At the end of winter in 1902, a series of avalanches struck the vicinity of Telluride. Ten avalanches were reported in the area, causing the deaths of at least 24 people in what was one of the deadliest avalanche seasons in Colorado history. 

Background

Those who lived and worked in the high-country basins outside of Telluride took what precautions they could in the placement of buildings and rail lines and in the scheduling of work at the mines. Even so, nothing could allay the very real fear that avalanches were going to occur, occur often, and cause extensive destruction, financial loss, and, more than likely, death. The image of being overwhelmed and buried under a mammoth wave of onrushing snow was enough to give one nightmares. Wintertime was an anxious time in Telluride.

In the one hundred years beginning in 1879, 93 major avalanches and 61 slide-related fatalities were reported in the Telluride region. So prevalent were the slides and so familiar were their locations that many were given names. They were known as the “Bobtail”, the “Little Elephant”, the “Pandora”, or the “Ajax.” The precipitous geography found along the major drainages in the Marshall, Savage and Ingram basins formed natural avenues for the slides. With the first hint of warmth in the late winter sunshine, miners and mill workers and most everyone in town understood all too well it wasn’t really a matter of if but only when. 

1902 Avalanches

The winter of 1902 was probably no more or less noteworthy than others (before or after) for the amount of snow that fell in Telluride and up in the basins outside of town. L.M. Umsted, a mule packer, would, however, remember that winter in general, and the morning of February 28 in particular, for the rest of his life. As Mr. Umsted told the Daily Journal, he’d just finished his breakfast and was in the stables with his animals when he heard a terrific crashing and rattling outside, and when opening the stable door he “found the air filled with flying snow, the tram cable swinging about and [ore] buckets rolling down the hill.” What Umsted witnessed—and lived to tell about—was the front end of the most deadly series of avalanches in Colorado history.

The first slide ran around 7:30 that morning and swept away the boardinghouse, bunkhouse, tramway station, and ore-loading house at the Liberty Bell Mine, two miles north of Telluride. By mid-morning news of the avalanche was brought to town by one of the workmen who’d escaped, and almost at once an army of Telluride citizens and workmen from the nearby mines hurried up and over the slopes, shovels in hand, in the hope of rescuing what was at first feared to be from 50 to 75 snowbound victims.

The slide had destroyed telephone lines, preventing the rescue effort from communicating with the miners or the towns. By mid-morning rescue crews learned that the day shift had fortunately gone into the mine prior to the slide. Had they been at breakfast, as had been assumed, the number of dead and injured would have surely been greater. As it was, the casualties were unknown. At least twelve were presumed to have been present in the boarding house, which was completely engulfed by the avalanche. However, while crews were able to find the remains of the building, they had no luck locating any casualties. 

Rescue teams spent the morning prodigy into the deep banks of the hard-packed snow with long steel rods hoping to make contact with the body of a friend or relative assumed to be underfoot. 

As preparations were being made to transport the small number of injured who hd been found, a second slide came down the slope along the same track. It plowed into a group of men searching for victims. An unknown number of the would-be rescuers were injured or killed by this second avalanche.

Realizing that the threat of additional slides was very real, Dr. J.Q. Allen with three others crossed over the next ridge and made towards  town. They were en route when Allen heard the distinct breaking of timber far up the side of the mountain. He turned his horse and, as he later told Scientific American magazine, “ran him up the trail just in time to escape the main body of the slide. I was caught on its edge, however, carried off the trail with my horse and tossed, as by a wave, on the side of the mountain. Four of us were struck and all were killed but myself.”

Three separate slides were reported at the Liberty Bell that day, the number of victims escalating with each run. The task of determining who was missing—and presumed dead—became an anxious and agonizing process of elimination: if you weren’t down the hill by nightfall on February 28, you more than likely weren’t coming down alive. It took weeks to locate and recover the bodies of the 19 men who perished at the Liberty Bell. Sadly, the devastation on that day was not confined to that property alone.

Another slide struck the boarding house at the Sheridan Mine and injured seven men and killed one. Yet another destroyed several hundred feet of shed covering the surface tram at the Gold King Mine. And the first days of March brought no relief. Less than forty-eight hours later, on March 2, the Bobtail released up near the Bullion Tunnel in Marshall Basin and buried five miners. All five were rescued, but in a scene eerily reminiscent of the Liberty Bell disaster a second slide ran, killing one of those involved in the rescue mission. 

Up in Bear Creek, a log cabin was crushed under three feet of snow on March 3. Its two occupants were found dead the next day. On that same day, the Ajax avalanche released twice. The Daily Journal reported, “the [first] slide was plainly heard in Telluride and watched by many who were in the street at the time. Instantly, crowds were on their way to Pandora, on foot, on horseback, and in sleighs. It wasn’t long after when someone shouted, ‘here comes another!’” 

With the second slide, those who resided in Pandora and those who’d only recently arrived from Telluride to lend their assistance, turned tail and headed quickly back to the relative safety in town. 

In fewer than four days, at least 24 were killed by avalanches in and around Telluride. After March 3 the series of avalanches came to an end, at least for the 1902 season.

W.A. Taylor Addresses the Press

On March 21, 1902, San Miguel County Representative W.A. Taylor addressed the Daily Journal about the avalanches and the recovery. He may have wanted to give his constituents in Telluride a little something to smile about, as his comments included an unusual anecdote.

 “Did you ever know I was killed in a snow slide twenty years ago?” Taylor asked. He had been in Telluride only a year in 1882. “That winter was in some respects a good deal like the present one,” Taylor continued. “It was in one of the worst of the avalanches that I was killed.” Apparently, newspapers across the country published the list of those who’d perished in the slide, and, he went on, “the name W.A. Taylor appeared in all of them. They said I was buried under fifty feet of snow and it was doubtful if my body would ever be recovered.” Taylor explained that he didn’t read newspapers at the time he’d been swept away to his eternal reward, adding: “So the fact I was dead was unknown to me.”