The Boulder train wreck of 1890

At 4 o’clock on the afternoon of October 15, 1890, a train laden with ore on the Northern Pacific’s Helena, Boulder Valley & Butte Railroad chugged south along its rugged route from Helena to Boulder. Samuel T. Hauser filed articles of incorporation, with himself as president, and financed the line, built in 1887. Although intended to enter Butte, the line never extended to Butte and ended at Calvin. On that October day in 1890, the locomotive, four freight cars full of ore and a caboose, made its way up the nine miles to the summit of Boulder Hill at the Zenith station. This rugged route consisted of three short tunnels, several wooden trestles on a 3 percent grade and several 16-degree curves. The train was moving at no more than 10 mph as regulations required. As the train passed over the first bridge south of the Zenith station, the trestle collapsed beneath it and the train fell into the ravine below.

The caboose and one of the ore cars landed upright. Miraculously, the only injury was a broken arm, but for engineer H. H. Mayhew and his seven-man crew, the accident was a horrific event. Mayhew was so traumatized he could not work and sued the railroad. He used his 5000-dollar settlement to open a cigar store in Anaconda. Northern Pacific investigators determined that the bridge design was not faulty. Rather, after the trestle was constructed, workers forgot to tighten the bolts. Northern Pacific maintenance crews spent the next several weeks tightening bolts on all the other trestles on the Helena, Boulder Valley & Butte line.

Ellen Baumler is an award-winning author and the interpretive historian at the Montana Historical Society.