1928 train wreck in the columbia river gorge

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Hiker_Dude
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1928 train wreck in the columbia river gorge

Post by Hiker_Dude » April 17th, 2014, 10:54 am

There a couple shots of the gorge in this film, but I cannot tell exactly where the wreck happened. Any of you gorge train experts know?

http://youtu.be/9F6iMOeONqU

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CuriousGorgeGuide
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Re: 1928 train wreck in the columbia river gorge

Post by CuriousGorgeGuide » April 22nd, 2014, 10:09 am

Great find HikerDude!! I was unaware of this historic wreck, so I super appreciate the head's up, as it mirrors the "Starvation Creek" snowpocalypse from the 1880s...but this one has actual newspaper photos.
Oh, I guess I got ahead of myself. The wreck happened on Jan 1st 1928..and there was extensive coverage the entire next week in the Oregonian. I popped into the Oregonian digital archive and instantly found a trove of articles and pix. Wow, thank jah once again for the digitized Oregonian!! To me, the digitization (and searchability of newspapers) is the single best thing that happened to history since Larry Page invented Google PageRank.

For those "not in the know"...you access the Oregonian archive via the Multnonah County Library website, where you'll need a library card # to "get in". The library freely offers cards to non-residents also...like myself.

https://multcolib.org/resource/historic ... -1861-1987

cheers, scott

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jeffstatt
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Re: 1928 train wreck in the columbia river gorge

Post by jeffstatt » December 15th, 2014, 10:29 am

Just saw this. Very cool. Anyone able to tell where the wreck was?

I'd swear this was on the Washington side (with Archer Mt in the background) but upon examination in Google Earth this photo looks like it's taken facing east from the current site of the Multnomah Falls parking lot (between I84 eb/wb)

Thoughts?

Image

justpeachy
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Re: 1928 train wreck in the columbia river gorge

Post by justpeachy » December 15th, 2014, 3:26 pm

Neato! Wow, they sure did get a lot more snow back then. :shock:
CuriousGorgeGuide wrote:To me, the digitization (and searchability of newspapers) is the single best thing that happened to history since Larry Page invented Google PageRank.
Agreed! Now that I've been spoiled with the digitization of The Oregonian I wish that other major newspapers around the state were also digitized like the now-defunct Oregon Journal, the Statesman Journal, the Mail Tribune, the News Review, and many more. There are so many great bits of history hidden away on microfilm. Much of it is not even findable because some of those newspapers don't even have indexes so you have to just troll through the reels hoping you'll find what you're looking for.

raven
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Re: 1928 train wreck in the columbia river gorge

Post by raven » December 15th, 2014, 10:23 pm

Looks to me from comparing the video to a map that a slide below Waespe Point took out the train. Of course, I'm far less than certain.

forestkeeper
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Re: 1928 train wreck in the columbia river gorge

Post by forestkeeper » December 16th, 2014, 12:14 pm

When I was a Salt Lake City driver for Rite Aid, years ago, I used to drive through the Gorge weekly for years. This looks like the westbound portion of I84 prior to The Dalles. I would often look for Pronghorn and Bighorn sheep on the sides of that butte that overlooks the dam.

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CuriousGorgeGuide
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Re: 1928 train wreck in the columbia river gorge

Post by CuriousGorgeGuide » December 21st, 2014, 11:31 am

I just re-read the Newpaper articles from Jan 3-5 1928. The wreck was west just west of the "Oneonta Siding", thus between Oneonta Gorge and Multnomah Falls. I guess I could have stated this in my first reply, but I'm kinda dense sometimes! It is fun to play "name that hillside" though, isn't it! cheers, scott

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