Wellington Remembered receives accolades

The Northwest Railway Museum has received an award for its Wellington Remembered exhibit. The Association of King County Historical Organizations (“AKCHO”) has recognized Wellington Remembered with its 2011 Exhibit Award. The Exhibit Award is presented annually to an organization for an outstanding permanent, traveling, outreach, or temporary display or exhibit of any size that uses historical collections as the educational source material.

Wellington Remembered is an exhibit and web site launched in February 2010 commemorating the town of Wellington (1892 – 1929) and the Wellington Disaster (1910). This broad-based effort included the Museum’s Oberg Collection of Wellington images and resources from a variety of other regional institutions including the Wenatchee Valley Museum and Cultural Center, Skykomish Historical Society, Everett Public Library, University of Washington Special Collections, and the Washington State Historical Society. In the first year, over 100,000 people visited the exhibit or web site. Volunteers assisted in assembling a half scale section of snow shed used as the exhibit venue. The project was curated by the Museum’s educator Jessie C., and was funded by 4Culture and the Museum's general fund.

The award was presented on April 26 at AKCHO’s annual awards reception held at the Museum of History and Industry. King County Councilmember Jane Hague was the MC. Other recipients include the Museum of Flight for the Boeing B-29 restoration, a 19 year effort; Dr. Quintard Taylor for BlackPast.org; and Preserving the Stories of Fall City, a memory book project of the Fall City Historical Society.

AKCHO is a professional association that exists to encourage cooperation among historical organizations and to promote and encourage the study and preservation of the history and heritage of King County through member organizations, individual members, and the community they serve, and to support such preservation efforts through public awareness and understanding of legislative issues. Meetings are held monthly and are open to the public.

Photo (top): The award plaque presented to Jessie C. and Richard A. at the awards ceremony.

Photo (bottom): Councilmember Jane Hague and Jo Ann E. ~ the 2010 exhibit award winner from Kenmore Heritage Society ~ presented the award to Jessie C. and Richard A.

Working on the Railroad success

The Museum hosted its first Working on the Railroad benefit dinner at the TPC Snoqualmie Ridge. Attended by 137 people, the March 5th event was an unqualified success. Great food, entertainment, and an insightful historical talk filled the evening. It was a fitting way to remember the Wellington Disaster and a great way to support a new museum exhibit building.

Co-hosts Bob Jeans and Cindy Walker welcomed everyone and introduced several key people. 4Culture Executive Director Jim Kelly made additional introductions and spoke of the role and importance of historical organizations in preserving and interpreting American history, and the importance of culture and cultural organizations in a healthy community. A wonderful dinner was served by the TPC kitchen and the Issaquah Singers serenaded the patrons with a medley of railroad songs. During the evening a series of unique items including copies of photos from the Museum’s Oberg Collection were offered in a silent auction. Several items including an opportunity to run a locomotive were auctioned off. Following dinner, Gary Krist, author of The White Cascade: The Great Northern Railway and America's Deadliest Avalanche, presented a gripping presentation about the Wellington Disaster. (More about Gary Krist here.) Rare photos and an incredible narrative captivated the audience for nearly 45 minutes. The evening concluded with an informative question and answer session.

The Working on the Railroad benefit dinner in part commemorated the 100th anniversary of the Wellington Disaster, an avalanche that occurred March 1, 1910 at Wellington in Stevens Pass. (The disaster killed 96 people and is the most deadly North American avalanche.) The evening was also the formal launch of the Wellington Remembered exhibit and web site, an initiative to remember the community that was far more than the site of a disaster; it was a company town and a community from 1892 until 1929. Excerpts from the exhibit were on display in the TPC foyer and engendered considerable interest. (The exhibit itself appears in the Snoqualmie Depot freight room inside a model of a snow shed; shown at left is Executive Director Richard Anderson, Author Gary Krist, and Educator Jessie Cunningham as they toured Mr. Krist through the new exhibit.)

