History Note - Week of January 15th

The Livingston Enterprise, January 15, 1887

Buried in a Snowslide.

Word was received here on Saturday last that two miners, Anthony Wise and Clarence Martin, had been caught in a snowslide near Cooke City and buried fifty feet beneath the avalanche. The two men, with eight others, were employed in development work upon a group of mines recently bonded by the Republic company in the Stillwater country. On New Year’s day a small slide occurred near where they were working which covered up the mouth of the tunnel. An opening was made in the snow to permit the men to get out, and it was arranged that two of the party should work on the outside in removing the snow from the mouth of the tunnel. Accordingly Wise and Martin commenced the work, but before starting were told by the foreman of the mine, Nick Tredennick, that he thought it unsafe to go. Shortly afterwards Tredennick followed the men to tell them to stop work for that day. He had proceeded but a short distance when he saw a second slide coming, which carried him about seventy-five feet, where he caught the limb of a tree, to which he held and thus saved himself from certain death. Wise and Martin were carried down the mountain nearly a mile, and so deeply buried that it will be impossible to recover their bodies before the snow disappears next summer. The slide is said to be the biggest that ever occurred in that vicinity, being one half mile wide and moving a distance of one mile down the mountain. Wise was about 26 years of age, and a former resident of this city, coming to Montana about five years ago from his home at Eagle River, Michigan, where his parents now reside. While here he was in the employ of the Northern Pacific as a car repairer. About two years ago he went to Cooke. Since that time and until the latter part of last month he was employed by Engineer John Brown in working the Big Four and other prospects in the New World district. He was a man of good habits, industrious, and was respected by all who knew him during his residence in Livingston.