On March 1, 1910, high up in the Cascade mountains, winter snows the week before had stalled trains along the Great Northern Railway between Spokane and Seattle. Stranded passengers had hopes that the track would be cleared that day, unaware of the disaster to come.
During the civil war, the manufacture of powder and explosives was often handled by the most vulnerable, young women and children, whose labor was needed when so many men had been sent off to war. On March 13, 1863, the confederacy experienced a munitions disaster, in the confederate capitol of Richmond.