The 1926 Bingham, Utah Avalanche

The 1926 Bingham, Utah Avalanche

This article relates to The Very Long, Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl

The Very Long, Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl by Bart Yates is written as a series of vignettes based on twelve days in the life of the main character, which include personal moments and historical events, both famous and lesser-known. One of these happenings is an avalanche that Isaac survives at the age of eight with his sister in the town of Bingham, Utah. This event appears to be based on a real-life disaster that occurred on February 17, 1926.

Bingham, Utah was a popular miners' community in southwestern Salt Lake County, situated in a canyon of the Oquirrh Mountains. Mormons Thomas and Sanford Bingham settled there in 1848, and ore was soon discovered, but it was only in the 1860s that the area began to develop as a mining city. Even then, the remote location and the cost of transportation made moving ore and equipment difficult. However, this situation changed rapidly in 1873 with the completion of a railroad branch serving the region, resulting in a copper boom by the turn of the century. During the 1920s, Bingham was home to over 15,000 residents who had come from places all over the world, including Italy, France, Japan, Sweden (like Isaac's family), and elsewhere, and was made up of various ethnic enclaves.

In mid-February of 1926, Bingham experienced multiple days of heavy snow. On the morning of Feburary 17, a devastating avalanche of snow, rock, and trees tore through the canyon, killing an estimated 40 people, destroying homes, boarding houses, and churches, and leaving many without shelter. The resulting debris was said to have been 50 to 100 feet deep.

On February 18, the Aspen Daily Times reported, "Rescue workers are still fighting their way through the mass of snow, timbers and rocks, working in relays with only a short rest between shifts. It is expected that several days will elapse before the rescue is completed. The bodies of victims are being brought down to the town's only undertaking establishment in sleighs. The depth of snow renders the use of autos useless." Some believed that mine explosives had triggered the avalanche, but as it isn't known where explosives were used, there's no way to determine whether or not this was the case.

While mining continued successfully after the avalanche, Bingham's days were numbered. The canyon's open mine began to overwhelm the community, which was already squeezed into an extremely narrow area, and by 1972, the original site of the town had been displaced by the growing pit.

Bingham Canyon circa 1920, via Internet Archive Book Images

Filed under People, Eras & Events

This "beyond the book article" relates to The Very Long, Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl. It originally ran in July 2024 and has been updated for the June 2025 paperback edition. Go to magazine.