The Ghost of Wellington Washington

The W ellington train disaster of M arch 1, 1910 is still the w orst avalanche, m easured in term s of lives lost, in the history of the U nited States. The unofficial num ber of lost lives w as set at 96. U nfortunately, no one w ill ever know the actual num ber of victim s that m ay w ell have exceeded 96. Of the 96 m en, w om en and children killed, 35 w ere passengers, 58 w ere G reat N orthern em ployees on the trains, and 3 w ere railroad em ployees asleep in their bunkhouses. 23 passengers did som ehow survive as they’re broken bodies w ere pulled from the w reckage by railroad em ployees living at W ellington.

W elcom e to PIH A ’s H istoric H aunting of W ashington State M agazine On behalf of the volunteer paranormal investigators of PIHA, I invite you to experience Washington State’s amazing historical sites and museums like never before. PIHA has created a program unlike any other in Washington State. Through our process of networking with local Historical Societies, museums and registered historical sites, PIHA hopes to help educate the public of our state’s exciting history and the process and technology utilized in scientific paranormal investigations.

PIHA was created with two goals in mind: 1. PIHA hopes to bring our history to life by attempting to obtain significant evidence of these strange occurrences. Utilizing the latest in today’s electronic technology and dedicated paranormal investigators, we are accomplishing this objective.

2. PIHA wants to stimulate additional interest in our residents and visitors to Washington State’s fascinating history. We want to encourage individuals, families, schools and community organizations to visit these (and other) historical locations for a better education and understanding of our state’s history and the people who made it.

PIHA is not out to prove or disprove the existence of possible paranormal activity, but to publish any significant evidence collected at an investigation and let each individual decided for himself what to believe or not to believe.

Wherever your travels in Washington take you, best wishes for a “Trip to the Extraordinary”.

For additional information about PIHA, visit our website at www.pihausa.com

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In this Issue: Welcome to PIHA’s Historic Haunting of Washington State Magazine…..2 Washington State History……….5 Historical Newspaper Articles.….6 Wellington History………………9 Paranormal Activity Report……...14

Contact PIH A :

PIH A M agazine Publisher:

PIHA (Paranormal Investigations of Historic America) Vaughn Hubbard: Case Manager/Historian Phone: 360.799.4138 Email: Info@pihausa.com Website: WWW.PIHAUSA.COM

Publisher………………...…..….Historic Haunting Chief Publisher…………..……..Vaughn Hubbard Program Manager:………….…..Debbie Knapp Marketing Manager:………….....Kathy Gavin Graphic Designer:…………...…..Christian Wells

Debbie Knapp: Lead Investigator/Historian Kathy Gavin: Lead Investigator Dave: EVP Specialist Christian Wells: Investigator

A cknow ledgem ents: We wish to acknowledge the HistoryLink for allowing PIHA to use their published historical research information as reference material. To read about the history of Washington State visit the HistoryLink website at: www.HistoryLink.org Special thanks to Dave from Silent Voices who works with the PIHA Grey Team as our EVP Specialist. To read more about the groundbreaking work that Dave is involved with and his instructions on EVP's techniques, visit his web site at: www.SilentVoices.info 3

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Washington State History The State of Washington occupies the far northwest corner of the contiguous 48 United States. It occupies 66,582 square miles (176,600 square kilometers) between the Pacific Ocean on the west and the Idaho border at 117 degrees longitude. Washington borders Canada on the north along the 49th parallel and Oregon on the south along the Columbia River and 46th parallel. Great Britain and the United States jointly occupied the region between 1818 and 1846, when Britain ceded the Pacific Northwest below the 49th parallel to the U.S. In 1848 the U.S. created Oregon Territory, including the future states of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho and a portion of Montana. Washington Territory (including Idaho and western Montana until 1863) was separated from Oregon on March 2, 1853, and gained statehood on November 11, 1889.

The federal government created Oregon Territory on August 14, 1848. The area of the new jurisdiction included the present-day states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and western Montana. The discovery of gold in California in 1848 triggered a large westward migration, and settlement of Oregon Territory was promoted by passage of the Donation Land Claims Act of 1850, which granted 160 acres to any U.S. citizen who agreed to occupy his or her land for five years.

