Tuesday, March 8, 1911

People Perish in Terrible Avalanche Snow
Three Towns in Mono California Bombarded by Snow and Rocks
Men Are Swept to Death
Powder Plant Destroyed at Jordan and Homes of Workmen Wrecked
With a furious bombardment of death dealing snowslides carrying everything in their path, tons of snow commingled with rock crashed last Tuesday night for two hours through the towns of Jordan, Lundy and Mono Lake in Mono county, California, leaving in their wake of destruction the dead bodies of from eight to ten men and women and the ruins of the Hydro-Electric Power company and the Crystal Lake Mining company power plant.For the two hours, from 10 o’clock p.m. until midnight, when the bombardment was on, it seemed to the terrified inhabitants routed from their beds by the ominous roaring and crashing, that lofty Mount Warrren, joining forces with the elements, the wind and the snow, had in fact made war on mankind which was harnessing the power of his streams.  From the eminence of over 12,000 feet overlooking Mono Lake, the heart of the power system that sent to current to the mining camps of Aurora, Lucky Boy, Hawthorne and Fairview in Nevada, the mountain with scarcely a warning sent down a devastating series of crashing shells of snow and rock that seemed animated with Satanic malice.The first slide at 10 o’clock went through the upper part of the town of Lundy.  The second went through the center and the third carried away buildings in the lower end of the historic town.  Another flanking battery from the mountain mowed down the plant of the Hydro-Electric Power company at Jordan, carrying with its splintered timbers and twisted wires like so many toothpicks and strings, the bodies of four engineers and the wife of the chief engineer.Men were carried down with their houses to the very brink of the lake. An old hermit, trusting to the peaceful mountain for thirty years, was impartially a victim, and all in one red burial blend.The county jail at Lundy was carried away, a butcher shop in the center of town and an old residence, a slaughter house in the lower end of town.In the buildings and accounted dead were six men. In all ten are missing and eight are known to be dead.Bodie, Cal., March 9.  – This city was thrown into the greatest of excitement early today when a courier arrived from Jordan and from Lundy with the frightful tale that snow slides had demolished the plant of the Hydro-Electric Power company at Jordan and the town of Lundy had been destroyed by a series of snow slides and that from eight to ten people had been killed.On Tuesday night at 10 o’clock a snow slide dashed down upon the little hamlet of Lundy from the snow capped mountains and was soon followed by slide after slide, which demolished the power plant of the Crystal Lake Mining company and the jail in the upper portion of the town, the A. L. Taylor butcher shop in the center of the town and the old Becker residence, and the slaughter house in the lower portion of the hamlet.The slides carried with them everything that was in their path, and in the buildings destroyed were Fred Stromboll, Ben Pessin, Harold Hardy and John Sullivan, who were swept to their death.  Sullivan’s body was recovered, and at the time the courier had left nothing had been found of the others.About a mile and a quarter up the canyon from the town of Lundy was the home of Jasper Parrott, who for nearly thirty years has lived the life of a hermit.  It is known that a slide has demolished his home and that his body lies somewhere in the canyon buried under tons of snow.A man by the name of Christian Knowlton, who has been a resident of Lundy for a number of years, is missing and it is believed that he has lost his life, as a thorough search has failed to locate him.At midnight on Tuesday slides dashed down upon the plant of the Hydro-Electric company and snuffed out the lives of R. H. Mason, Mrs. R. H. Mason, H. M. Weir and P. M. Peacock.The plant was totally destroyed and nothing has so far been found of the bodies of the unfortunate victims.  The plant has just been completed and the juice turned over the wires on Christmas day.Mason was the chief electrician in charge.  Peacock was his first assist and Weir the line inspector.Weir was a resident of Pasadena, who had gone to Jordan shortly before completion of the line to accept the position.Pencock was from Sacramento and had also only recently arrived from that city.The home of John Mattly, one of the supervisors of Mono county, together with the postoffice building at the little hamlet of Mono Lake, was also destroyed at almost the same hour that the slides destroyed the power plant, nearly five miles away.  This home stood on the shores of the lake for nearly forty years and was one of the Mono county landmarks.
[Nevada State Journal (Reno, Nevada) March 10, 1911 - Transcribed by Nancy Piper]