100 years ago: Death toll rises from train hit by Cascades avalanche

From our archives, 100 years ago

The death toll had grown to at least five in the avalanche disaster that swept part of a Great Northern train off the tracks high in the Cascades.

At least three more people were missing and feared dead beneath the snow: Mrs. Fern Wallace and her baby daughter, of Lyons, Washington, and Ralph Batterman, 8, of Wenatchee.

Meanwhile, winter weather was causing havoc with train travel around the region. Another train was buried by an avalanche at Essex, Montana. Two train workers were killed and several were injured.

From the accident beat: F.W. Bowden of Walla Walla was filling his auto with gasoline when the tank somehow caught fire and Bowden “became a living torch.”

Fortunately, Walla Walla had experienced plenty of recent rain and snow. Bowden, thinking fast, dived down into the mud and rolled in it until the flames were extinguished. He was uninjured.

His auto, however, did not fare as well. It burned up.

Also on this date

(from the Associated Press)

1915: America’s first official transcontinental telephone call took place as Alexander Graham Bell, who was in New York, spoke to his former assistant, Thomas Watson, who was in San Francisco, over a line set up by American Telephone & Telegraph. … 1961: President John F. Kennedy held the first presidential news conference to be carried live on radio and television. … 1981: The 52 Americans held hostage by Iran for 444 days arrived in the United States.