COFFEE BREAK
Saturday, April 13, 2019
East Oregonian
C5
OUT OF THE VAULT
Speedster railroad man buries train engine in bluff
By RENEE STRUTHERS
East Oregonian
A double train wreck near Cayuse
in March of 1910 caused the deaths of
two railroad employees, including the
engineer that was running his machine
at high speed down the mountain.
Engineer S.L. Risk and Fireman
Edwin Hopple set out about 8 a.m. with
Engine No. 215 running light (pull-
ing no cars) on March 20, 1910, from
Kamela in the Blue Mountains toward
Umatilla after assisting a freight train
up the mountain from La Grande. The
freight train went on ahead of Risk and
Hopple, but No. 215 passed the train at
Porter, a wood station between Mea-
cham and Huron.
Risk and Hopple were apparently
coming down the river at a high rate
of speed and, while negotiating a 9%
curve where the road first meets the
river east of Mission, the engine leapt
the track and hurled itself into the bluff
on the left side of the tracks. The crash
sheared off all its outer trim and buried
most of the engine in the soft alkali dirt
of the bluff on the side of the road oppo-
site the river.
Risk’s body was thrown back-
ward out of the cab, on top of the coal.
Though he was lying entirely free of
debris from the crash except for one
arm, he was pinned down in such a way
that he was literally scalded alive. Hop-
ple’s body was jammed in against the
firebox and covered by a ton of coal. It
took several hours’ work to dig him out.
Though both the engine and the coal
tender were hurled clear of the rails, the
corner of the tender was close enough
to the track that another train could
not pass unobstructed. Thus, when
the block signal registered “all clear”
to the freight train coming 20 minutes
behind, there was no way of knowing
the danger that lie ahead.
Engineer Walter G. Robinson, Fire-
man C.L. Wilson and Brakeman W.O.
Rose were in the cab of Engine No. 385
when the freight train, traveling 25 to
35 mph, rounded the curve and saw the
wrecked engine and coal tender. Engi-
neer Robinson immediately closed the
throttle, threw on the air brakes and
swing out of his side of the cab. He was
followed an instant later by the brake-
man, who left via the window. Though
neither man had said a word, Fireman
Wilson concluded something was up
and swung out onto the running board
on his side, dropping off the just as the
nose of their engine struck the corner of
the derailed tender. Engine No. 385 was
shunted off on the other side, down a
75-foot embankment and into the river.
Robinson and Rose rolled down the
embankment, while Wilson landed in a
puddle of water leaking from the dam-
aged tender. He remained where he fell
for what seemed like an age, expecting
to have train cars piling on top of him.
Five of the cars following their
engine were smashed to kindling, with
the contents scattered in every direc-
tion. The first car was loaded with
steel rails, some of which were hurled
through the end of the car and landed
much in front of where it stopped. The
second car contained sacks of cement,
and the third and fourth were loaded
with coal. A fifth car also carried rails,
which added to the pile of wreckage.
The surviving train crew called in
the wreck from a portable phone in the
caboose of the freight train. Because
wrecker trains in the area were other-
wise occupied, no work could be done
to clear the tracks until 6 p.m. The lay
of the land in the area of the wreck, with
high bluffs on one side of the tracks and
the river on the other, meant tempo-
rary tracks could not be laid around the
accident site, so all trains were held in
Pendleton, Gibbon and La Grande until
early in the morning on March 21.
Hundreds of local citizens trav-
eled to the wreck site, including every
auto in Pendleton making the trip more
than once. Some people even rode the
wrecker trains out to the crash and
walked back to town.
The crash was the first double wreck
on that portion of the railroad, but not
the first accident in the area. In 1906
eight cars of coal were dumped over the
embankment within yards of the 1910
crash, and in 1907 a disastrous wreck
five miles away took the lives of four
people and seriously injured others.
