wenatchee, 1988). My description of the two Pullman cars relies on “Early Great Northern Sleeping Cars, Part II” by Kenneth R. Middleton (Great Northern Railway Historical Society Reference Sheet No. 252, June 1997). No. 25’s H-class Pacific engine as cited in Charles and Dorothy Wood’s indispensible The Great Northern Railway: A Pictorial Study (Edmonds, WA: Pacific Fast Mail, 1979). Details about Spokane history and geography come principally from the Works Project Administration’s Washington: A Guide to the Evergreen State and This Town of Ours … Spokane by Jay J. Kalez (Spokane: Lawton Printing, 1973), as well the 1910 Polk’s City Directory. The GN’s Havermale Island depot was described in an article published in the SSR of February 25, 1902.
For the makeup of the passenger list of train No. 25, and for background about much of the story to follow, I am indebted to Northwest Disaster by Ruby El Hult, an account of the avalanche that is still highly readable and remarkably accurate after nearly fifty years. The GN’s official list of people on the trains was published in the ST of March 10.
The issue of the name of train No. 25 is not without controversy. Other sources list the train variously as the Seattle Local, Spokane Local, Spokane Express, and Seattle Flyer. The reason for this is clear: At this time, all GN trains had official numbers but most did not have official names, so a train near its point of origin would naturally be referred to by its destination, while a train near its destination would be called by the name of the city of its origin. For the sake of clarity, however, I have chosen to refer to the train throughout as the Seattle Express, which is how it was listed in the Spokane newspaper timetables.
Sarah Covington’s letter to her daughter and excerpts from her short diary are preserved in the archives of the Washington State Historical Society (Tacoma, WA). Some information also comes from Covington family archives, in particular a March 4 letter to Sadie Gregg from her brother Luther Covington. A transcript of Ned Topping’s day-by-day letter (which was found in the wreckage after the avalanche) was kindly provided by his grandson John Topping and is now in the Robert Kelly collection. The story behind Nellie Sharp’s presence on the train was printed in ST, March 12. “The American poetry of vivid purpose” is from William Dean Howells’s underappreciated novel The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885; reprint: New York: Signet, 1980), p. 75.
Details about Henry White come mainly from his inquest and court testimony, and from articles in the SS of March 3 and the SPI of March 6. That White was “not of a disposition to anticipate trouble” is from CIT, p. 436. “We knew that the Great Northern Railway” is from Jesseph, p. 176.
Excerpts from J. C. Devery’s Operations Diary, here and elsewhere, are from the collection of Robert Kelly.
The average duration of storms in the Cascades was gleaned from much of the testimony in CIT and SCT. The incident of the stalled freight at Scenic as detailed in a GN telegram from O’Neill dated February 22, 1:00 P.M., and from the court affidavit of Dowling, Mackey, and Tegtmeier. (NB: Unless otherwise stated, all court affidavits cited hereafter are from the Wenatchee Valley Museum.)
Information about the Fast Mail train comes from “Great Northern Railway Mail Services” by Stuart Holmquist (Great Northern Railway Historical Society Reference Sheet No. 177, June 1991); Jeff Wilson’s The Great Northern Railway in the Pacific Northwest (Waukesha, WI: Kalbach Books, 2001), p. 114ff; and from Don Moody’s America’s Worst Rail Disaster: The 1910 Wellington Tragedy (Plano, TX: Abique, 1998), pp. 17-23. Performance statistics for the Fast Mail during its first months are from the President’s Subject Files (GNR Corporate Records, the Minnesota Historical Society, file 132.E.16.4F). That the Fast Mail normally preceded Train No. 25 across Washington is mentioned in O’Neill’s inquest testimony, CIT, p. 22. “The Fastest Long-Distance Train in the World” is from the Brooklyn Standard Union, November 30, 1909.
O’Neill’s conversation with J. C. Wright, the engineer of the Oriental Limited, as testified in CIT, p. 110ff.
The quotation from Alfred B. Hensel is from SCT, p. 8. Pettit’s character as attested to by several witnesses in the same transcript, and from contemporary newspaper accounts. The release of train No. 25 from “Movement of Rotaries,” p. 2. The story of Mrs. Blanche Painter’s narrow escape is related in the EDH of March 4 and in the Leavenworth Echo of March 11.
Hamlin Garland’s “Western Landscapes” appeared in the Atlantic Monthly of December 1893.
For the discussion of the early history of efforts to cross and survey the “Last Mountains,” I am principally indebted to several books: Kurt Armbruster’s authoritative and impressively thorough Orphan Road: The Railroad Comes to Seattle, 1853-1911 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999); The Cascades: Mountains of the Pacific Northwest, edited by Roderick Peattie (New York: Vanguard Press, 1949); James E. Vance’s The North American Railroad; JoAnn Roe’s careful, useful Stevens Pass: The Story of Railroading and Recreation in the North Cascades (Caldwell, ID: Caxton Press, 2002); and Carlos Schwantes’s fascinating and elegantly written (if oddly titled) Railroad Signatures Across the Pacific Northwest.
“The crossing of the Rocky Mountains” and “restless with the restlessness of youth” are from Peattie, p. 54 (in the chapter entitled “The Last Frontier” by Margaret Bundy Callahan). The geology of the Cascades is described in the same work’s “The Cascade Range” by Grant McConnell. The quotation from Isaac Stevens (“The amount of work in the Cascade Range”) is cited in Armbruster, p. 7, as is George McClellan’s thorough “disgust” (p. 11). The NP’s subsequent confirmation of that disgust (“There is no place to cross the mountains”) is from Roe, p. 53. “The entering wedge” comes from the always inventively metaphorical Seattle Times, as quoted in Armbruster, p. 49.
The characteristic Hill quotation about “Swedes and whiskey” is cited in Schwantes, p. 133. (NB: The quotation is rendered in some sources as “Give me snuff, Swedes, and whiskey …”)
The second part of this chapter draws on the four main biographies of James J. Hill. The earliest—Joseph Gilpin Pyle’s two-volume The Life of James J. Hill (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page, 1917)—was written by a Hill employee, most of it while the old man was still alive, and is thus about as unbiased as a corporate press release, which it sometimes resembles. Stuart Holbrook’s James J. Hill: A Great Life in Brief (New York: Knopf, 1955) is highly enjoyable to read, but it relies heavily on the substantial body of Hill apocrypha and is not entirely authoritative. By far the most detailed and exhaustive modern biography is James J. Hill and the Opening of the Northwest by Albro Martin (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), although its revisionist disdain for the old “robber baron” view of megacapitalists like Hill may carry the pendulum a bit too far in the opposite direction. Finally, Michael Malone’s more recent James J. Hill: Empire Builder of the Northwest (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma, 1996) is brief but extremely useful, and probably the most objective of them all.
“The shaggy-bearded, barb-wired” description of Hill is by Holbrook, though in his The Story of American Railroads, p. 173, not his biography. (NB: About Hill’s genius, Grover Cleveland once said, “I am perfectly sure that I have never known a man who was at once familiar with so many big things and who also had the gift of carrying about and remembering what most men in his position would deem too small for their attention,” quoted by George F. Parker in McClure’s, April 1909, p. 577.)
An important source for information about the plotting and building of the GN’s Pacific extension is The Great Northern Railway: A Pictorial Study by Charles and Dorothy Wood.
“What we want is the best possible line” is cited ubiquitously in the Hill literature, but for the record can be found on p. 366 of Albro Martin. The claim of Marias Pass as the lowest Rockies crossing of any transcontinental comes from “How Great Northern Conquered the Cascades” by D.W. McLaughlin (Great Northern Railway Historical Society Reference Sheet No. 213, March 1994, p. 2). When evaluating Stevens’s claim as “rediscoverer” of the Marias Pass (which had allegedly been “lost” for decades after its original discovery in 1840), it’s worth taking note of a letter in the Stevens Papers, addressed to Stevens from the GN’s chief engineer, E. H. Beckler, that all but tells the younger man where to find it (E. H. Beckler to John F. Stevens, November 23, 1889, John F. Stevens Papers, Georgetown University Library, Washington, DC).
“The process of reconnaissance for a railway line” is from John F. Stevens’s address given at the dedication ceremonies for the opening of the second Cascade Tunnel (Dedication and Opening of the New Cascade Tunnel: A Monument to James J. Hill [Great Northern Railway Company, 1929]). (It’s interesting to note that Stevens Pass was so named despite the fact that the actual legwork involved in finding it had been done by the engineer’s assistant, Charles Haskell.)
NB: The route selection of a railroad is critical since an increase in grade of just 1 percent—i.e., a rise of roughly fifty feet to the mile—nearly triples the amount of pulling power required to move a cargo.
Thomas Burke’s oratory on how Hill changed the Northwest is cited in Armbruster, p. 180. Schwantes’s somewhat ironic offering about the “twin ribbons of iron or steel” is from p. 96 of his Railway Signatures. The rather stunningly honest admission about “the weakest link in our transportation chain” was made by GN vice president G. L. Gilman in his banquet address at the New Cascade Tunnel ceremony (Dedication, p. 9). And Stevens’s claim about the virgin quality of his eponymous pass (“There was no evidence whatever”) comes from On Reconnaissance for the Great Northern: Letters of C. F. B. Haskell, 1889–91, edited by Daniel C. Haskell (New York: New York Public Library, 1948), p. 29.
The excerpt at the head of the chapter—“Dear Mother & all of you”—is from the Topping letter, p. 1.
Details, quotation (“I was born”), and dialogue (“Good morning, Porter,” etc.) concerning Lewis Jesseph’s activities on February 23 are from his memoir, p. 176. Henry White’s movements on Wednesday morning from his court testimony (CIT, pp. 94 and 127ff). The description of Cascade Tunnel Station and the beanery draws principally from Ruby El Hult, pp. 11-14, and from recollections of telegrapher Warren Tanguy as recounted in the ST of November 15, 1959, pp. 2-3. (NB: Hult and other sources have the names of the cook and his waiter reversed and slightly different as “Henry Elliker” and “John Olson”; however, the names used here come from an official coroner’s document as reported in WDW of March 22.) “It was a dirty hole” from the Topping letter, p. 4.
Excerpt from Sarah Jane Covington’s diary Information about Alfred B. Hensel from “Alfred B. Hensel, Wellington Survivor” in the Seattle Genealogical Society Bulletin, vol. 48, no. 3 (Spring 1999), and from his superior court testimony (SCT, pp. 5-40 and 67-93). The anecdote about his rehearsal of mail-sorting skills comes from a 2004 interview with his daughter Dolores Hensel Yates by the author.
For information about the Railway Mail Service I am principally indebted to Mail by Rail: The Story of the Postal Transportation Service by Bryant Alden Long with William Jefferson Dennis (New York: Simmons-Boardman, 1951) as well as Moody, pp. 17-23, and Holmquist.