Working on the Railroad was made possible with the generous support of the community. We are grateful to Gary Krist for donating his time to speak about the Wellington Disaster. We also give thanks to the many businesses and individuals who contributed goods and services to the auction and dinner: Salish Lodge and Spa (overnight stay with breakfast), Jim M. (wine from the Bookwalter Vineyard), Allan W.(Hand-made candle box, wine butler & coaster holder), Cindy W.(Cedar River Watershed tour + gourmet lunch basket), North Bend Theatre (Evening at the theatre for you and your 250 closest friends), Infinite Possibilities (life coaching sessions), Betty L. (Leavenworth condo stay), Snoqualmie Falls Golf Course (round of golf), Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad (steam locomotive cab ride), Russ S.(hand-made wine rack), Down to Earth Photography (portrait session, photo of Snoqualmie Falls, & photos of the event), Carmichael's True Value Hardware (metal truck planter), Phil L. (auctioneer), Issaquah Singers (evening of railroad songs), THINK2A (graphics and marketing), ColorGraphics (printing), Thom W. (graphic design & layout), & Birches Habitat (photo frame for Gary Krist).

The Museum is very pleased with the results of the evening; proceeds will help support construction of the new Train Shed exhibit building now under construction in Snoqualmie. Support from the community and an enjoyable evening combined to create a memorable and repeatable event. We are all looking forward to another Working on the Railroad event this fall.

Wellington Remembered

Today - March 1, 2010 - is the anniversary of a northwest tragedy: the Wellington Disaster. On March 1, 1910, at about 1:15 AM, an avalanche over ½ mile in length began high above the town of Wellington. The town itself was spared, but two snow-bound trains just west of the depot were swept into the valley below. At least 96 people perished, most of them railroad workers.

Several great authors have written insightful works about the avalanche, most recently Martin Burwash with his release of Vis Major. Gary Krist wrote The White Cascade: The Great Northern Railway Disaster and America’s Deadliest Avalanche and an excellent profile of Gary and what precipitated his writing adventure was detailed by Phoebe Snow. And Gary will be making a presentation at the Museum’s Working on the Railroad benefit dinner this Friday, March 5, 2010.

Without question, the Wellington Disaster was a tragedy, but it tends to overshadow the importance of the town of Wellington, and even why it existed. In 1910 transportation in and out of Northwest was in its infancy. Just 27 years prior, the Northern Pacific Railroad had connected Puget Sound with the eastern railway network. The Great Northern Railway – whose tracks passed through Wellington – drove its last spike just a few miles from Wellington (near Scenic) in 1893, and that had been just 17 years prior. And to the north, arch competitor Canadian Pacific completed its transcontinental in 1885 and therefore had got a running start on the Great Northern. Railway transportation empowered the industrial revolution. It was vital for the development and settlement of the Northwest, and to connect trade with the Far East.

Wellington was a company town that supported the operation of the railway, in fact a vital link in the railway machine. For 37 years, from its founding in 1892 until its end in 1929, Wellington was indispensible to the operation of the mighty Great Northern. In Wellington alone, nearly 100 men were routinely required to build and repair track, build and maintain snow sheds, clear snow, service locomotives, maintain tunnels and bridges, maintain telegraph lines and of course run the trains.

So what was it like to live in Wellington? We know surprisingly little about life in Wellington, but some of its stories are probably similar to those of other nearly forgotten yet once vital Western Washington towns such as Cedar Falls on the Milwaukee Road and Lester on the Northern Pacific Railway. In 2010, just as the last living memories of Wellington have passed on, we are scrambling to learn what we can about this town.

The Northwest Railway Museum recently accepted the Oberg Collection, 60 glass negatives exposed in and near Wellington by Casper Hansen in 1913 and 1914. They offer some insight into life in Wellington and have provoked a broader study of the town. So on this anniversary of a tragedy, the Northwest Railway Museum is launching Wellington Remembered, an initiative featuring images from the Oberg Collection. As this project develops, we hope to hear from descendants, friends and acquaintances, and history fans. This project will result in a permanent exhibit in the new Railway History Center Train Shed, and the companion web site Wellington Remembered.

