Sidebar by Catherine Lutz
Snowslides – December 1999 – Colorado Central Magazine
Mining lore by its very nature must have some element of exaggeration, embellishment, or outright lying. Which of the following stories are completely true? Nobody really knows.
When an avalanche hit the Magna Charta Tunnel in 1884, two men were working in the blacksmith shop. Legend has it that one of the men was shot out of the shop like a cannonball, hurtling through a partition and landing fifty feet down the mountainside in a snow bank, unhurt.
The 1899 avalanche buried the Sweezy residence in Tomichi. Mr. Sweezy and one of his sons were carried along with the avalanche 200 yards beyond the house. Their bodies, buried under 200 feet of snow, were only found later that spring. The youngest Sweezy was also buried, but was pulled out unharmed three hours after the avalanche hit. Apparently the rescuers heard his distant and feeble voice in a huge snowpile, amazed that he survived when the rest of the family died.
At another residence, a miner, who was eating breakfast at the time, somehow managed to get under the table when disaster struck. He rapped at the table above him with a knife until rescuers heard him and dug him out five hours later.