O’Neill’s telegram to E. L. Brown dated February 23 is from the Robert Kelly collection.
Particulars about the difficulties encountered by rotary snowplow X807 come from the superior court testimony of Homer Purcell (SCT, pp. 665-78), various telegrams from the Kelly collection, and “The Movement of Rotaries,” p. 3. “Will not run any trains” is from O’Neill’s telegram of 9:30 A.M., February 23.
“SIX TRAINS STALLED” is from the ST, February 23.
“It’s 1:00 P.M.” is from the Topping letter, p. 5. Details about Ida Starrett and her family come mainly from the ST of March 3, Ruby El Hult, p. 4, and from a front-page article on the Starretts in the SIH of March 3. The $500 settlement of the Starrett case is outlined in a letter from D. H. Kimball to J. D. Armstrong dated March 29 (GN Legal Department Files, George Fischer Collection of the Museum of History and Industry, Seattle). Loveberry’s comment about the tunnel (“It was draughty and dirty”) was made in his superior court testimony (SCT, p. 780), while Wright’s (“the dirtiest, blackest hole”) is from his coroner’s inquest testimony (CIT, p. 114).
For the history of the Cascade switchbacks and the first Cascade Tunnel, see Charles and Dorothy Wood, pp. 132-34, and “The Pacific Extension and Cascade Switchbacks” by W. C. Hartranft. “A miracle of engineering” from Hartranft:, p. 5. “Every railroad man’s nightmare” from Malone, p. 147. According to a published GN guide to the switchbacks, the safety of the switchbacks was a result of the railroad’s much-heralded devotion to detail: “It will be noticed that most careful examination is made of every part of the train before the ascent is commenced. Every wheel and truck, all air brake mechanisms, signals, etc., are thoroughly inspected so as to guard against the possibility of accident” (as quoted in Hartranft, p. 7).
On the building and early operations difficulties of the Cascade Tunnel, see another Hartranft work, “The First Cascade Tunnel” (Great Northern Railway Historical Society Reference Sheet No. 175, March 1991), as well as McLaughlin (p. 6ff) and Ralph Hidy et al., The Great Northern Railway: A History (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1988), pp. 168-71. The quote about workers “standing at the bar” is from Sherlock, p. 5. “The wickedest town on earth” is cited in Hult, p. 13. (NB: The opening of the tunnel eliminated 8.5 miles of track distance, almost 1,400 feet of elevation [700 up and 700 down], and 2,332 degrees of curvature—the equivalent of six and a half complete circles. It also cut scheduled running times for most trains through the pass by about two hours.)
The reference to the longer tunnel in Switzerland is from Hartranft, “The First Cascade Tunnel,” p. 5, as is the quotation “If Mr. Hill still [refuses]” (p. 10). “You couldn’t see for the smoke” is from the Tanguy interview in the ST of November 15, 1959, pp. 2-3. “Many a hobo stole his last ride” is from Sherlock, p. 4. (NB: The GN tried to address the smoke situation by fitting out engines with curved smokestack extensions, using a special grade of clean-burning coal, and supplying gas masks for all engine crews.)
The best source for the electrification of the tunnel is When the Steam Railroads Electrified, revised second edition, by William D. Middleton (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001), pp. 155-65. “You can put your hand on the wall” is from O’Neill’s testimony in SCT, p. 597.
The creation of a double rotary at Cascade Tunnel station is corroborated in “Movement of Rotaries,” p. 2. And Topping’s envoi—“It’s now nine”—is from the Topping letter, p. 6.
M. O. White’s testimony at the head of the chapter is from SCT, p. 625.
Information about telegraphers Flannery and Avery are from their court affidavits (Wenatchee Valley Museum); Sherlock’s details from his “Reminiscences.”
The account of Wednesday’s difficulties on the line come principally from telegrams in the Robert Kelly collection, particularly the telegram of 4:50 P.M., February 24, from O’Neill to G. W. Turner, and from Purcell’s court testimony (SCT, pp. 665-71). Though the GN would later vehemently deny having too little coal on the mountain, the quoted telegram from O’Neill to Turner of 1:45 P.M., February 23, speaks for itself. The missed delivery of coal is cited in a letter from D. H. Kimball, GN general claim agent, to J. D. Armstrong, assistant general solicitor, dated March 4 (GN Legal Department Files). The fact that the rotaries would be forced to recoal at Skykomish comes from a telegram from O’Neill to Turner sent at 1:40 P.M., February 24.
The troubles experienced by the other railroads with Cascade crossings are cited in the ST of February 23 and 24 and the SIH of February 24. The performance of The Merchant of Venice was reported in the ST of February 24. Washington State’s flirtation with cigarette prohibition is recounted in Cassandra Tate, “Cigarette Prohibition in Washington, 1893-1911,” published on the excellent Web site www.HistoryLink.org. See also Tate’s Cigarette Wars: The Triumph of “The Little White Slaver” (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999).
O’Neill’s optimistic prediction about the opening of the line comes from the telegram of 2:50 A.M., February 24, from O’Neill to Watrous et al. The somewhat less optimistic report that followed (“If anything, it is snowing harder”) is from the telegram of 8:00 A.M., February 24, also from O’Neill to Watrous et al. “O’Neill has won the fight of his life” is from the SPI of February 24.
The section-break excerpt from the Topping letter—“This makes 30 hours here in this spot”—is from pp. 6-7.
“The flakes became larger and heavier” is from Jesseph, p. 176, which also takes note of the food shortage at the beanery (p. 177). “They say it has snowed 13 ft” from the Covington transcript, which also describes the digging out of the roundhouse and the two horn-playing boys. Her success at telegraphing Melmoth was reported in the SIH of March 2. The ultimate outcome of Merritt and Jesseph’s supreme court trial as reported in Jesseph, p. 177. Thelma Davis as the pet of the train comes from the SSR of March 3. Ned Topping’s business advice to his father is from Topping, p. 8. “We visited from coach to coach” is from an interview with Rogers published in the SPI of March 2. Information about the Grays, the Lemmans, J. R. Vail, and Catherine O’Reilly are from Hult, passim, and from various newspaper accounts (including the SSR of March 4 and the SDC of March 2). Further quotes from Topping, pp. 9-10.
“Look for Nos 25 + 27” is from a telegram of 4:45 P.M., February 24.
O’Neill’s participation in the efforts to free the trains at Cascade Tunnel was described in his own court testimony (SCT, p. 515ff) and in the inquest testimony of George Loveberry (CIT, p. 237). “In two minutes” is from the ST of March 6. The story about James J. Hill shoveling snow is from Holbrook, Hill, p. 3.
For the GN’s cult of personality, see John Kimberly Mumford, “This Land of Opportunity,” in the October 31, 1908, edition of Harper’s Weekly, e.g., p. 21: “The longer you remain in contact with the Great Northern Railway, the more clearly you find revealed at every turn the characteristics of Hill. … It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the men who help him run his railroad come to think his thoughts and be in most respects echoes of his large individuality.” Similarly, see John Moody and George Kibbe Turner: “The Masters of Capital in America,” McClure’s (vol. 36, no. 2, December 1910), p. 130. O’Neill’s status as Hill’s favorite conductor (as well as the quotation “He does not sit in his private car”) comes from the ST of March 6.
The loss of power in the tunnel as testified in court by Walter Vogel (SCT, p. 640) and in a court affidavit by C. E. Andrews in the GN Legal Department files (Museum of History and Industry). The Thursday evening situation at Wellington as described in O’Neill’s court testimony and in relevant telegrams. The two coal cars being pulled up the mountain by rotary X808 were reported in a telegram of 11:50 P.M., February 24, from O’Neill to Watrous et al. The freeing of trains at Skykomish and Scenic as reported in telegrams and in the joint affidavit of Dowling, Mackey, and Tegtmeier, which also describes the motivation for leaving the X807 on the coal-chute track. The use of coal from idle locomotives as described in a later telegram from O’Neill to H. A. Kennedy, dated March 4-6.
O’Neill’s decision to go west with the double rotary on Thursday evening is from his court testimony (SCT, p. 524ff).
“24th of Feb. at night” comes from the Covington transcript.
The arrival of trains Nos. 25 and 27 at Wellington as reported in the Devery diary, an interview with Edward Sweeney by Ruby El Hult dated May 22, 1957 (Ruby El Hult Papers), and court testimony. Topping notes the snow gauge in the letter to his mother, p. 10, from which the later quotations also come. The dining room at Bailets was described in an interview with Mrs. Scott Holmes by Ruby El Hult (Ruby El Hult Papers) and in an article in the SS of March 8.
The layout of Wellington is described in “The Lost Communities of Stevens Pass” (Seattle Genealogical Society Bulletin, Spring 1999), pp. 109-12, and from plans of Wellington reprinted in Charles Wood’s Lines West (New York: Bonanza Books, 1967), p. 117, and Charles and Dorothy Wood, p. 185. Distance to Scenic comes from the GN’s Cascade Division Schedule No. 68, in effect March 1, 1910. The rocking of coaches and blowing of snow onto the slope above the trains as described by A. B. Hensel in SCT, pp. 28-29.
The opening quotation—“Too high for forest trees”—is from the ST of January 13, 1929 (on the eve of the town’s abandonment).
Sherlock refers to Wellington as “the end of the world” in his “Reminiscences,” pp. 2 and 5. “As wild a town as any” comes from an article, “Brakeman of the Great Northern,” by Victor H. White (Frontier Times, August-September 1970), p. 10.
Railway mileage figures come from Stover, Atlas, p. 52. Railroad employment figures are cited in Sayings and Writings About the Railways (New York: Railway Age Gazette, 1913), p. 12. “An eminently locomotive people” from James Bryce’s ever-brilliant The American Commonwealth, edited by Louis M. Hacker (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1959 edition), vol. 2, p. 444. “Only one organization” from Andrew Carnegie and the Rise of Big Business by Harold C. Livesay (Boston: Little, Brown, 1975), p. 33. For more on the topic of how the railroads essentially invented modern business structures, see two works by Alfred D. Chandler: The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business (Cambridge: Belknap-Harvard University Press, 1977) and The Railroad: America’s First Big Business (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1965).
The discussion of the organization of a steam railroad division draws principally on The American Railway, p. 185ff, and Nicholas Faith’s The World the Railways Made (New York: Carroll & Graf, 1990), pp. 210-28 (with thanks to David Sprau, retired dispatcher, for extra input). In the interest of concision, my account ignores the functions of traffic manager (in charge of soliciting freight and passengers for the railroad) and station agents and yardmasters (in charge of individual stations and rail yards). Freud’s dreams of becoming an engineer are mentioned in Faith, p. 219. The cited unwritten law of railroading comes from a superb memoir by Herbert Hamblen: The General Manager’s Story (New York: Macmillan, 1898; reprinted by Literature House, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 1970), p. 296. The rivalry between conductors and engineers is illuminated in Walter Licht’s extremely useful Working for the Railroad: The Organization of Work in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983). Another useful source is Railroad Conductor by Fred A. Winkler (Spokane: Pacific Book Company, 1948). The quotation on the fireman’s blackness is from B. B. Adams in The American Railway, p. 422. “What’re brakemen for” is from Hamblen, p. 17. The average brakeman’s shortage of fingers as per Licht, p. 184.