Wellington Disaster too dramatic for fiction

The story behind the storytelling is unexpected. Gary Krist didn’t start out to write a narrative nonfiction book about the Wellington Disaster. For one thing, he wrote novels and short stories. For another, he had never heard of the Wellington Disaster.

In an interview with Failure Magazine, Krist explains that a total fluke inspired him to write The White Cascade: The Great Northern Railway Disaster and America’s Deadliest Avalanche. “I was researching a different topic—the Duke of Wellington—and the Google result included something about a Wellington disaster. I had never heard of it so I clicked on the link and started reading. It turned out to be this incredible story that—except for a couple of privately or regionally published books—had not been written about.”

In fact, in an original essay called “A Fresh Chapter of History,” Krist says that a few minutes after clicking on that link, he “knew exactly what [he] would be doing for the next three or four years of [his] life.” He speaks of America’s forgotten stories—the Wellington tragedy in particular, which demonstrates the courage and sacrifice that helped shape the country.

Early in his research, he realized that fiction wouldn’t do the story justice. The bare truth was too dramatic. Plus, the facts needed telling since historians had not written much about the event. The result is narrative nonfiction (not a historical novel) free of invented dialogue and characters. Krist’s careful research encompasses not only the event, but the period in which it took place, the “Golden Age of Grand Disasters.”

In an interview with Boise State Radio’s Bob Kustra, Krist says that the March 1, 1910, avalanche that swept two trains off the tracks occurred during “an era when our technological reach exceeded our grasp. We knew how to put trains in these mountainous places. We knew how to build these big ships that supposedly were unsinkable. We. . .did know how to do them, but we didn’t know how to do them safely yet. So this is kind of a transition era when technology was leaping forward at a furious pace, but the safety element was a little bit lagging.” Consequently, the Wellington Disaster was part of a process evolving at that time that led to greater corporate liability, responsibility and safety. Listen to the radio interview here.

Krist’s second narrative nonfiction book, American Colossus: An Epic of Chicago, will be published in 2010 or 2011. It portrays an extraordinary 12-day period in the Chicago of 1919. Before writing The White Cascade (published in hardcover in 2007 and paperback in 2008), Krist wrote three novels—Bad Chemistry, Chaos Theory and Extravagance—and two short story collections—The Garden State and Bone by Bone. In addition he has written op-eds for The New York Times and Newsday, articles for a number of publications including National Geographic Traveler and The Wall Street Journal, and book reviews for The New York Times Book Review, Salon and The Washington Post Book World. He has received The Stephen Crane Award, The Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Lowell Thomas Gold Medal for Travel Journalism, and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Gary Krist lives in Bethesda, Maryland. He explored Washington, including the Iron Goat Trail along the railroad grade where the avalanche occurred, while researching The White Cascade. He returns to Washington to speak at “Working on the Railroad 2010,” a benefit for the Northwest Railway Museum March 5, 6:00-9:00 PM, at Snoqualmie Ridge TPC Golf Club, 36005 SE Ridge Street, Snoqualmie. You may purchase tickets ($100/ticket or $700/table for 8) by phone at 425-888-3030 ext. 202 or in person at the Depot Bookstore, 38625 SE King Street, Snoqualmie.

Museum Director Richard Anderson read The White Cascade out of personal interest last year and got in contact with Gary Krist through Skykomish Historical Society’s Bob Kelly. The Northwest Railway Museum is looking forward to welcoming Krist to Snoqualmie. You’re invited to hear firsthand his adventures in researching and writing about a significant event in railroad and Washington history.

Wellington, WA

March 1, 1910 was a disastrous day in King County. Two occupied trains - a mail train and a passenger train - yarded at Wellington, Washington, near Stevens Pass, waiting for the tracks ahead to be cleared of snow, were swept away in the worst avalanche in American history. 96 people were killed with countless others injured; most were railroad employees but many passengers were victims too. Though tragic, this is a fascinating story and an important chapter in King County and Northwest history.