DAYS GONE BY
100 Years Ago
From the East Oregonian
April 13-14, 1919
Allotments now being made on 700 eighty acre tracts of
land in the foothills of the Blue Mountains to Indians of all
ages who are enrolled members of the Cayuse, Umatilla and
Walla Walla tribes will mark the end of all allotments to Indi-
ans of the Umatilla agency and hereafter they will get their
land either by purchase or inheritance. The land, while not
considered as good as that in the 950 allotment in 1891, ranges
in value from $5 to $50 an acre and an effort has been made
by the agency to have the division as fair as possible. The
majority of the acres is grazing and timber land, with about
8,000 acres in farming land. It is probable that some of the
land will be available for leasing. Not all will be given out in
allotments, for 20,000 acres will be tribal lands.
50 Years Ago
From the East Oregonian
April 13-14, 1969
An airborne rescue brought pilot Waldon Bryant from his
wrecked crop duster to St. Anthony Hospital in minutes Sat-
urday. Bryant, who was flying a Callair A-9 for Round-Up
Crop Dusters, crashed into a plowed field about a mile north-
east of the junction of Coombs Canyon and Mud Springs
Canyon roads just before 11 a.m. The $14,000 plane was
destroyed by the crash. Moments later, Jim Shoun, owner of
Round-Up Crop Dusters, and Jim Terjeson landed in the field
with another airplane. They used part of the wreckage to con-
struct a splint for Bryant’s broken hip and flew him to Pendle-
ton airport. From there an ambulance brought him to St. Ant-
ony Hospital. The exact cause of the crash is still unknown.
25 Years Ago
From the East Oregonian
April 13-14, 1994
Kinzua Corp. mill workers in Heppner were expected to
leave work today at 3 p.m. not knowing if they’ll ever report
for work here again. The sale of the mill and 180,000 acres
of timber to a group of four Eugene investors was expected
to close today, according to Frank Pearson, Kinzua general
manager. The mill will be shut down Friday, Pearson said.
Workers will be paid for working a full day Friday, but rather
than working they have been instructed to call in Friday after-
noon for further information, Pearson said. He said Kinzua
Corp. wanted the workers to get paid for a full week’s work.
The company also hopes to have more information Friday
about a final decision about the mill’s future.
Universal Crossword
Edited by David Steinberg April 13, 2019
ACROSS
1 “The Big Bang
Theory” role
4 Dole (out)
8 Before surgery, briefly
13 Big bird
14 X, Y or Z line
15 Environmental club name
16 (Booyah!)
18 Document with
checks and balances?
19 Hollywood’s Green
20 Parking enforcement
device
22 Shipping choice
24 ___ facto
25 Tied up, as a boat
27 Tit for ___
28 Dec. 25
32 Its showers bring May
flowers
33 Western gas chain
34 Key near Ctrl
35 Smashing contest
39 Sister Sledge’s “We
___ Family”
40 Linguist Chomsky
41 Like pirouetting
ballerinas
42 Soaks up the sun
44 Weekend NBC hit
45 Adjusts, as a bow
46 Re:
48 Cosmic payback
49 Add-on for an aging
parent
53 Yale students
56 Many a storage unit
57 Cobbler’s mold, and
a hint to 16-, 20-, 35-
and 49-Across
59 Quick on the ___
60 College grad
61 Singer Lana Del ___
62 Capital of Idaho
63 Yellow Brick Road dog
64 Large state, for short
DOWN
1 Often-heckled officials
2 Gal pal, in Paris
3 Touch of Gray brand
4 Weather section
diagram
5 Radiated
6 Seiko competitor
7 NBA game channel
8 Places to walk on water?
9 DVD kiosk name
10 Thus
11 Cookie with creme
12 Hair division
15 Thought about overnight
17 Off-strip Vegas casino
21 Nickelodeon’s parent
company
23 Little valley
25 Upset with
26 Space ___ (sci-fi genre)
“STEP BACK” By Brian Thomas
sudoku answers
27 Event to take a stand at?
29 Karate, for one
30 “Tuesdays With
Morrie” author Mitch
31 Eye growths
33 Oodles
36 With it, fashion-wise
37 Dreamer’s counterpart
38 Hard tooth layer
43 December mall workers
45 Tattle on
47 Hiking hazard
48 “The Two Fridas”
painter
49 Pub food
50 Defaulted auto
51 ___-lock brakes
52 Future D.A.’s test
54 “Makes sense now!”
55 River Achilles was
dipped in
58 My Chemical
Romance genre