Fatality rate for rail yards in the 1870s, along with the switchman’s quotation (“for the express purpose of wrapping up my mangled remains”), from Richard Reinhardt’s Workin on the Railroad: Reminiscences from the Age of Steam (Palo Alto: American West Publishing, 1970), p. 274-75. The 1907 injury statistic from Schwantes, p. 107. “A miserable living” comes from Hamblen, p. 52. The railroad labor surplus in most areas of the country (except the South) as per Licht, p. 64ff.
“It becomes absolutely necessary” from Hamblen, p. 131. “There was plenty of kidding” from Sherlock, pp. 9 and 5. The stories about Bob Harley, Bailets and the turkey, and the kangaroo court are from Sherlock, pp. 5-10, as is the quotation “Many times Superintendent J. H. O’Neill.” Details about everyday life in Wellington (sledding, the mythical Wah-too-tie) come from the Sherlock memoir. Hill’s famous comparison of a passenger train to “a male teat” is cited in H. Roger Grant’s We Took the Train (Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1990), p. xiii.
The opening quotation—“Two Men Perish in Snow Slides”—is from the EDH of February 25.
The 10:00 A.M. rising was recorded in the Covington diary. “It was some mountain all right” from White’s court testimony (SCT, p. 97). Morning weather conditions as recorded in the Devery Operations Diary entry for 6:00 A.M. Details of the beanery slide and its location are from the inquest testimony of O’Neill and William Harrington (CIT, pp. 47 and 149).
“Some of the women became hysterical” is from Jesseph, p. 172. “Glad we moved” and “Perched on the side of a mountain” from Topping, p. 11. The condition of the mountainsides around Wellington is derived principally from Bailets’s testimony (CIT, p. 341). On the fearfulness of the ladies, see also Thompson and White testimony (CIT, pp. 377, 418-19). The quotation from W. V. Avery is from his court affidavit, p. 4. Lucius Anderson’s testimony is from CIT, pp. 238-39. Bailets’s announcement is as reported by A. B. Hensel in his memoir published in the SSR of February 12, 1950. (Bailets, however, would later claim that he had seen more snow on the mountain—CIT, p. 340).
The description of digging out the buried dining hall at Cascade Tunnel Station is from the Warren Tanguy article in the ST of November 15, 1959.
The rising temperatures on Thursday were recorded in the Devery diary. Jill Fredston cites the ability of wind to accelerate the deposit of snow in Snowstruck: In the Grip of Avalanches (New York: Harcourt, 2005), p. 229. O’Neill’s wiring of coroner Saunders as per the WDW of February 25. The two coastal-line wrecks as reported in the SIH of February 26. The story of the 1907 snowslide incident is related in McLaughlin, p. 6.
The bogging down and freeing of X801 as described in “Movement of Rotaries,” p. 4.
The coming of the extra rotary from the Rockies was reported in the Leavenworth Echo of February 25. Details about the two relief trains come from the EDH of February 25 and two telegrams dated 9:35 A.M. (from E. L. Brown to O’Neill) and 4:30 P.M. (from O’Neill to Watrous et al.). Information about the usual duration of Cascade storms, plus the number of snowy days per season, is from the superior court testimony of O’Neill (SCT, p. 492ff) and of John Calder (SCT, p. 367).
The necessity of plundering the coal tanks of the X807 and the spare engine as cited in the Duncan affidavit. Turner’s efforts to buy coal as described in a February 23 telegram from Turner to O’Neill marked 7:26 A.M.
“The first I heard of any dissatisfaction” is from CIT, p. 416.
The success of several passengers in telegraphing home as described by William Flannery (CIT, pp. 394-95) and the Covington diary. The story of Libby Latsch’s smoking comes from the Topping letter, p. 9. “A good many of the passengers on this train are the smart set” and “Quite a number play cards” are from letters from Sarah Jane Covington to her husband and children, while the quotations about Frederik van Eeden are from her diary. Details about Charles Eltinge come from the SSR of March 3. Merritt’s account of the story is from his inquest testimony (CIT, pp. 260-61), from which his three quotations come. Merritt’s acquaintance with O’Neill as reported in Jesseph’s memoir, p. 172. Henry White’s account of sending Longcoy to summon O’Neill is from his inquest testimony (CIT, p. 421).
(NB: There is some confusion in the court testimony and other accounts about exactly when the various meetings of passengers took place. White seems to have been present at the three principal meetings, so I have given greater weight to his recollection of their order and import. Also, several newspaper reports, as well as Jesseph’s memoir, would later claim—implausibly—that the railroad initially wanted to put the trains in the tunnel and that the passengers refused, for fear of being trapped. The preponderance of later testimonial evidence, however, is decisive in debunking this particular story.)
“There was not any question of slides at that time” is from Merritt’s inquest testimony (CIT, p. 261). Jesseph’s testimony (CIT, p. 272) concurs. “They made the argument” from White’s testimony (CIT, p. 420). Similarly, “There did not seem to be any of us who had any previous experience in snowslides” is from CIT, p. 421.
“We waited for Mr. O’Neill” from White (CIT, p. 421). E. W. Boles (also identified as Bowles in some sources) mentions the rotaries throwing snow onto the train in his inquest testimony (CIT, p. 160). “Nothing doing,” from the Topping letter, p. 12.
“I think the railroad men believed we would” from CIT, p. 462.
(NB: Although some crewmen were later to testify in the superior court trial that the mission of the X801 was to clear the line all the way to Leavenworth, that assertion is contradicted by several witnesses in the earlier coroner’s inquest—such as J. J. Mackey [CIT, p. 74]—and by common sense. O’Neill desperately needed coal and could have no reasonable expectation that a single rotary could reach Leavenworth under current conditions. The likely explanation for the discrepancy in testimony is that by the time of the superior court trial, the GN did not wish to emphasize the shortage of coal at Wellington and so had instructed their employees to obscure the true mission of the X801.)
The Roman gladiator description of Harrington is from the ST of March 7. His history and his assessment of the storm are from his inquest testimony (CIT, pp. 130-40). I am also indebted to Martin Burwash for census information about the Snow King. Harrington’s transfer of the extra engine from No. 25 to his own rotary train as described in superior court testimony (SCT, p. 532).
“Snow is one of the most complex materials found in nature” is from The Avalanche Book (Golden, CO: Fulcrum, 1986) by Betsy Armstrong and Knox Williams.
Meath’s testimony—“Had you a chance to get a meal”—from SCT, pp. 688-89.
The clearing of the second slide at Snowshed 3.3 as reported in “Movement of Rotaries” and by O’Neill in SCT, p. 527. The X808 left Scenic at 3:00 P.M. Friday according to a telegram from O’Neill to Watrous et al. dated 11:45 P.M. on February 25.
“Hello there, Bill” was recounted by Loveberry, CIT, p. 466. The fight at the tavern as per Topping, p. 13. Assistant roadmaster Thomas Mclntyre confirms that most Cascade avalanches were the type that come down in draws or gulches in his inquest testimony (CIT, p. 307). Snowshed 2 was 800-900 feet long, versus 700-800 feet for train No. 25 (O’Neill, SCT, p. 560). A good summary of why the spur tracks would have been a bad place for the trains was given by F. E. Weymouth, NP Seattle Division superintendent, in his inquest testimony (CIT, p. 499ff). According to O’Neill (SCT, pp. 527-28), digging out the tracks would have required thirty to thirty-five men, each putting in ten to twenty hours of work time. The 6:00 A.M. weather conditions at Wellington are from the Devery Operations Diary. The dimensions of the third slide at Snowshed 3.3 as per O’Neill in CIT, p. 9.
“Saturday—noon” is from Topping, p. 13.
Specifics on the interactions among the children aboard the Seattle Express are derived from the handwritten notes of a 1957 interview with Raymond Starrett conducted by Ruby El Hult (Ruby El Hult Papers). Although some latter-day Wellington accounts depict Thelma Davis’s mother as dead in 1910, newspaper articles in the SSR of March 12 and the SS of March 3 indicate otherwise. The various attempts by adults to amuse the children with snowball fights, sewing circles, tap dances, and the like come principally from the Starrett interview (where he describes Lucius Anderson as “jolly”) and from the inquest testimony of Henry White (CIT, pp. 430-35).
The conversations between White and Longcoy and between White and Pettit are reported in White’s inquest and court testimony (CIT, pp. 421 and 437; SCT, p. 133). Longcoy’s lie about O’Neill’s illness is reported in CIT, p. 448. Jesseph’s conversation with the mountaineers is mentioned in his memoir, p. 177, while the overheard conversation with Bailets is from Jesseph’s testimony (CIT, p. 272).
In a postavalanche letter to Mrs. Covington’s son Luther, Anna Gray admits that she and Ada Lemman were the two women who spent much of the time crying and requiring reassurance (letter to L. J. Covington from Mrs. Anna Gray, dated March 18, Covington/Brokaw collection). Details about Ada Lemman come from the SSR of March 4. “On Saturday the strain became too great” from the Spokane Daily Chronicle of March 2. Hensel describes seeing the departing shovelers in his superior court testimony (SCT, p. 35). “They bade us goodbye as they walked along” from CIT, p. 448. “One or two of them told me if he worked a week” from CIT, pp. 443-44. “Those men will make a pretty good trail” as quoted by White (CIT, p. 448). “The feeling prevailed” from CIT, pp. 448-49.
The 8:00 P.M. telegram is from the Robert Kelly collection.
Details about the movements of rotary X801 from Ira Clary’s superior court testimony (SCT, pp. 698-700) and from the “Movement of Rotaries” document, p. 5.
The picking up of the wind on the west slope as recorded in the Devery Operations Diary entry for 6:00 P.M. “When the wind was blowing its hardest…” is from the Funderburk affidavit, p. 28. J. C. Wright’s description of rotary operation is from his superior court testimony (SCT, p. 382). “The progress was so slow” is from the Funderburk affidavit, p. 27. O’Neill complains about the shovelers in his telegram to E. L. Brown of 4:30 P.M., February 26. The low wages paid by the GN as discussed in W. Thomas White’s “A History of Railroad Workers in the Pacific Northwest, 1883-1934” (Ph.D. diss., University of Washington, 1981), p. 165. Prices paid to extra gangs also specified in the GN Corporate Office Diaries for February 8 (GN Corporate Papers, General Manager Files, Minnesota Historical Society). The encounter with the new slide at Snowshed 2.2 as described in “Movement of Rotaries,” p. 4, and the E. S. Duncan affidavit, p. 1. (There is some confusion in various sources over whether the shed in question was 2.1 or 2.2.1 have chosen to go with the description as cited in the “Movement of Rotaries” document.) The forty-eight-hour estimate for clearing the slide at Snowshed 2.2 comes from the combined affidavit of Dowling, Mackey, and Tegtmeier, p. 3. The surrender of the double rotary as described in O’Neill’s superior court testimony (SCT, p. 535).