On August 29, 1851, 27 male settlers met at Cowlitz Landing (south of present-day Olympia) to petition Congress for a separate “Columbia Territory” covering the area between the Columbia River and 49th parallel. The petition was reaffirmed by 44 delegates who met in Monticello on November 25, 1852. Congress approved the new territory on February 10, 1853, but changed its name to “Washington.”

President Millard Fillmore signed the bill on March 2, 1853, and Olympia was named the Territorial Capital and has remained the capital of both Washington Territory and State since 1853. President Franklyn Pierce named Isaac I. Stevens as the first governor of an area that included northern Idaho and western Montana until President Abraham Lincoln established Idaho Territory on March 4, 1863.

Washington’s non-Indian population grew steadily to more than 300,000 over the following decades. Its residents began petitioning for statehood in 1881, and Washington was admitted to the Union on November 11, 1889, with the signature of President Benjamin Harrison.

Thirty federally recognized sovereign Indian tribes and reservations occupy substantial areas in Washington, and there are an additional seven unrecognized but culturally distinct tribes. Native American Indian tribes have occupied this area; now know as Washington State for over 10,000 years and have a rich history in culture and survival. By the 1850s, when the first Euro American settlers arrived at Alki Point and along the Duwamish River, diseases had already taken a devastating toll on native peoples and their cultures. During the 80 year period from the 1770s to 1850, smallpox, measles, influenza, and other diseases had killed an estimated 28,000 Native Americans in Western Washington, leaving about 9,000 survivors. Historian Robert Boyd conducted extensive research on the effect of European diseases on Northwest coast Indians.

In his book, The Coming of the Spirit of Pestilence, he states that the 1775 Spanish expedition led by Bruno Hezeta, commander of the Santiago and Juan Fracisco de la Bodega & Quadra, commander of the Sonora was the most likely carrier.

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Historical Newspaper Articles of Wellington, WA Train Disaster of March 1, 1910 These are original (unedited) feature stories from numerous Washington State newspapers about the Wellington Train Disaster written at the time of the disaster misspelled words and all.

LIST OF DEAD GROWS WITH RESCUE Horror Increases As Rescuers Search in Snow for Bodies of Passengers on Train Buried in Snowslide. Weather Warms and More Slides May Interfer [sic] With Work.

EVERETT, March 3. -- As further details of the disaster that overwhelmed two Great Northern passenger trains, when an avalanche swept the trains and a portion of the town of Wellington, at the west portal of the Cascade tunnel, down the mounside [sic], are received, the horror grows.

Struck by the avalanche, the cars fell 150 feet into the canyon and are buried by debris.

A train has left Everett for the blockaded section of the Great Northern with 70 additional workmen and supplies.

The relief train, with the injured, if they can be removed from Wellington, will arrive at Everett at 6:30 tonight.

Wrecking crews are working on the east side of the Cascade in an effort to reach Wellington. If they get the track open before the west side is cleared the bodies of the dead will be taken to Spokane.

Supt. O'Neill, of the Great Northern, who is at Scenic Hot Springs, sent word before noon that he had heard nothing from Wellington. He supposes that messengers from the rescue party are walking through the snow to Scenic. The distance is three miles in a straight line, eight miles by the winding course of the railroad track. There is no wire communication between Wellington and Scenic.

Wounded Are at Wellington.

It will be impossible to reach the scene of the wreck today except by foot travel. From the east side of the Cascades approach is cut off by a snowslide at Drury, six miles east of Leavenworth, which destroyed the station and killed Watchman JOHNSON. The wounded are being cared for at Wellington, but will be taken to the big hotel at Scenic Hot Springs as soon as possible. The weather in the mountains continues warm and rescue parties will be in constant peril from snowslides. The two trains that were carried away by the great wave of ice and snow were the Spokane express and the westbound transcontinental fast mail. The latter carries no passengers. Most of the dead and injured are believed to have been passengers on the Spokane express, 40 of whom were on the train at the time of the disaster. Besides these, 30 workmen who had been engaged in the battle against the drifts that had been holding the two ill-fated trains imprisoned in the mountains since February 24, were sleeping in the day coaches.

