Catastrophe at Custer Creek
Montana's Deadliest Train Wreck
by Ian Campbell Wilson
published by Montana Historical Society Press
Just after midnight on June 19, 1938, the Olympian No. 15, an elite passenger train operated by the famed Milwaukee Road, crashed into Custer Creek, which flows into the Yellowstone River southwest of Terry, Montana. In the moments before the train reached the small bridge spanning the typically dry creek, the waters had swelled dramatically, the result of a violent storm system that moved across Montana that day. The wreck killed forty-nine passengers and crew members and injured another seventy-five, making it the most devastating train accident in Montana history. Just after midnight on June 19, 1938, the Olympian No. 15, an elite passenger train operated by the famed Milwaukee Road, crashed into Custer Creek, which flows into the Yellowstone River southwest of Terry, Montana. In the moments before the train reached the small bridge spanning the typically dry creek, the waters had swelled dramatically, the result of a violent storm system that moved across Montana that day. The wreck killed forty-nine passengers and crew members and injured another seventy-five, making it the most devastating train accident in Montana history.
Catastrophe at Custer Creek documents the final ride of the Olympian. The sudden and violent wreck garnered national attention. It forever altered the lives of survivors and victims' families and dealt a significant blow to the Milwaukee Road's fortunes. In this vivid narrative history, author Ian Campbell Wilson reconstructs the lives of several passengers and crew members, probes what caused this unprecedented disaster, and surveys the intertwined histories of the Milwaukee Road and the eastern Montana communities that the Olympian passed through on its usual route from Chicago to Tacoma and back again.
285 pages, 6 x 9 inches, 27 b/w photos, 1 map(s)
softcover
ISBN 10:
ISBN 13: 9780917298783
$26.95
RELEASE DATE
December 2023
Catastrophe at Custer Creek
Montana's Deadliest Train Wreck |
Ian Campbell Allen is a writer and historian who lives in Bozeman, Montana. He is the author of "Goddess of the Sun: Tucson's Hacienda del Sol School for Girls," an article about the origins of an elite 1920s girls' school in Tucson, Arizona, published in 2017 in the Journal of Arizona History. Canadian by birth, Campbell Wilson holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of New Hampshire. His website is iancampbellwilson.com. | |