O’Neill’s admission—“That was the night that tied us up”—can be found in CIT, p. 414.
The Lemmans are described in a newspaper article in the SSR of March 4. “Mr. Lemman came back” from CIT, p. 250. The account of the Saturday evening meeting in the observation car comes mainly from the inquest testimony of witnesses who survived (CIT, pp. 227, 250, 426, and 461). “With that refusal” from CIT, p. 250. “If they burned up the coal” from CIT, p. 228. “I did all I could to keep down any protest” is from CIT, p. 275. “Everyone who was on the trains was in a state of quandary” is from CIT, p. 461. The Topping quotation—“If I ever make this [indecipherable] trip again”—comes from his letter, p. 13.
“He is a calculating machine” as quoted in Armbruster, p. 178.
A good overview of the transportation difficulties being caused by this storm in the entire Northwest can be found in a front-page illustration in the Chicago Tribune of March 2. Louis Hill’s departure on Saturday night for a six-week vacation was recorded in the GN President’s Files (GN Corporate Records 132.C.5.2F and 132.C.5.3B, Minnesota Historical Society) and telegram book (132.C.20.33, Nos. 189 and 194). Correspondence from Hill Sr. during Louis’s absence, which normally would have been filed in the Chairman’s Letterbook, was instead filed in the President’s Letterbook. For the seven major railroad groups at this time (of which the Hill Roads was one), see John F. Stover, American Railroads (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), p. 135ff. Trackage statistics and the quotation “If the three [Hill] lines were placed end to end” from an unsigned article on Hill in Current Literature, January 1907, pp. 39-40. Hill’s latter-day national prominence is well described in Albro Martin, James J. Hill, p. 525ff. For a more skeptical view of Hill’s standing as an agricultural and economic guru, see Claire Strom, Profiting from the Plains: The Great Northern Railway and Corporate Development of the West (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003). Strom claims that many of the practices for which Hill proselytized in his later years were anachronistic and unsound.
“Any railroad man was popular” from Reinhardt, p. 97. Wiebe’s analysis of railroad alienation is from The Search for Order, p. 53. The account of railroad owners as “buccaneers” is from Peter Lyon’s passionate jeremiad, To Hell in a Day Coach: An Exasperated Look at American Railroads (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1968), p. 17. Holbrook calls the railroad barons “men of average morals and principals but very great abilities” in Story, p. 10. ‘A vast power” comes from Frank Norris, The Octopus (1901; reprint: New York: Signet, 1981), p. 42.
For more background on the Granger Laws, see Stover, Atlas, pp. 46-47, and Holbrook, Story, p. 12 and pp. 231-43. For a good account of later federal attempts at regulation, see Schwantes, Railroad Signatures, p. 102ff, and Gordon, p. 278ff. “Hoh, yes, the Interstate Commerce Commission” is from Norris, p. 79. Hill’s characterization of regulations as the work of “doctrinaires” as quoted in Malone, p. 200. “It really seems hard” as quoted in Albro Martin, James J. Hill, p. 494.
For this discussion of the Northern Securities case, I’ve drawn principally on Albro Martin, James J. Hill, Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris (New York: Random House, 2001), Richard Hofstadter’s The Age of Reform: From Bryan to F. D.R. (1955; reprint: New York: Vintage Books, 1960), and Mowry. “The conscience of business had to be aroused” as quoted in Page Smith’s America Enters the World: A People’s History of the Progressive Era and World War I (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1985), p. 184. The New York Times of May 31, 1916, referred to Hill as “the Moses of the Northwestern Wilderness.” The fact that Northern Securities would have been second in size to U.S. Steel is according to Morris, pp. 59-61. “God made the world” from Life magazine (not to be confused with Henry Luce’s later, similarly named enterprise), January 24, 1902. Hill’s comment about “gilded flunkies” is from Albro Martin, James J. Hill, p. 519.
Hill’s obsession with the Northern Securities case as per Malone, p. 222. “The three railroads are still there” is cited in Morris, p. 316. Albro Martin expresses his belief in Roosevelt’s disingenuousness in his biography of Hill, pp. 513-15. “To feel at last that the President” from Hofstadter, p. 237. “Uncle Sam in the fireman’s seat” comes from Armbruster, p. 181. Morgan’s droll comment—“I trust some lion”—is ubiquitously quoted in the literature on the era, as in Wiebe, p. 215. Taft actually called Hill to the White House to consult on his cabinet selections, according to Judith Icke Anderson, William Howard Taft: An Intimate History (New York: Norton, 1981), p. 209. “A platter of mush, a jellyfish” is from Albro Martin’s biography, p. 599.
“Their strike is a modern repetition” comes from the SUR of February 12.
Among the other things Hill had on his plate at this time was his battle with the railroad interests of the recently deceased E. H. Harriman over an extension down the Deschutes Canyon in Oregon, a line that could eventually give Hill a much-needed entry point into California. John F. Stevens was even then operating in the area, discreetly procuring properties under the very cloak-and-dagger code name of “Proteus.” (See Hill’s letter to Stevens, dated May 30, in the Hill Personal Papers, St. Paul; see also Albro Martin, James J. Hill, pp. 566-67 and Hidy, pp. 95-96. Stevens’s code name of “Proteus” is used in telegrams in the Hill Personal Papers.)
The looming firemen’s strike as per newspaper reports, e.g., the SPI of March 14 and 15 (the strike was later averted).
Details of the 1909-10 switchmen’s strike are from contemporary reports in WDW, SSR, NYT, and SUR. “We will fight” is from the WDW of November 30, 1909. “We are getting in better shape every hour” is from the NYT of December 5, 1909. The armed clash in Leavenworth was reported in the WDW of February 7, 1910. Hill’s quotation about “the high cost of living” is from the WDW of January 29. The GN’s most profitable year ever as reported in the Great Northern Railway Company’s annual report for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1910, p. 13.
The GN’s reputation for low wages and other ungenerous practices is corroborated in White, “History,” p. 165, and Hidy, p. 144. According to William G. McAdoo, the director general of railroads during the federal takeover of the railroads after the First World War, railroad wages were “a long-standing national disgrace” (Lyon, pp. 142-43).
“Organized labor is socialistic” is quoted in W. Thomas White, “A Gilded Age Businessman in Politics: James J. Hill, the Northwest, and the American Presidency, 1884-1912” (Pacific Historical Review, no. 57 [November 1989]), p. 447. Hill’s philosophy about wages and salaries comes from Hidy, p. 136. Hill’s comment “Why should I have to pay a fireman” is cited in Phillip Dunne, ed., Mr. Dooley Remembers: The Informal Memoirs of Finley Peter Dunne (Boston, 1963), pp. 201-2 (as noted in Morris, Theodore Rex, p. 484).
The description of the 1894 strike against the Great Northern draws on accounts from Lyon, p. 108ff; Hidy, p. 109ff; Malone, p. 155ff; and Albro Martin’s biography, p. 415ff. “It would be a fitting climax” as quoted in Martin, p. 416.
The press committee’s accusations were aired in the SUR editions of March 3 and 12. Gruber and Emerson’s departure as per Office Diaries (GN Corporate Records, Minnesota Historical Society) and various telegrams in the Robert Kelly collection.
The opening quote—“PASSENGERS ARE STILL HELD FAST”—is from the EDH of February 28.
Details about the Reverend James M. Thomson come from the EDH of March 7. “Quite a number present” is from the Covington diary. The “rough-looking fellow” is described by porter Adolph Smith in the SPI of March 8. “It helped those in need” from “Pull Back to the Tunnel!” by Howard E. Jackson (undated, unidentified magazine clipping in the archives of the Wenatchee Valley Museum). The reasons for O’Neill’s trip to Scenic on Sunday morning are principally from his own court testimony (CIT, p. 58, and SCT, p. 546). The trek of the X801 crew back from Gaynor was described by Clary in his court testimony (SCT, pp. 698-702), from which his quotation comes.
“Everybody was making suggestions” from CIT, p. 426. The scene with Libby Latsch was related by White in CIT, p. 425. The conversation between Solomon Cohen and Antony Blomeke as related in Blomeke’s court affidavit. “His chances with the kid would have been poor” as quoted in Jackson, p. 44. The negotiation with the trapper Schwartz (who in some documents is referred to as Swartz) comes from Merritt’s inquest testimony (CIT, p. 276).
The transfer of coal from the Fast Mail to the Seattle Express is described in the court testimony of numerous people (CIT, p. 223; SCT, pp. 67, 155, and 628) and in the Sweeney affidavit. “I did not figure that they would open that track for three or four weeks,” from CIT, p. 265. “We had a March term of court on at home,” from CIT, p. 272. Merritt’s account of the nicknaming banter among the passengers comes mainly from his inquest testimony (CIT, p. 267). “All the passengers on the train laughed at us” was reported in the SDC of March 2, while the actual begging of passengers is as per the ST of February 28. “We returned to the train” from Jesseph, p. 177.
The quoted Q&A—“Yes sir, we had considerable difficulty”—is from CIT, p. 59.
The fact that O’Neill slept only one night between Tuesday and Saturday comes from his own testimony (CIT, p. 51, and SCT, p. 538). “I told them I would not pay it” and other details about the walkout of gangmen are from O’Neill’s inquest testimony (CIT, pp. 66-68). The story of O’Neill and the three armed men comes from the profile of the superintendent in the ST of March 6.
Details of weather and trail conditions on O’Neill’s journey to Scenic come principally from CIT, pp. 24, 64-65 (“He [Churchill] broke trail a little ways”). Big Jerry’s fall is described in CIT, pp. 102-3 and in an article quoting Merritt in the SSR of March 3 (from which comes the description “a giant… broad as a barn door”).
The Merritt quotation—“That was the most thrilling experience of my life”—is quoted in the WDW of March 4.
The narrative of Jesseph and Merritt’s hike down the mountain is based on their coroner’s inquest testimony and on Jesseph’s memoir in Confluence. Milton Horn’s letter to his mother was printed in its entirety in the WDW of March 14. “The snow was wet and heavy” and “Silently, we stood” from Jesseph, p. 177.