PASSENGERS PERHAPS TO BLAME Coaches Moved Out of Tunnel and into Danger at Their Request.

SEATTLE, March, 3. -- Among railroad men here probable responsibility for the Wellington disaster attracted much comment today. The passenger train which was swept to destruction had been stalled at Wellington for the last week. As a protective measure the train was backed into the tunnel, while provisions for the marooned passengers were obtained from the company's stores of supplies and from Ballet's hotel. Several small slides yesterday alarmed the passengers and it was feared that the mouth of the tunnel would be closed. The passengers begged the conductor to move the train out of the tunnel and to run the risk of avalanche, such as crushed it later.

When the train was run out of the tunnel to the town of Wellington a slide of snow blocked the passage way to the secure shelter in the mountain. Another slide prevented the train from moving forward, and it was compelled to stand near the depot, adjoining the main train.

There it met destruction. The question is whether the passengers assumed the risk of lurking death or of the road can be blamed for leaving the passenger coaches where they were forced to stop by the mail train.

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RESCUERS TRAIL BLOOD OF VICTIMS Melting Snow Reveals Red Stains of Bodies Mangled by Avalanche at Wellington. Foreign Laborers Caught Looting Bodies of Victims The Number of Dead May Reach 100.

WELLINGTON, Wash., March, 4.--Thirty-one of the thirty-five bodies of avalanche victims recovered have been identified among them being BERT MATTHEWS of Cincinnati and F. W. TOPING of Ashland, Ohio, whose bodies were found this afternoon.

A fearful storm is raging here to-night, and snow is falling and is being whirled into drifts by a furious wind. The change in the weather will make the trail from Scenic difficult and will hamper the men who have been digging for bodies.

The snow plows working on both sides of Wellington made good progress today. A rotary on the west side is four and a half miles from Wellington, between Korea and Alvin. On the east side of the Cascades another rotary is near Gaynor, eight miles from Wellington.

The tunnel being open, there is a good prospect that the line to the east will be opened first, in which case the dead and injured will be taken to Spokane.

WELLINGTON, Wash., March, 4.--A list of passengers, trainmen and postal employees who were carried down by the avalanche that destroyed two Great Northern train Tuesday morning and who are dead or missing, contains 86 names. Statements of the number of laborers engaged in fighting the snow and who were sleeping on the illfated trains varies from 20 to 30. Consequently, and estimate of 100 dead seems conservative. No one who has looked at the wreckage has the slightest hope of finding any of the missing people alive. The explorations have uncovered only dead and some of these shockingly mangled.

At day a stream of men with packs strapped to their backs wound up the mountain path from Skykomish to Scenic and Wellington reminding Alaskans of the caravans that crossed the Chilcoot trail in the Klondike days. Ten men carried food and supplies for the injured and some went up to dig for the bodies of friends or relatives. A few were sight-seers, and these were told that they were not wanted.

A laborer was caught taking trinkets from a dead woman's body and was compelled to start down the trail at once.

One hundred and fifty men dug for bodies in the avalanche debris to-day.

If the searchers locate the Pullman cars intact in the snow they may take out many bodies in a short time, but it is likely that the dead are strewn all through acres of debris. At the present rate of progress it would require weeks to recover all the bodies. After the track is open engines and tackle will lift the huge trees and boulders.

There are no coffins at Wellington, and the dead, wrapped in blankets, lie on the snow, well preserved. Supt.

O'Neill of the Great Northern today said he expected the railroad to be in operation about April 1.

Trace Blood Stains in Snow.

Workers searching for bodies frequently find victims by following blood stains through the snow. The melting snow has carried the stains from the mangled bodies down to the stream at the bottom of the gulch. Men with shovels upon finding one of these crimson leads, start at the edge of the stream and tunnel through the snow until they come to the body of the victim. The snow is packed like cement and the bodies that were not mangled by the wreckage of the cars were horribly crushed by the weight of the icy mass.

