CONQUEST AND CATASTROPHE

“So far as loss of life and damage to property is concerned, I believe this is the worst experience we have ever had.” (61)

This is the tragic observation made by H. R. Parkhouse, a Great Northern Railway official on the scene at Wellington, Washington on March 4, 1910.  His telegram was sent to Louis Hill, president of the Great Northern, who was vacationing at the Casa Loma Hotel, enjoying the warmth and sunshine of Southern California, more than a thousand miles south of where this country’s greatest avalanche disaster had occurred just three days earlier.  Hill wanted to know exactly what happened during that fateful early morning hour of March 1, 1910, on Stevens Pass in the Cascade Mountains of Washington State.  Nearly a century later, his inquiry has still not been completely answered, and probably never will.

What follows, however, is the closest account that has ever been assembled about the Wellington disaster.  It is also the story of the discovery and construction of Stevens Pass, the dreams and foresight of the management of the Great Northern Railway who knew how important the Pacific Northwest would become to the rest of the nation’s economy, and it’s important ties to the Orient, especially Japan.  The story is filled with stouthearted men and women of courage, bravery, and determination.  It is the story of feats of engineering that are remarkable even by today’s standards.  However, it is also a story of treacherous and unscrupulous individuals who would use any means at their disposal, including the illegal importation, specifically Japanese, to achieve their desire for wealth and power.  Many of these Japanese laborers were held prisoners by the railroad and literally worked to death.

The story centers around Wellington, Washington, as it was the focal point for most of what went on in the development, construction and maintenance of Stevens Pass and the Great Northern for its first thirty-five years.  Through interviews, personal papers, the many publications that include books, magazines and newspapers, as well as the discovery of the Great Northern coded telegrams (and their translation), the true story of Stevens Pass, the Great Northern Railway, and the Wellington disaster, can now be told (as closely as possible).