Uploaded September 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Book talk by Ian Wilson
Catastrophe at Custer Creek documents the final ride of the Olympian No. 15, an elite passenger train operated by the famed Milwaukee Road. Just after midnight on June 19, 1938, it crashed into Custer Creek, killing forty-nine people and injuring seventy-five, making it the most devastating train accident in Montana's history. In this vivid narrative account, 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.
Book talk by Ian Wilson
Catastrophe at Custer Creek documents the final ride of the Olympian No. 15, an elite passenger train operated by the famed Milwaukee Road. Just after midnight on June 19, 1938, it crashed into Custer Creek, killing forty-nine people and injuring seventy-five, making it the most devastating train accident in Montana's history. In this vivid narrative account, 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.
