Encounters in Avalanche Country: A History of Survival in the Mountain West, 1820-1920

4. Railway Workers and Mountain Towns: 1870 - 1910

53 53 four rAIlwAyworkErsAndmountAIntowns: 1870–1910 So sudden was the disaster that the men had no time to make for safety, and died an awful death, being crushed by the mass of ice that thundered down upon them. —Revelstoke Mail-Herald, March 5, 1910 We would consider a place safe where in our history there hadn’t a slide come theretofore. —W. R. Smith, 1910 I n 1898, mErridan hoWard WrotE in Pearson’s Magazine about the heroic efforts made by the Mountain West’s railway workers to keep the tracks clear, in even the worst winter storms: It is truly, a royal foe . . . that the railroad men have to encounter in the mountains. . . . There are in America thousands of men whose sole employment during the snow months is to wage war on this colossal antagonist. It is exciting work, a life that involves the most stupendous hardships and unceasing risk.1 Winter work on the rails, in Howard’s opinion, was not just a job; it was a war against a daunting enemy undertaken by American men willing to put their lives on the line. By comparing railroad work to the battlefield, Howard conjured up striking images for readers, tying the themes of man versus nature with images of righteous battle and American might. In another, more florid example of stories that pitted man against nature, the popular publication Munsey’s Magazine printed a piece that described railway workers as near godlike. The article described the winter 54 § railWay WorKErS and mountain toWnS of 1898 to 1899, which tested railway workers in Colorado’s High Country as never before. Heavy snows shut down the railroads in late winter, cutting mountain residents off from critical supplies. Writer Francis Lynde reported that “the situation in the mountain towns along the lines soon became alarming.” The three main railroad companies based in Denver joined together and hired men armed with shovels and ice picks to “break trail” so that the rotary plow, “the warship of the snow seas,” could come through.2 Even worse than working through the snow and ice, frequent avalanches left the men on the lines without supplies. Eventually the rails were clear enough of debris that the rotary plows could get through and bring food to the hungry mountain communities. Although Lynde proclaimed that the marvelous technology of the rotary plow certainly deserved credit, he wrote that the men who persevered under harsh conditions should be praised above all: From the nearer Rockies to the farther Sierras the winter night’s tale of the railway is an epic of heroism; and when its Homer shall arise to write it we shall have a nobler Iliad than that which sings the war of the Greeks and Trojans. For the heroes of old fought with flesh and blood, and to slay their fellow creatures; but these men of the mountains battle with grim winter in its fiercest moods, with pitiless storms and perils uncharted, and this not to slay, but to stay alive.3 Even as plows were developed through the years that were better equipped to handle the extreme amount of snow, Lynde proclaimed that men’s muscles and spirits remained an important tool in battling the elements. As Howard had similarly written, Lynde touched on popular themes that defined manhood in terms of physical action and bravery. Particularly embedded in American thought at the time was a belief that the frontier lifestyle had inculcated in its populace desirable characteristics such as independence, superior physical strength, and integrity. People in urban areas seemed in serious danger of losing these important American attributes, according to the prevailing view, and many “had begun to fear that mechanization was unnerving even the most affluent Americans.”4 As a consequence, tales of hearty westerners reassured urban dwellers that technology did not have to undermine masculine traits, that examples of heroism based on physical bravery still existed, and that American men of strength and fortitude still shaped the nation. railWay WorKErS and mountain toWnS § 55 But how closely did these stories match the actions of the real-life men who worked the mountain lines? Cutting through the flowery rhetoric and reconstructing the experiences of the railway workers reveals a world of heroes for certain; it also shows that skilled workers’ knowledge of their surroundings had developed over time. Like the trappers, explorers, emigrants , and miners before them, mountain railway workers contended with...