Avalanche! The 1910 Great Northern Railway Disaster
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Documentary | 01 January 0001
In the late winter of 1910, a relentless blizzard trapped two Great Northern Railway
trains, bound from Spokane to Seattle, in the rugged Cascade Mountains. Six days
of frantic efforts to reach the passengers and crews failed. Early in the morning on
March first, an avalanche one-half mile wide and fifteen feet deep crashed down
from the mountainside during a thunderstorm. It swept the trains off of the tracks,
killing at least 96 people. The avalanche was America’s worst avalanche disaster.