The Northwest Railway Museum is pleased to announce it is hosting a Working on the Railroad event at the Snoqualmie Ridge TPC on Friday, March 5, 2010 at 6 PM. A gourmet dinner will be followed by a presentation from noted author Gary Krist, author of the White Cascade: The Great Northern Railway Disaster and America's Deadliest Avalanche (available in the Depot Bookstore). The evening will also feature the Issaquah Singers performing a medley of railroad songs, and a silent auction with some memorable items including photos from the Wellington (Tye) area taken circa 1913. Proceeds benefit construction of the new Train Shed exhibit building. Tickets are $100 and are available from the Depot Bookstore in Snoqualmie in person or by phone (425) 888-3030 Extension 202.

(Photo depicts steam rotary x808 and crew circa 1913 at Wellington (Tye), WA.)

Rotary snowplow

This week’s snowy weather in Western Washington reminds me how all-weather travel is really a modern convenience. In the early days of the transcontinental railroads, winter line closures were a frequent occurrence. The introduction of the rotary snowplow improved winter operating conditions for railroads, particularly in mountain passes here in Washington, but also notably in California and British Columbia.

In this region, the Great Northern Railway, Northern Pacific Railway, and the Canadian Pacific Railway relied on rotaries to clear heavy snow. Accounts of the 1910 Wellington Disaster frequently mention the efforts of rotaries to keep Stevens Pass open, and it was only a shortage of coal that prevented them from continuing to clear snow. (X808 was one of those rotaries and is pictured here circa 1913.) Considered the “big guns” of snow clearing, rotaries continued to play a prominent role in winter railroading until well into modern times.

So what is a rotary snowplow? It is a giant wheel of cutting blades that spins into the snow, shaves off a layer of snow and then expels it to the side of the tracks. The plow itself is not self-propelled – one or more locomotives push it. Traditionally, blades were steam powered. Today the few rotaries remaining in service are diesel-electric.

Toronto, Canada Dentist J.W. Elliot invented the rotary snowplow in 1869 but a practical application was not tested until Leslie Bros. built Orange Jull’s design in 1883. Other manufacturers including Cooke soon manufactured variations on the concept.

The Northwest Railway Museum owns former Northern Pacific Railway steam rotary snowplow #10. Built in 1907, the plow was used extensively on Stampede Pass, a mountain pass used by the Northern Pacific just east of Auburn and a little south of the better-known Snoqualmie Pass. Retired in 1964 and donated to the Museum, rotary 10 can be viewed at the Snoqualmie Depot. Through the magic of QuickTime VR, you can view the inside of the cab here.

Missing pages of history

In the days leading up to the worst natural disaster in Washington’s history, it snowed as much as one foot per hour. Telegraph lines were down and two trains - the Fast Mail and the Spokane local - had been trapped at Wellington in Stevens Pass by heavy snow and avalanches for several days. Then, on March 1, 1910, after weeks of relentless winter weather, it began to rain. The storm culminated in a massive avalanche that swallowed both trains, assorted freight cars, a rotary snowplow, at least two steam locomotives, and four electric locomotives. Official records indicate that 96 souls perished in what became known as the Wellington Disaster. For the 26 survivors, a makeshift emergency hospital was created inside the motorman’s bunkhouse at Wellington. (Motormen operated the electric locomotives that ran through the Cascade Tunnel.)

Photos taken several years after the disaster were conspicuous for the absence of the bunk house and so far no record of its demise had been discovered. What had been effectively lost to history was the fate of the bunkhouse itself. Or at least until now. Several missing pages of history arrived at the Northwest Railway Museum earlier this year in the form of a glass negative collection. Two images depicted in that collection are believed to have been taken in 1913 and show the motorman’s bunkhouse engulfed in flames.

The Museum is grateful the donor recognized the value of the collection and ensured it found a home in a public collection. But many more collections remain in garages and attics. Often they are inadvertently overlooked and discarded as estates are settled. A few more missing pages of history are waiting to be found, perhaps in your family’s attic.