Wellington (Washington)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wellington
Wellington (Washington)
Wellington
Wellington
Location in Washington
Basic data
State : United States
State : Washington
County : King
Coordinates : 47 ° 45 ′  N , 121 ° 7 ′  W Coordinates: 47 ° 45 ′  N , 121 ° 7 ′  W
Time zone : Pacific ( UTC − 8 / −7 )

Wellington (later called Tye ) was a small community-free area and a factory settlement of the Great Northern Railway in northeast King County (Washington) in the Pacific Northwest of the United States.

Founded in 1893, Wellington was in the Cascade Range at the west portal of the original Cascade Tunnel below Stevens Pass .

1910 avalanche

Wellington Station before the avalanche
Train debris caused by the avalanche

Wellington was the site of the Wellington Avalanche on March 1, 1910, the worst in United States history, killing 96 people.

For nine days at the end of February 1910, Wellington was struck by a terrible blizzard . About a foot (30 cm) of snow fell every hour, and 11 ft (3.4  m ) on the worst day  . Two trains, a passenger and a mail train, both on the way from Spokane to Seattle , were trapped in the station. Snow plows were available on site and others were on the way to provide assistance, but could not penetrate the snow masses along the tracks between Scenic and Leavenworth , which were amplified by repeated avalanches.

On the late evening of February 28, the snowfall turned into rain and a warm wind came up. Shortly after 1 a.m. on March 1, a snow floe broke off the flank of Windy Mountain as a result of a lightning strike during a devastating thunderstorm. A mass of snow, 10 ft (3 m) high, 0.5 mi (0.8 km) long and 0.25 mi (0.4 km) wide, was moving towards the site. A forest fire had devastated the slopes above the village shortly before, so that the avalanche was countered with very little obstacle.

The avalanche missed the Bailets Hotel, which also housed the village shop and post office, but hit the train station. Most of the passengers and companions slept on board the trains. The avalanche struck the trains, throwing them 150 ft (45.7 m) down the slope into the Tye River Valley. Ninety-six people were killed, including 35 passengers, 58 Great Northern train attendants and three station employees. Twenty-three people survived; they were pulled from the rubble of the trains by railway workers who rushed from the hotel and other buildings. However, this was canceled due to the adverse weather conditions; only 21 weeks later, at the end of July, the last dead were recovered.

It was the only winter avalanche in this area. Three days later, 63 railroad workers were killed by an avalanche in nearby British Columbia at Rogers Pass .

aftermath

Wellington was tacitly renamed "Tye" in October due to the unpleasant associations with the old name. That same month, the Great Northern Railway began building concrete snow shields to protect the tracks. The station was closed with the completion of the second Cascade Tunnel in 1929; the place was later abandoned and eventually burned down.

The old track and shields remained in place and were secured as part of the Iron Goat Trail, which is easily accessible from US Highway 2 near Stevens Pass or near Scenic, east of Everett .

The ghost town lives on on behalf of an elementary school in the Northshore School District in Woodinville .

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ US Gazetteer files: 2010, 2000, and 1990 . United States Census Bureau . February 12, 2011. Retrieved April 23, 2011.
  2. ↑ a b Lynda V. Mapes: 1910 Stevens Pass avalanche still deadliest in US history . In: Seattle Times , February 27, 2010. Retrieved June 22, 2017. 
  3. ^ A b c Greg Lange: Train disaster at Wellington kills 96 on March 1, 1910 . In: HistoryLink.org , January 26, 2003. Retrieved June 22, 2017. 
  4. ↑ Slide buries trains; 20 the . In: Chicago Daily Tribune , March 2, 1910, p. 1. 
  5. ↑ Sixty are dead in train horror . In: Spokane Daily Chronicle , March 2, 1910, p. 1. 
  6. ^ One hundred dead at Wellington . In: Spokane Daily Chronicle , March 3, 1910, p. 1. 
  7. ^ Suffocated in sleep . In: Spokane Daily Chronicle , March 4, 1910, p. 1. 
  8. ^ Find ten alive in a buried car . In: Chicago Daily Tribune , March 4, 1910, p. 1. 
  9. ^ Wellington Elementary School in the Geographic Names Information System of the United States Geological Survey

swell

  • Martin Burwash, Vis Major Railroad Men, an Act of God - White Death at Wellington iUniverse, 2009
  • Cascade Division: A Pictorial Essay of the Burlington Northern and Milwaukee Road in the Washington Cascades , Fox Publications, 1995
  • Lee Davis, Encyclopedia of Natural Disasters , Headline, 1992
  • Gary Krist, The White Cascade: The Great Northern Railway Disaster and America's Deadliest Avalanche , Holt, 2007
  • T. Gary Sherman, Conquest and Catastrophe, The Triumph and Tragedy of the Great Northern Railway Through Stevens Pass , AuthorHouse, 2004.

Web links