It is feared that many of the bodies will never be recovered. The warm weather and rains of the last three days have turned the little mountain stream that flows through the canyon into a raging torrent and the water is fast undermining the snow which was carried far out across the bottom of the gorge. It is believed that many bodies were carried clear across the gulch and hurled under forty feet of snow. As the stream rises and the water undermines the debris there is danger of the bodies dropping into the river and being carried away by the swift current. The rain which has been falling for three days turned into snow tonight and a fearful blizzard is raging.

The addition of new snow to the covering that lies eighteen feet deep on the mountainsides increases the danger of more slides, and adds to the peril of the rescuers who are laboring night and day at the task of removing the bodies of the dead.

Owing to trouble with foreign laborers who attempted to loot the bodies, Supt. O'Neill has sent all of them from the camp and is employing only American workmen.

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B efore the A valanche

The A valanche of M arch 1, 1910

A fter the A valanche

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The History of Wellington, WA and the Train Disaster of March 1, 1910 Wellington, the town: Wellington, WA was established in 1893 by the Great Northern Pacific Railroad as small unincorporated town for the railroad workers and their families. Wellington was located about three miles west of the Stevens Pass Summit and just off the old Stevens Pass Highway. Due to the negative connotation of the original name after the 1910 train disaster, the Great Northern Railroad changed Wellington’s name to Tye in 1913. The town’s new name was derived from the nearby Tye Creek. The town of Tye was abandoned in 1929 when the old railroad grade route was abandoned and a new grade route was developed and came into use. The new railroad grade route, including the new Cascade Tunnel, is still in use by the Burlington Northern Sante Fe Railroad today. The old grade route was turned into a hiking trail named the Iron Goat Trail that winds about seven miles through the forest from the trailhead at Highway 2 to the original town site of Wellington.

The name Iron Goat was taken from the Great Northern Railway corporate symbol of a mountain goat standing on a rock. "Iron goat" was applied to Great Northern locomotives climbing mountainous rail line in the Rockies or Cascade mountains. Wellington Elementary School located in the Northshore School District of Seattle, WA. was named after the town of Wellington.

The Wellington train disaster of March 1, 1910 is still the worst avalanche, measured in terms of lives lost, in the history of the United States. The unofficial number of lost lives was set at 96. Unfortunately, no one will ever know the actual number of victims that may well have exceeded 96. Of the 96 men, women and children killed, 35 were passengers, 58 were Great Northern employees on the trains, and 3 were railroad employees asleep in their bunkhouses. 23 passengers did somehow survive as they’re broken bodies were pulled from the wreckage by railroad employees living at Wellington. Due to the unsafe and extreme weather conditions, rescue efforts were abandoned. It was late July, before it was possible to retrieve the last of the bodies. The last body recovered was that of Archibald McDonald, a 23 year old brakeman lay trapped under piles of splintered timbers.

The Disaster: On February 23, 1910, after a snow delay at the east Cascade Mountains town of Leavenworth, two Great Northern trains, the Spokane Local passenger train No. 25 and Fast Mail train No. 27, preceded westbound towards their destination, Seattle. Combined, there were 6 steam and electric engines, 15 boxcars, passenger cars, and sleepers. The trains had passed through the Cascade Tunnel from the east to the west side of the mountains, when snow and avalanches forced them to stop near Wellington.

This horrific train disaster was an accident just waiting to happen due to extreme weather conditions and the treeless slopes of Windy Mountain. It began on February 19, 1910 when Wellington was hit by a terrible snow blizzard. On February 23 both trains were trapped on a narrow ledge on Windy Mountain, about 150 feet above the ravine of Tye Creek, just outside the town of Wellington. Heavy snowfall, labor disputes, and the dwindling coal supply made it impossible for train crews to clear the tracks. The rotary snow plows were only 10

effective at depths up to 13 feet. The deeper drifts, up to 40 feet deep, had to be shoveled by hand down to the 13 foot level before the rotary snow plows could be used. Passengers became impatient as the supplies of food and water ran low, sanitation on the passenger train deteriorated, and snow continued to pile up on the slopes above the stranded trains. A few small groups of passengers and workers eventually walked westbound on the tracks for help; eventually they reached the small town of Scenic. For six long days, the trains were stranded in an ideal environment for the avalanche. Then it happened, White Death! Shortly after midnight, on March 1st. with everyone asleep in the trains and the town bunkhouses, the avalanche came roaring down Windy Mountain as a ten foot wall of snow that measured a half a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide. The avalanche carried the two trains over the narrow ledge and they finally came to rest about 150 feet below in the Tye Creek ravine. Great Northern worked for three weeks to repair the tracks before trains were running again over Stevens Pass.