Loveberry’s determination to continue is cited in CIT, p. 264. (Sources conflict on whether the hikers heard about Big Jerry’s fall while on the trail or only after they’d reached Scenic. Jesseph’s memoir, for instance, has the group hearing about it from O’Neill at the Scenic Hot Springs Hotel. Here, however, as elsewhere, I have given priority to inquest testimony over a later memoir.) “Feeling pretty sad” from the SSR of March 3. Merritt’s quotation—“We could look up the mountain as far as we could see”—is from CIT, p. 264. The linemen’s warning about “instant death” is from the WDW of March 4. “Slides that fell after we had passed” is quoted in the WDW of March 3. “We drew our overcoats between our legs,” “thumping drinks,” and “Here’s to happier days” from Jesseph, p. 178.
The arrival of the relief train at Scenic was recorded in Devery’s diary entry for 9:30 P.M. on February 27. Big Jerry’s avalanche story was told in the SSR of March 3. The attempt to get a message back to “Colonel Cody” (i.e., R. H. Bethel) is described throughout the inquest testimony (CIT, pp. 233, 267-68, 285); a copy of the handwritten original is in the Robert Kelly telegram collection. “After a long delay” is from Jesseph, p. 178. That the news of the slide reached them in Vancouver is cited in a letter from Jesseph’s brother, Ward Jesseph, to Ruby El Hult dated August 11, 1957 (Ruby El Hult Papers).
Devery Operations Diary excerpt—“Cas. Tunnel reports worst day we have had so far”—is from the 4:30 P.M. entry for February 27.
At least one writer—Ruby El Hult—has expressed doubt about the reliability of the Sherlock memoir in which these scenes are described. Certainly Sherlock makes many claims throughout the memoir that seem dubious at best and absurdly self-serving at worst. In a letter filed at the Washington State Historical Society Library in Tacoma, Hult casts doubt on whether this scene between Sherlock and dispatcher Johnson (and the subsequent one between Sherlock and Blackburn) even took place, noting that the telegraph wires were down on Sunday. However, the Devery diary indicates that the wires to Wellington were back in service by late Sunday afternoon, and the telegram Sherlock cites, as stated in the text, does exist in the Robert Kelly collection (though its date is illegible). For reasons mentioned in the text, therefore, I have given Sherlock’s account of the events themselves some credence, though I do not entirely accept his alleged prescience with regard to the imminent danger of a slide.
“We both walked down the track” is from Sherlock, p. 13. “I assume Mr. O’Neill said leave the train where it was” from Sherlock, p. 14. “A lady borrowed a phonograph” is from the Covington diary. Mrs. Covington’s efforts to comfort Anna Gray and Ada Lemman are cited in the letter from Gray to Luther Covington. “It was getting warmer” from CIT, p. 255. “An enormous cap of snow” as quoted in the WDW of March 4. “It didn’t look to me that there was any safe place there” from CIT, p. 466. “I knew it was time to act” from CIT, p. 468. The decision of the second group to hike out is confirmed in the Topping letter, p. 14. “If I should die before the night” from the Covington diary. The scene between Pettit and Laville as described in a letter from Dr. W. C. Cox to D. L. Flynn dated March 3 (GN Legal Department Files).
The opening quotation by John Rogers is from CIT, pp. 471-72.
“All day and night you could hear the reports of trees” as quoted in the SS of March 2. “And on Monday morning” from the ST of March 2. The opinion of the group of Irish mill hands is discussed in the SPI of March 2. In Harrington’s superior court testimony (SCT, p. 720) he claims that forty-nine GN employees were now electing to sleep on the trains. “There were so many different opinions” from CIT, p. 467.
The friendship between Rogers and Pettit is mentioned in the former’s inquest testimony (CIT, p. 468). “The only way to get out of there was to get out” is from CIT, p. 251. The makeup of the Rogers party as reported in the SPI of March 2. The story of Libby Latsch’s letter comes from Jackson, p. 44. Edward Boles’s story is from the inquest transcript, CIT, pp. 153-65. (NB: His surname is spelled “Bowles” in the CIT and one or two other sources, but the Coroner’s Death Record for 1909-10 has his brother listed as “Albert Boles.”)
“It was snowing so badly” from CIT, p. 257. The details of the Rogers party’s descent come mainly from his inquest testimony (CIT, p. 469ff), from the SPI of March 2, and from the Avery affidavit. “I did not realize when I started” from CIT, p. 222. “We all landed in a heap” from Jackson, p. 44. “And I believe that they could have carried out” from CIT, p. 468. The account of Pettit’s failed attempt to get a telegram through to the passengers at Wellington (“TELL THE PASSENGERS”) comes from CIT, pp. 254 and 468. “I told him that I sympathized with him” from CIT, p. 253.
O’Neill’s quoted testimony—“About noon of the 27th”—is from CIT, p. 50.
Specifics about X808’s fuel and water situation come from CIT, pp. 50 and 295, and from SCT, p. 537. The problems with the rotary’s injectors are discussed in the combined affidavit of Dowling, Mackey, and Tegtmeier, and in CIT, p. 50. (Some sources have Duncan, rather than Irving, Tegtmeier as the traveling engineer called down to the rotary near Corea; see notes for Chapter 12 for an explanation.) “Wellington, blowing hard, snowing” from Devery Operations Diary for 1:00 P.M., February 28. Dowling’s marathon stretch on the rotary is documented in CIT, p. 294, and SCT, p. 750.
Information on the Kalispell rotary comes from extant telegrams in the Robert Kelly collection and from Devery’s court testimony (SCT, p. 835ff). The coming of Gruber et al. as reported in the GN Corporate Diaries (Minnesota Historical Society) and SCT, pp. 545-46. “He is a prince” and “little less than heroic” from the SPI of March 1 (published before word of the slide reached Seattle). “We only get one chance to make a little money” from CIT, p. 467.
The quoted White inquest testimony—“The train was warm”—is from CIT, p. 435.
“My baby was getting so dirty” comes from the March 18 letter from Anna Gray to Luther Covington. “A man said to his little girl” is from the Covington diary. “Snow that was taken up right alongside the trail” from CIT, p. 437. The passengers’ ignorance of the existence of the spring at Wellington is corroborated in CIT, p. 460. “There was a space not over a foot” from Hensel’s court testimony (SCT, p. 80). The use of the mail sack to measure snowfall is mentioned in SCT, p. 75. “It was mighty deep” from SCT, p. 80. Mrs. Starrett’s concern as reported in Confluence (Winter 1987), p. 160, as well as the ST of March 2 and 7. “I think we are here to stay until spring” from the Covington letter of February 27.
“We’re going to get out of this,” as reported in the SSR of March 8. Chantrell’s request for a guide from CIT, p. 391. “Still in this snow” from the Topping letter, p. 15. White’s discussion with Pettit as per SCT, p. 134. J. R. Vail’s condition is discussed in CIT, p. 423. Pettit’s implication about the train’s being safer near the tunnel is cited in White’s inquest testimony, CIT, p. 437. The passengers’ renewed efforts to see O’Neill as recounted by White in CIT, p. 421ff. A copy of the passengers’ petition is in the Robert Kelly collection.
The confrontations with Longcoy and Blackburn as depicted in Lucius Anderson’s inquest testimony (CIT, pp. 244-46) and in that of R. M. Laville (missing from the transcript but quoted at length in the ST of March 20). “We asked him if he was in authority” and other quotations from White are from his inquest testimony (CIT, pp. 422-24). “We have only seven men on the payroll at Wellington!” from the ST of March 20. “We knew that 125 men were working” as quoted in an interview in the SS of March 8. “I heard Mr. Blackburn tell” from the ST of March 20. White’s offer to chop wood as cited in SCT, p. 139. “Plenty of wood” from CIT, p. 426. The threat to knock down the freight house is from CIT, p. 429.
“Nearly everyone on the stalled trains was gay” from Jackson, p. 44. Dressing up Thelma Davis from the SSR of March 3. “A sweet little song about the sparrows” from the Anna Gray letter. Final preparations for the night as per Laville (ST of March 20) and White (CIT, p. 427). “When we lay in our berths” and “I don’t believe anyone had a premonition” are from Jackson, p. 44. “I’ll have so much to tell you” from the Topping letter, p. 16. White mentions his decision to hike out (depending on the weather) in CIT, p. 428. The final scene between Pettit and the men as per Lucius Anderson (CIT, p. 240). “The mountainside was a very beautiful sight” from SCT, p. 106. O’Neill’s night of sleep in Scenic and his intent to go to Wellington the next morning come from his inquest testimony (CIT, pp. 48-51).
The opening quotation—“It was a night of heroism”—is from the EDH of March 2.
White’s and Matthews’s preparations for bed as per CIT, p. 431. Lucius Anderson’s berth location on the Winnipeg from CIT, p. 240. The decision of Hensel and the other clerks to leave on Tuesday as reported in the typescript of an article written by Hensel himself for the SSR in the Hensel family collection. The card game in the mail car is described in a 1998 letter to Martin Burwash from Carl Hernstrom (Burwash collection). “Absolutely nothing to do” and other details of Sherlock’s evening are from Sherlock, p. 16.
The rarity of electrical storms in the Cascades in winter was attested to by several witnesses in the trial (e.g., J. C.Wright, SCT, p. 379). For the physiology of wet slab avalanches, I am particularly indebted to Armstrong and Williams, Fredston, and The Avalanche Handbook (Seattle: The Mountaineers, 1993) by David McClung and Peter Schaerer.
Hensel’s moving of his bed as per a handwritten account by Hensel himself (courtesy of Dolores Hensel Yates) and other documents in the Hensel family collection. Flannery’s waking as per his court affidavit. Charles Andrews’s story as related in Jackson and in the notes of an interview conducted with Ruby El Hult (Ruby El Hult Papers). Wentzel’s purported eyewitness account as quoted in the SS of March 2.
Henry White quotations from CIT, pp. 431-32, and the ST and SPI of March 6. Forsyth’s story is retold in an article entitled “Avalanche” by Freeman Hubbard, Argosy (March 1959), pp. 98-99 (“Suddenly our car was lifted”) and is also related in CIT, p. 216 (“It seemed more like a bad dream”). The account of the falling train hitting an obstacle as per, e.g., Starrett in “Avalanche in the Cascades” by Oliver Chappie, American West (January-February 1983), p. 69, and Jackson, p. 45 (“Our car popped open”). Clary’s “Before I was actually awake” is from the SS of March 3. The explosion of the acetylene tank was described by several passengers (e.g., CIT, p. 432). “Everything was still” from the SPI of March 6.
