Articles

Rain City Rising

The Avalanche That Buried a Train

For six days, two trains sat trapped by snow at Wellington Station in the Cascade Mountains. The passengers waited. The railroad tried to dig them out. Then, at 1:42 AM on March 1, 1910, lightning ignited a massive avalanche that swept both trains off the mountain. Ninety-six people died. The Great Northern Railway was so ashamed they renamed the station and let it disappear from memory. Most Washingtonians have never heard of it.

When Seattle Was Coal Country

For fifty years, King County was one of the largest coal-producing regions west of the Mississippi. Mines in Newcastle, Renton, and Black Diamond employed thousands. Chinese workers did the most dangerous jobs. Indigenous Duwamish people were displaced to make way for the mines. Then oil replaced coal, the mines closed, and Seattle became the tech-and-coffee city it is today. Most Seattleites have no idea their city was built on coal — or that abandoned mine shafts still run beneath their suburbs.

D.B. Cooper: The Man Who Vanished

On November 24, 1971, a man calling himself Dan Cooper hijacked Northwest Orient Flight 305, collected $200,000 in ransom, and parachuted into the Washington wilderness. He was never found. The FBI officially closed the case in 2016. The Pacific Northwest never stopped looking.