First Hand Descriptions: Charles Andrews, a Great Northern employee, was walking towards the warmth of his employee bunkhouse, shortly after midnight. In the quiet, peaceful night, suddenly the mountainside roared to life. In a 1960 interview, he described what he witnessed: "White Death moving down the mountainside above the trains. Relentlessly it advanced, exploding, roaring, rumbling, grinding, snapping, a crescendo of sound that might have been the crashing of ten thousand freight trains. It descended to the ledge where the side tracks lay, picked up cars and equipment as though they were so many snow-draped toys, and swallowing them up, disappeared like a white, broad monster into the ravine below".

One of the 23 survivors interviewed three days after the Wellington train disaster stated: "There was an electric storm raging at the time of the avalanche. Lighting flashes were vivid and a tearing wind was howling down the canyon. Suddenly there was a dull roar, and the sleeping men and women felt the passenger coaches lifted and borne along. When the coaches reached the steep declivity they were rolled nearly 1,000 feet and buried under 40 feet of snow".

A surviving train conductor sleeping in one of the mail train cars was thrown from the roof to the floor of the car several times as the train rolled down the slope before it disintegrated when the train slammed against a large tree.

In the days that followed, news of the tragedy that reached the rest of the country was inaccurate. On March 1 there were reports of "30 feared dead." On March 2 there were "15 bodies ... recovered ... [and] 69 persons missing.

“One hundred and fifty men, mostly volunteers, are working to uncover the dead." On March 3 a headline stated, "VICTIMS NOW REACH 118."

The injured were sent to Wenatchee. The bodies of the dead were transported on toboggans down the west side of the Cascades to trains that carried them to Everett and Seattle.

Victims and Heroes of Wellington: Miss Nellie Sharp (Mrs. Nellie McGirl) and friend Mrs. Herbert Tweetie: In a hotel room in Spokane, Washington, Nellie Sharp said to her companion, Mrs. Herbert Tweedie, "I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll draw for it. The one who gets the short straw goes east to Montana, the one who gets the long, west to Seattle”. Nellie Sharp drew the long straw. Nellie was a young twenty-six year old woman, recently divorced, freelance writer, working on a traveling article with her friend Mrs. Herbert Tweetie. Mrs. Tweetie also seemed to be on her own and without a husband. She and Nellie Sharp were planning their new direction in life.

From Spokane, Nellie would go west to the coast to do research for a travel article and interview loggers and fishermen of the Washington coast. Mrs. Tweetie would go east to Montana and research the cowboys and homesteaders of the Great Montana Plains. They panned to meet again in Spokane in a couple of weeks, finalize their articles and submit them to the popular magazine “McClures”.

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Ida Starrett: Ida was a recent widow from Spokane, WA traveling with here three small children and elderly parents to Seattle.

Sara Jane Covington: A petite, sixty-nine year old grandmother who after visiting her ailing son, Melmoth A. Covington from Spokane.

Melmoth had become gravely ill due to a scratch from a cat and within three days, had to be hospitalized for his infection. She later wrote to her daughter. “They injected serum in his chest that made him extremely weak; then they cut three gashes in his arm which was swollen very much. When I first saw him, they were spraying him with stuff that burned and smarted so as to make him holler out.” After a month, Sara Jane was returning home to her husband where they would be celebrating their fifty-first wedding anniversary on March 3rd. In Olympia, she was well known for her intellect and involvement in charity and reform work.

Libby Latsch: The owner of her own hair accessories company.

Henry H. White: Henry H. White boarded the train a Wenatchee. A salesman for the American Paper Company was now headed home to Seattle at the Fenimore Hotel where he and his wife resided.