“My God, this is an awful death to die” as quoted in the EDH of March 3. Clary’s story of the immediate aftermath is from SCT, p. 704, and from the ST of March 4 (“I heard Purcell calling” and “It was raining dismally”). Hensel’s story from the notes of an interview with his son-in-law, Keith Yates, in the Hensel family collection and from SCT, p. 767. The aftermath experiences of White and Harrington as per their CIT testimony (CIT, pp. 431-36 and 130-38, respectively). “Turn the steam on” was reported by Anderson himself, CIT, pp. 240-41. The rescue of Ross Phillips as per Jackson, p. 45.
The efforts of Andrews and Miles come from the notes of Ruby El Hult’s interview with Andrews (Ruby El Hult Papers) and from Hubbard, p. 99. “There was a faint moaning in the gulch” was quoted in the Tacoma Sunday Ledger-News Tribune of March 4, 1956. “When we got down there, I saw a man laying out on the snow” from Flannery’s court affidavit. (As noted earlier, some sources confuse traveling engineers Duncan and Irving Tegtmeier. That Duncan was the injured Tegtmeier, however, is supported by an ST article in which “D. Tegtmeier” is interviewed specifically about his injuries.) Bailets’s experiences as per his inquest testimony (CIT, pp. 351-53). Preparations for the bunkhouse as hospital as recounted in Sherlock, pp. 16-18, and in Flannery’s inquest testimony (CIT, p. 451).
Sherlock’s account of the confrontation with a guntoting Bailets, as related in Sherlock, p. 18, is given some credence by a similar story involving brakeman Duncan and Bailets that appeared in the EDH of March 3. “The stick was about two-and-a-half feet long” from Sherlock, p. 20. The surgery scene is also described in Bailets’s inquest testimony (CIT, p. 353). “While carrying him” is from a letter from Sherlock to Ruby El Hult dated March 24, 1960 (Northwest Disaster Scrapbook, Ruby El Hult Papers). Flannery tells of sending an unspecified second messenger down the mountain in his court affidavit; Wentzel tells of going down the mountain in the SS of March 2, though he does not state specifically that Flannery sent him.
The detached hand was reported in the EDH of March 3, while the severed head was mentioned in the SPI of March 5. Thelma Davis’s body condition as per the SEC of March 4 (supported by the description of her body as “badly mangled” in the 1909-10 King County Coroner’s Death Record, King County Archives, Seattle). Avalanche survival statistics from McClung and Schaerer, pp. 177-78, as well as “Avalanche!!!,” a Web-based handbook by Charley Shimanski (Mountain Rescue Association, www.mra.org/avalanche_2004.pdf, 1993-2004), and a lecture given by Bruce Tremper at REI in Seattle in December 2002. The two ways of dying in an avalanche are discussed in Armstrong and Williams, p. 122.
Bates’s experience comes from the EDH of March 3. Ida Starrett’s rescue story is told in Chappie, newspaper accounts, and Ruby El Hult’s interviews with Charles Andrews and Ray Starrett (Ruby El Hult Papers). “I realized that I was not injured” from the ST of March 3.
The Reverend Randall’s sermon—“This is not an hour for reciting”—was reported in the EDH of March 7.
The delivery of the news of the slide to O’Neill at Scenic comes mainly from the inquest testimony of Mackey and Dowling (CIT, pp. 83-86, 295-96). (NB: Although many newspaper accounts erroneously reported Wentzel as the man who first brought news of the slide to Scenic, this is explicitly contradicted by Harrington in an article entitled “Wellington Notes” in the ST of March 7 and by later inquest testimony; it’s likely that the original reporter confused Scenic and Skykomish.) Conductor Vogel, who was at Scenic, claimed in his testimony to have heard the overnight thunderstorm (CIT, p. 284). It was also reported in the ST of March 7 that some people actually heard the snowslide itself from Scenic, although this seems doubtful. “I would not have heard a cannon that night” is from SCT, p. 543.
The loss of telegraph communication to and from Scenic as reported in a telegram of Monday, February 28, 4:30 P.M. in the Robert Kelly collection. O’Neill’s trip to Nippon is reported in the SS and the SIH of March 5. The telegram announcing the avalanche is from the Robert Kelly collection. (This telegram also reports the three feet of snow on the tracks west of Scenic.)
Mackey’s inquest testimony is from CIT, p. 83.
The number of rescuers climbing up with Dowling from Scenic is specified in his inquest testimony (CIT, p. 295). “The bodies that are to be taken out” from the WDW of March 11. “I don’t have any particular authority” is from Hult, p. 79. (NB: Although most of the dialogue in the Hult book is fabricated, this story and quote come directly from an interview with Sweeney that Hult conducted in the late 1950s; Ruby El Hult Papers.)
The scattering of engines and coaches in the canyon as per Dowling’s testimony (CIT, pp. 183-86). The story of the 1982 slide victim who survived for five days is from Armstrong and Williams, p. 123. Speculations about the electric locomotives and why so many people from the Winnipeg escaped death come from a letter from Dorety to J. D. Armstrong, dated March 11 (GN Legal Department Files), and from Harrington’s inquest testimony (CIT, p. 445).
“As if an elephant had stepped on a cigar box” is from Marion Briggs as quoted in the SPI of March 5. The difficulties experienced by the rescuers as outlined in the SPI of March 5 (the threat of a second slide), the WDW of March 4 (forest debris), and the NYT of March 6 (the leaking of snow into opened coaches). “Taking them from a river” is from the SS of March 3. “A car lamp, a sack of mail” from the ST of March 8, which also reported the baby carriage.
The rundown of injuries to survivors comes from various newspaper accounts (in particular, the SPI of March 4) and from Hult, pp. 214 and 217. The unidentified man who died of exposure was reported in a story by the AP dated March 1, 1960. Hensel’s story as per “Survivor: A Mail Clerk’s Story and the 1910 Wellington Avalanche” by Dolores Hensel Yates in the December 2004 issue of Nostalgia. The focus on Varden Gray as testified by Alathea Sherlock (CIT, p. 454). Sherlock’s doctoring the women with hot whiskey slings is from his own “Reminiscences,” p. 21. The warming of blankets, and so on, as described in Sherlock, p. 22. “I even tried to make her cry” from Hult’s 1950s interview with Raymond Starrett (Ruby El Hult Papers).
The headline announcing the slide appeared in the EDH of March 1.
The story of Wentzel’s arrival in Skykomish is from the NYT of March 3. “TRAVELERS FACE HUNGER AND DEATH” from the ST of February 28. The article about the relief trains was from the EDH of the same day. The recruitment of homeless men from the Seattle jail was reported in the ST extra edition of March 2, which also noted that a supply of coffins was on the March 2 relief train from Seattle. A description of Pascoe’s journey—the result of an interview with the trainman conducted in the late 1950s—is in Hult, Northwest Disaster, pp. 72-73. The arrival of Stockwell and the nurses as reported in Sherlock, p. 22. The dubbing of Alathea Sherlock as the “Florence Nightingale of the Cascades” is from the SS of March 8. The doctor’s statement that all patients would recover is from the ST of March 3.
O’Neill’s arrival at Wellington was reported in the ST of March 2. Dowling described the “continuous snowslide” from Windy Point to Wellington in SCT, p. 760. The description of the ten-acre slab of snow as per the WDW of March 3. See also Thornton Munger’s “Avalanches and Forest Cover in the Northern Cascades” (U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service Circular 173 [Washington: Government Printing Office, 1911]).
The Watrous telegram of Thursday, March 3, 2:38 P.M. is from the Robert Kelly collection.
The unearthing of the bodies of Bethel, McNeny, the Lemmans, and Nellie Sharp was reported in the ST of March 3 through 5. The return of Boles was described in the SPI of March 2. The arrival of various friends and relatives of victims as reported in Hult, Northwest Disaster, p. 70, and in the WDW of March 9 (“more than ordinarily pretty”) and the SSR of March 8 (“engines and all,” “There was not a sign of anything,” and “a dull bruise”).
The search of Luther and Frank Covington is described in a letter from Mrs. George P. Anderson to the Reverend and Mrs. A. S. Gregg dated March 6 (“My heart is well-nigh broken”), and in an unidentified newspaper clipping, both from the Covington/Brokaw family records. The seven embalmers at work were mentioned in the SIH of March 5. Melmoth Covington’s vigil for his wife was briefly reported in the ST of March 2.
The lack of documentation on most of the bodies was reported in the EDH of March 6. The dense lineup of corpses in the depot is described in Sherlock, p. 24. “Survivors, diggers, and newspapermen have accidentally” from the SIH of March 5.
“Superintendent O’Neill has handled the railroad end” from the SS of the same date.
The discovery of the A-16 was announced in a telegram of Friday, March 4, 2:45 P.M., and was described in the SIH of March 4 and the ST of March 5. The description of Blackburn’s body by W. J. Manley (“in an attitude as if he had been sleeping”) as reported in the ST of March 5. Blackburn’s gift of the Morris chair (a joint gift with Dowling and Devery) is acknowledged in the O’Neill family scrapbooks.
“Last night, when he dropped to rest on the floor” from the SIH of March 4.
The trouble with the foreign laborers and the arrest of “Robert Roberts” as reported in the SDC and the SPI of March 5. The account of following bloody trails in the melting snow was in the TDL of March 4. The blizzard on Friday night was reported in the SIH of March 5 and in a telegram dated March 4 at 7:30 P.M. The story of the three stranded telegraphers is from the ST of March 4. The unidentified body in the river was reported in the WDW of March 5. And the slide at Drury that killed the watchman is mentioned in a telegram of March 1, 5:00 P.M.
The incident of the snow sliding off the hotel roof is reported in the SIH of March 4. Bailets mentions taking his family to sleep on the outfit cars on the spur tracks in his inquest testimony (CIT, p. 343). O’Neill’s nightly trips through the tunnel as per the SPI of March 4. The alleged quotation from Charles Andrews—“Moved by a power”—was printed in the SPI of March 3 and elsewhere, but Andrews denied the story in his court affidavit. The other bogus SPI reports are from the editions of March 4 (mountain lions and wolves; car with ten survivors) and March 5 (surviving baby; eating a cat). The French newspaper that picked up the erroneous SPI story was L’Humanité of March 5.
Underwood tells of his encounter with O’Neill in an article entitled “I Scooped the Wellington Disaster” published in True West, January-February 1961, p. 20. “Death everywhere” from ST of March 3, while “The task of digging for the dead” appeared in the ST of March 4. Underwood’s remark that the women insisted on the train being taken out of the tunnel appeared in his ST report of March 3.
“I was greatly distressed” is from a letter from Charles Steele to Hill dated March 3, 1910 (James J. Hill Papers). The eighty-five deaths figure is from the March 1 entry in the general manager’s office diaries (GN Corporate Records, Minnesota Historical Society). The Pueblo, Colorado, train wreck as described by Edgar A. Haine in his Railroad Wrecks (New York: Cornwall Books, 1993), p. 31. The issue of the thirty laborers in the smoking car as reported in EDH of March 7.
“The snow was packed so hard about the bodies” was said by Detective Wells and reported in the ST of March 7. O’Neill’s estimate of one month to find all of the bodies was reported in the SEC of March 8. His idea of melting the snow with steam as reported in the ST of the same day.
“How puny is man” from the SS of March 7.
“The greatest blockade of a railway system” from the ST of March 10. The buildup of delayed freight as per the SPI of March 5.
The details of the east-side cleanup come primarily from two sources: John Brady’s superior court testimony (SCT, pp. 804-16) and an article later written by Brady, “The Great Slide,” originally published in Railroad Magazine in 1946 but reprinted in Locomotives of the Empire Builder by Charles F. Martin (Chicago: Normandie House, 1972). “One of the largest I have ever seen,” from Brady’s testimony, SCT, p. 808. The arrival of Northern Pacific No. 2 as per the telegram of 8:00 P.M., Thursday, March 3. “Have had considerable trouble holding men” from a telegram from E. L. Brown to O’Neill et al., 10:45 P.M., Saturday, March 5. The packing in of coal and the revival of the stalled double rotary as per Dowling (SCT, pp. 752 and 756) and the SEC of March 6.
Interference between the body evacuations and the plowing efforts was reported in the ST of March 9. Forsyth and Laville’s descent as described in the TDL of March 3. The descent of Clary, Purcell, and Bates as per the SS of same date. The “pathetic procession” was described in the SS of March 7. “I’d rather take a chance on dying,” “You can tell the people for me,” and “It’s not half-bad coming down that hill” as quoted in the ST of March 7.
O’Neill’s ordering of the Alaskan sleds as per the SPI of March 5. “We left Wellington at noon” from the ST of March 6. Bill J. Moore’s experience evacuating O’Reilly’s body (“I seen 90 bodies”) is from his handwritten margin notes in his personal copy of the Ruby El Hult book.
The discovery of the mail cars comes from Hult, Northwest Disaster, p. 88. The WDW of March 10 reported that there were still over two dozen bodies to be accounted for. The unearthing of part of the smoking car as per the ST of March 7. Carrie Phillips’s climb to be with her husband was reported in Hult, p. 70. “Confined to the hospital” and “Let me die” are from the SS of March 7. “Here is a young man” and further quotes from that scene are from Sherlock, p. 24. The encounter between O’Neill and Sherlock as described in Sherlock, pp. 22-23.
“Why, get them to give me another engine” was quoted in the ST of March 11. Tegtmeier’s early detection of Gruber’s train as per the ST of March 10. The evacuation of the last nine of the injured as reported in the ST of March 11 and from transcribed notes of an interview with A. B. Hensel by Keith Yates (Robert Kelly collection). The Starretts’ dread of getting back on a train as per the SIH of March 3.
The exact time of the rotaries’ meeting was announced in a March 12 (10:49 A.M.) telegram from Gruber to Lewis Hill, cited in T. Gary Sherman’s Conquest and Catastrophe (Bloomington, IN: Author House, 2004), p. 146. “The siege of snows is ended” was from the ST of March 12. Hill’s congratulations are from two telegrams to Gruber dated March 8 and March 9 (Minnesota Historical Society).
The slide that hit the rotary was described in the special mail edition of the ST dated both March 14 and 15. That the laborer was not found for weeks was cited in the Argus of April 2. The majority of mail was recovered according to the ST of March 13. O’Neill’s visits to the Longcoys and to Lewis Walker’s widow are mentioned in unidentified newspaper clippings in the O’Neill family scrapbooks.
The opening quotation—“That thousands of tons of snow”—is from the SUR of March 12.
“O’NEILL HAILED NOW AS KING OF SNOW FIGHTERS” and the subsequent quotation (“He always is cool”) are from the ST of March 6. “What proved to be the most dangerous place possible” from the ST of March 3. “DOLLAR-A-DAY JAP COULD HAVE PREVENTED SLIDE” and the following quotation (“Had the slope been wooded”) are from the SS of March 5. “[I] could not help wondering” from the Seattle Argus of the same date, “DID PENNY SQUEEZING COST 100 LIVES AT WELLINGTON?” and the following quotation (“The Great Northern railroad will never hire able men”) are from the SS of the same date.
“Relatives and friends of the dead men” from the SSR of March 17. “It was positively known for weeks” from the SUR of March 12.
(NB: Despite the charges of the switchmen’s union, the GN claimed to be at full operational efficiency at the time of the storm. In a letter to Armstrong dated March 11 [GN Legal Department Files], Dorety, while admitting that four cars of coal were indeed en route to Stevens Pass from Leavenworth at the time of the blockade, points out that the coal bunkers at Wellington at this time were already full. This suggests that the delay of those four cars may have been the result of a lack of urgency rather than a lack of efficiency.)
Publication of Hill’s Highways as per Martin, p. 557. Stevens’s “penny-wise, pound-wise” quip comes from his An Engineer’s Recollections (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1935), p. 33.
Coroner Snyder’s desire to have all bodies accounted for before the inquest as reported in the SPI of March 14. That there were still nine unidentified bodies at the morgue by the commencement of the inquest is from the SPI of March 14. The misidentification of Ned Topping was reported in the SPI of March 11 and elsewhere. The Joseph Benier anecdote (“My friends say that you have me downstairs dead”) comes from the WDW of March 22. The difficulties with the Brockman family imposters as per the ST of March 20.
The disposition of the bodies was reported in the newspapers as follows: Nellie Sharp (SPI of March 6), George and Thelma Davis (SSR of March 12), the Beck family (ST of March 14), and the memorial service in Everett (EDH of March 14). Sarah Jane Covington’s funeral was reported in the Olympia Chronicle of March 12 and in other documents in the Covington/Brokaw family records. The letter from Mrs. Gray to Luther Covington (“Dear Friend”) is also from that collection.
The GN’s moving behind the scenes as per a letter from Armstrong to F. V Brown of March 9 (GN Legal Department Files), in which Armstrong states, “I am strongly of the opinion that if an inquest can be prevented it should not be held.”
“Nothing in the company’s affairs is of greater importance” is from a March 15 letter to Dorety from Armstrong (GN Legal Department Files). “Effort should be made to secure jury” is from a telegram pink slip from Armstrong to Brown dated March 16. The company’s concern about the inquest testimony and verdict as a possible basis for future lawsuits is expressed in the March 11 letter from Dorety to Armstrong. “We are making every effort to block” from the same letter. The article citing the opinions of local lawyers appeared in the ST of March 4.
The original transcript of the coroner’s inquest (CIT) has been missing for many years, but at least one copy recently turned up in a private collection, a second-generation copy of which is now in the Puget Sound Regional Branch of the Washington State Archives, Bellevue, WA. All of these copies are missing the testimony of R. M. Laville, but his major statements were widely reported in the newspaper accounts of the inquest.
O’Neill’s arrival with the other railroaders as per the SPI of March 19. “Deep furrows are plowed” as per the EDH of March 7. The function of the railroad commission at the inquest as per the commissioner’s testimony (CIT, p. 526). That this was the first train accident in Washington history to prompt an inquest is likewise mentioned in testimony (CIT, p. 526). “All kinds of rumors are in circulation” is from the Argus of March 12. The Argus of May 7 contained the story about White’s being refused compensation “even for the shirt on his back.”
O’Neill’s attire as per an artist’s rendering in the SPI of March 19. “I gave them orders” from CIT, p. 11. “O’NEILL ASSUMES ALL BLAME” from the ST of March 18. Laville’s testimony (“Fear was in every heart” etc.) as reported in the ST of March 20. “I never met nicer gentlemen in my life” from CIT, p. 268. Perley’s testimony as per CIT, p. 317. Bailets’s testimony (“I asked them, I says”) from CIT, p. 344. “These three tracks here contained” is from CIT, p. 369. The three questions about the spur tracks are from CIT, pp. 410-15. The claim that the railroaders backed their judgment “with their lives—and lost” comes from the Argus of March 12.
“So, through lack of coal and lack of help” from CIT, p. 424. Dorety’s attempt to recover (“Don’t you know that”) from CIT, p. 438. For the record, the three non-GN officials testifying at the end of the inquest were F. E. Weymouth, superintendent of the NP’s Seattle Division; F. E. Willard, trainmaster on the Milwaukee Road, and J. E. Campbell, trainmaster on the NP’s Seattle Division. “For the present, I can only say” is from a March 22 letter to Armstrong from Brown (GN Legal Department Files). The Chelan County coroner’s findings are reported in the WDW of March 22. “If I was the manager of a railroad” is from the Argus of March 26.
The text of the jury’s verdict is from CIT, pp. 526ff. A copy sent by Mrs. George Anderson is in the Covington/Brokaw family collection. “Hermaphrodite verdict” is the work of L. C. Gilman in a letter to Lewis W. Hill dated April 1. Brown’s telegram—“WE FEEL POSITIVE NO FOUNDATION”—as cited in a March 25 letter from Armstrong to L. C. Gilman. Brown’s statement to the newspapers as per the ST of March 25. “The verdict itself” comes from a March 25 letter from Armstrong to Brown. “If the evidence at the Coroner’s Inquest” is from a March 15 letter from Armstrong to Dorety. (Letters and telegrams are from the GN Legal Department Files.)
The opening headline—“WELLINGTON SLIDE LAWSUIT ON TRIAL”—is from the WDW of October 21, 1913.
Description of “the Cruel Castle” from History Link’s “Seattle’s First Hill: King County Courthouse and Harborview Hospital” (www.historylink.org). Details of the Starretts’ experiences after leaving Wellington, including the judgment of the GN as “most kind,” are from the notes of an interview conducted by Ruby El Hult with Raymond Starrett dated February 24, 1957 (Hult Papers), and from newspaper accounts. Hensel material is from family documents and from Yates’s “Survivor,” p. 43. Details of the Hensel trial can be found in the WDW of May 7, the SSR of June 24, 1911, and in trial documents from the Robert Kelly collection.
Most details of the trial come from the complete transcript (SCT) in the Robert Kelly collection. Other court records, including copies of pretrial motions, are held in microfilm at the archives of the Superior Court of King County in Seattle. Two hundred witnesses as per the WDW of October 22, 1913. Samuel Hill’s letter to James J. Hill of March 23 is from the archives of the James J. Hill Reference Library in St. Paul. Hill’s response (“You can say to Governor Hay”) is from his letter to Samuel Hill dated March 26 from the same collection. (This letter was later published in full in newspapers such as the WDW of April 2.) The railroad commission’s exoneration of the GN is reported in a letter to L. C. Gilman from Armstrong dated March 31 (GN Legal Department Files).
The WDW of March 22 contained a report of the clearing of the last of the wreckage at Wellington. Hill’s subsequent trip west as reported in the WDW of April 29. Commissioner Lawrence’s speech (“The work will run”) was quoted in the WDW of July 25.