Lewis C. Jesseph: Lewis was a thirty-two year old lawyer who boarded the Seattle Express, the Great Northern Railways No. 25, in Spokane and was heading to Seattle for an important court case in Washington States Supreme Court. Lewis later wrote “we knew that the Great Northern Railway had constructed many snowsheds to protect the right-of-way from slides and that the rotary snowplows could clear the exposed track”.

John Merritt: John was a lawyer in his fifties and close friend of Lewis Jesseph who was also headed to Seattle’s Supreme Court to argue his case against Lewis as the opposing lawyer and by chance, was booked on the same train as Lewis.

Edward W. “Ned” Topping: In the sleeper car Winnipeg, was Edward W. “Ned” Topping a twenty-nine year old salesman from Ashland, Ohio.

Ned worked in his father’s family business, the Safety Door Company, which manufactured hardware for barn doors. The previous August his wife, Florence and unborn daughter had both died in childbirth. His parents had decided to send him on the road to take his mind off of the loss of his wife and unborn daughter. They cared for his twenty-two month old son, Bill, while Ned was traveling. Ned wrote to his mother while on the train; “Mother, I am so glad that your trip to Akron was so successful and that the doctor found nothing wrong with Little Bill. I’d like to have seen him acting up on the train. I suppose the Durrs” (Little Bill’s maternal grandparents) “thoroughly enjoyed your visit for I know how they like to see him and I’ll be anxious to hear from your own lips, the story of the trip. I can hardly believe that Ruth” (his younger sister) “is wearing a ring. I know that she must be very happy.

I’m glad, exceedingly so, and further believe she has made a wise choice. She will have a new life now entirely. I hope father and the rest will get busy pretty soon and write me, for letters do come so good way out here”. Ned also wrote “Dear Mother and friends, I wrote you last night that I expected to reach Seattle this am. Here I am at the summit of the Cascades, snowed in since 6:30 this morning. Such a snow you never saw. It’s banked up to the top of the window here, and we can’t go or come. Can’t get any information as to when we’ll get out”.

Lucius Anderson: Lucius was a young, black man from Mississippi who was a porter assigned to the sleeper car, Winnipeg.

Joseph Pettit: Joseph was a conductor on the Seattle Express.

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Other Families: The Greys, The Becks and a young motorman traveling with his three year old daughter. There were also several women traveling alone to Seattle. There were five lawyers aboard including Jesseph and Merritt. The passenger list also included two men in real estate, a clergyman, a civil engineer, an electrician and three or four drummers (traveling salesmen).

James Henry O’Neil: Thirty-seven year old James O’Neil was the superintendent for the Great Northern Railways Cascade Division for three years prior to the Wellington disaster. His office was located at the Delta rail yards in Everett, WA. because of the extreme snow conditions in the Cascades, he had moved to his tiny office space in Scenic, WA. He was responsible for keeping the mail, freight and passenger trains moving through the entire western half of Washington State. A few years later Mr. O’Neil wrote “boys did not go to work on the railroad, simply because their fathers did. What fetched them were the sights and sounds of moving trains and above all the whistle of a locomotive. I’ve heard the call of the wild, the call of the law and the call of the church. There’s also the call of the railroad”. James answered that call at the young age of thirteen. He left his home and education behind to start as a water boy for a dollar-aday at Devils Lake.

Archie “Mac” McDonald: Archie, a close friend of Bill Moore and brakeman of Great Northern, lost his life in the avalanche.

Bill J. Moore: As a young, nineteen year old, Bill was one of the many heroes of Wellington as he and his wrecker crew dug and scoured in the snow and wreckage searching for survivors and bodies of the victims. With bodies scattered all over the mountain side, some under as much as forty feet of snow and debris, their task was backbreaking and dangerous. Once the bodies were located, they were placed “like cordwood, in 4x4 stacks”. Later they would be wrapped in blankets and placed on Alaska style sleds for evacuation to the makeshift morgue in the stations baggage room to be identified and stored until their delivery to the assigned cemeteries.

Charles Andrews: Charles Andrews would not make it to the bunkhouse warmth for many hours. Along with other Wellington residents, Andrews rushed to the crushed trains that lay 150 feet below the railroad tracks. During the next few hours they dug out 23 survivors, many with serious injuries.

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Paranormal Activity at the Historic Wellington, WA Train Disaster Site of 1910 Over the years, the paranormal activity at the Historic site of Wellington is as fascinating as the train disaster of 1910 was tragic. There have been far too many published and unpublished reports of paranormal activity existing that make it impossible to ignore.

Many paranormal organizations have obtained volumes of videos, photos and EVP’s (digital recordings) over the years and continue to do so today. Personally, I have never made a trip with our paranormal organization when someone on our team of investigators didn’t obtain some sort of evidence or had a personal experience. Then, when you consider all of the visitors, hikers and people that have helped to run and maintain this historical site and have personally experienced some form of strange, unexplained activity that they neither expected or understood, then the numbers of incidents are incalculable.

We have heard and recorded voices, witnessed images and aberrations personally and with our equipment, everywhere. And much of it has been totally unexpected. Like when we would be in the parking lot (close to the tunnel entrance) setting up our equipment and getting ready to walk to the old train tunnel to investigate. Then, out of nowhere, everyone hears a voice or people talking. Other times, we have witnessed a strange face or shadow peering out at us from behind some bushes. Once, while we were taking a break in the parking lot, drinking coffee and talking about whatever, we heard footsteps approaching us from the pathway that leads from the tunnel entrance to the parking lot. Thinking that it is a late night hiker or someone, we waited for them to arrive. When no one did, a few of us stood up and walked along the path towards the tunnel entrance to see who was there. There was nothing or no one anywhere around. There is a video of what appears to be a small child (some think a boy) darting between the large concrete columns in the tunnel area close by and watching the investigators like a small, shy child may do in real life. And then he was gone. If you head towards to area where the town once stood (now totally gone and overgrown with trees and scrubs) you can hear occasional voices of people talking and laughing.

The tunnel area is by far, the most active area of the Wellington site and you are liable to hear or see just about anything imaginable while in there and at anytime of the day or night. I have personally heard voices that were unaccounted for, shadows of figures that seem to dart around from nowhere and even the occasional sound of what I believe sounds like a train passing through the tunnel. Some of my personal experiences I have obtained as evidence and much more just by observing late at night. And I am just one paranormal investigator with a limited amount of time investigating Wellington.

Wellington is truly an amazing historical site to visit. It is located close to the Stevens Pass Summit. The Wellington Historical Site is open to the public and easily accessible by hiking or driving to its remote location.

This historical site was created by USDA forest service and The Iron Goat Trail to Wellington is maintained by the Volunteers for Outdoor Washington (VOW).

Of all the places that I have ever investigated or talked to other paranormal investigators about who have actually investigated Wellington, no one has ever been able to compare anywhere else with Wellington and its continuous paranormal activity. Wellington must be ranked as one of the (if not the) most haunted and active site in all of Washington State.

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O n behalf of the volunteer paranorm par anorm al investigators of PIH A , w e invite you to experience W ashington State’s am azing historical sites and m useum s like never before. PIH A has created a program unlike unl ike any other in W ashington State. Through our process pr ocess of netw orking w ith local historical societies, s ocieties, m useum s and com m unity leaders, PIH A hopes to help educate the public of our state’s exciting history and the process pro cess and technology utilized in paranorm al research. research .

The PIH A “G rey Team ” is m ade up of dedicated paranorm al investigators w ith a passion for history and a curiosity in the paranorm al phenom ena. O ur approach, equipm ent and procedures to paranorm al investigating are prim arily based on research and logic in obtaining evidence of possible paranorm al activity.

The PIH A A pproach to Paranorm al Investigations PIH A never use m edium s, psychics or O uija B oards in our investigations. M any people w ho think that som ething paranorm al exist, physics and logic can debunk. That said, occasionally PIH A obtains evidence that neither physics nor logic applies. W hen this occurs, w e classify it as paranorm al evidence and let each individual decide for him self w hat to believe or not believe.

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