The change of Wellington’s name to Tye was announced in the General Manager’s Circular of October 15, 1910 (GN Corporate Records).
“Those chumps would slander their parents” is from the SUR of March 26. Settlement terms of the strike as reported in the SUR of April 16 and the WDW of April 1 and 29. (NB: Although the switchmen working the line west of Havre got their five cents an hour, those working the line east got only a three-cent raise.)
Hill’s various remarks were always widely reported in the press. “The people are living at a tremendous rate” was from the WDW of May 2. “The rise in the wage rate is the biggest factor” from the SPI of March 18. “There is a popular idea that a railroad may be compelled” from the WDW of June 10. For the rising tide of progressivism between 1910 and 1913, see Hofstadter, p. 248ff. “Claimed the privilege of completing” from Wiebe, p. 217. For Hill’s relationships with individual presidents, I’m indebted to W. Thomas White’s “A Gilded Age Businessman in Politics.”
Basil Sherlock’s report on the GN lawyers’ collection of “every record and every bit of paper that had any writing on it” is from a letter to Ruby El Hult dated March 8, 1960 (Ruby El Hult Papers). The GN’s denial of claims to all comers as per a letter of April 1 from Gilman to Louis W. Hill and other letters. The issue of ensuring the goodwill of surviving employees for the sake of the trial is explicitly mentioned in the April 1 letter from Gilman to Hill. Settlement terms for dead trainmen are cited in an undated (probably April 14) letter from Armstrong to Brown. The special compensation request from Mrs. Pettit as per a letter from L. C. Gilman to E. C. Lindley of June 7, 1910. (All from the GN Legal Department Files.)
“I believe that no employee made a single statement” is from a March 26 letter from Dorety to Armstrong (GN Legal Department Files). McFadgen’s dissenting opinions discussed in a March 25 letter from Dorety to Brown. The “reasonable and prudent person” test for negligence is cited in the judge’s instructions to the jury (SCT, p. 852) and is discussed in a March 29 letter from Armstrong to Dorety (GN Legal Department Files).
Judge Humphries’s determination to let a jury decide the case, rather than taking presumptive action himself, is from his remarkable admission (cited later in the text—“Were I permitted, I’d like to unravel the case for you”) reported in the WDW of October 24, 1913. The setting aside of one month for the trial as per the ST of October 21, 1913.
The exchange about the communication of officials on trains Nos. 2 and 27 is from SCT, p. 11. (It’s worth noting that, many years later, Ross Phillips would claim that train No. 25 was also told that it would never make it over the mountains—Jackson, p. 40.) “I presume these questions are all proper” from SCT, p. 259. Williams bickers with the judge on p. 693 and makes fun of a witness’s grammar on p. 773. The exchange between Williams and White (“Were you conscious when the coach went over?”) is from SCT, p. 136.
(NB: A letter of September 7, 1910, from J. M. Gruber to E. C. Lindley describes an earlier, much smaller slide at Wellington that in February 1903 destroyed the sand house and killed three or four men, but this apparently happened at a point significantly west of where the trains were standing on March 1, 1910.)
For a good example of the litany of “unprecedenteds,” see the testimony of J. C. Wright (SCT, p. 379). “It will be conceded by everyone” is from a March 26 letter from Dorety to Armstrong (GN Legal Department Files). “I will say, in justice to Superintendent O’Neill” is from the same letter. The birth of James O’Neill Jr. while James Sr. was at Stevens Pass as evidenced by telegrams preserved in the O’Neill family scrapbooks. The calculation of 1,350 trains per year in snowstorms as per SCT, p. 494. “I submit the motion is frivolous” is from SCT, p. 512. “Why were [the trains] put on the passing track?” is from SCT, pp. 518-19.
“Now, Mr. O’Neill, to meet such a condition” comes from SCT, pp. 605-6. “It would have buried them in” is from SCT, p. 607. Williams’s frustrated wild shot (“Wouldn’t it have been better”) is from SCT, p. 608.
(NB: Irving Tegtmeier is identified as “Irwin” in the SCT.) “Had you tried any shoveling out by hand” from SCT, pp. 717-18. An example of Harrington’s contradictory testimony can be found in SCT, p. 723, line 3, and p. 726, line 4. A denial of his inquest testimony is on SCT, p. 731. Williams’s trap for Harrington (“On that trip down”) from SCT, p. 741.
The lecture Judge Humphries gives to the court is on SCT, pp. 768-71. The GN’s request for a directed verdict is on SCT, pp. 847-48.
The text of the supreme court’s reversal is reprinted in Washington Reports, vol. 81. “It is plain, from the evidence in the case” is from p. 170. Other quotes are from pp. 176-77. That Topping was forced to pay back the $20,000 award plus 6 percent interest and $264 in court costs is from the court documents microfilm. “The people are rising up in arms” from a November 14, 1910, letter to E. C. Lindley from H. A. Landwehr (GN Legal Department Files).
“Corporate cunning has developed faster” as quoted in Sullivan, p. 182. Peak railroad mileage as per Stover, Atlas, p. 52. “By the time you’re forty, be out of the railroad business” quoted in Albro Martin, James J. Hill, p. 571. For the discussion of wireless communications in GN operations, see Sherman, pp. 127-28. The figure of 95 percent of track under shed protection according to “Railroad Construction in Stevens Pass” by Charles F. Intlekofer (Confluence, Spring 1992), p. 387. “Such places would have radio” from the Sherlock memoir, p. 26. “Could not battle the clouds away” from CIT, p. 671.
“The mailed fist of progress” was perpetrated in the ST of January 11, 1929.
Details about the 1929 tunnel inauguration ceremony at Scenic come principally from contemporary newspaper accounts and from Dedication and Opening of the New Cascade Tunnel, which contains an account of the event and the text of the speeches given. Gilman’s comment about “the weakest link in our transportation chain” is on p. 9 of the booklet. The $25 million cost of the tunnel as per General W. W. Atterbury’s speech on p. 7. Other details from the ST, SPI, EDH, and WDW of January 8-13, 1929, and from McLaughlin, “How Great Northern Conquered the Cascades,” pp. 10-12.
The great expense of snowshed construction and repair in the post-Wellington era is detailed in a letter of November 11, 1925, from Ralph Budd to Louis W. Hill, cited in an unpublished 2003 paper, “Great Northern Railway: The New Cascade Tunnel: Should It Have Been Built” by Jerry R. Masters and T. Michael Power (courtesy of T. Michael Power). The various slide-related mishaps of the winter of 1915-16 as reported in the SSR editions of December 15, 1915, and January 16, February 16, and March 17, 1916. James J. Hill’s comment on his last Cascades trip (“Some of you will live to see”) is cited in the dedication speech by Ralph Budd (“Dedication,” p. 5).
For Hill’s last days I have relied most heavily on Albro Martin’s biography, pp. 608-15. “The last of the wilderness conquerors” as cited in the Holbrook biography, p. 186. “Greatness became him” from the NYT of May 29, 1916. “How desolately lonely the house seems” from Mary Hill’s personal diary entry for June 1, 1916 (GN Corporate Records, P2210, Box 2).
Graham McNamee is identified as “the dean of American broadcasters” in the SSR of January 11, 1929. Ralph Budd’s flu was reported in the same paper’s January 13 edition. The Apple Blossom Queen’s christening was dutifully recorded in the ST of the same date.
Hoover’s celebration of American virility (“Never have we witnessed”) is from Dedication, p. 7. John F. Stevens’s oration (“And so the new tunnel is put in operation”) is from p. 21 of the same source. O’Neill’s experience at the ceremony as per photographs of the event, several newspaper accounts, and clippings in the O’Neill family scrapbooks, which also contain his apologetic note to his daughter (“Peggy dear, Account receiving a telegram”). Latter-day telegrams with snow-fighting reports signed by O’Neill are in the GN Corporate Records (e.g., File 132.B.18.1B, “Snow Storms and Snow Equipment”). Stories of the ring “Sunshine” and the candelabrum “George” come from an interview by the author with O’Neill’s granddaughter Jeanne Patricia May. His stint as a rail tester for FDR and his love for duck hunting and steelhead fishing are from clippings in the O’Neill family scrapbooks, which also contain the note from Berenice in which she avows, “Our love was the proudest thing in my life.”
Ida Starrett’s later years as per a letter from Raymond Starrett to Basil J. Sherlock dated April 14, 1960 (Wenatchee Valley Museum) and from the notes of an interview with Ray Starrett by Ruby El Hult (Hult Papers). Sherlock’s request for a picture and the subsequent quotations come from his letters to Raymond Starrett, one dated April 4, 1960, the other missing its first page and therefore undatable (Wenatchee Valley Museum). The effect of the slide on A. B. Hensel from the Hensel family archives and from an interview by the author with Hensel’s daughter, Dolores Hensel Yates. Ira Clary’s later career is detailed in George E. Leu’s A Hogshead’s Random Railroad Reminiscences (New York: Vantage, 1995). Harrington’s career is from census records and a Department of Transportation report on the 1916 snowslide. Bill J. Moore’s intervention on behalf of Joe Pettit Jr. is described in his letter to Ruby El Hult (Hult Papers). Varden Gray’s adoption of the moniker “the Duke of Wellington” from Hult, Northwest Disaster, p. 210. Sherlock’s quotation (“Perhaps you wish to forget it”) is from the letter to Starrett dated April 4, 1960 (Wenatchee Valley Museum).
“The switchback has become tradition” is from the address by L. C. Gilman, “Dedication,” p. 9. The coyotes “howling in the doorways” was cited in the ST of January 13, 1929.
The two cited reports on the avalanches of 1910 are “Avalanches in the Cascades and Northern Rocky Mountains During Winter of 1909-10” by Edward A. Beals (Monthly Weather Review, June 1910), pp. 951-57, and “Avalanches and Forest Cover in the Northern Cascades” by Thornton T. Munger. “Avalanches in these mountains are of common occurrence” from Beals, pp. 951-52. “Canyon slide” and “slope slide” as per Munger, p. 5.
Information about slide formation comes mainly from the following sources: Armstrong and Williams; Secrets of the Snow: Visual Clues to Avalanche and Ski Conditions by Edward R. LaChapelle (Seattle: University of Washington, 2001); McClung and Schaerer; and Shimanski.
“A bird or an icicle or a puff of wind” from CIT, p. 396. “Heavy wet snow on the hills” from CIT, p. 331. “As shown by conditions afterward” from SCT, p. 648.
The roster was assembled principally from the King County Coroner’s Death Record for 1909 and 1910 (King County Archives, Seattle), cemetery records from the Evergreen Cemetery in Everett and the Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Seattle, and the official GN casualty lists published in the local press. The part of the GN Legal Department Files related to the exact number of deaths appears to be no longer extant.