The Deadliest Rockslide in North America - The Frank Rockslide of 1903

[Music] this is a valley of Carnage this massive field of hard limestone rocks is what's left of the deadliest rock slide in North America after 110 million tons broke from the unstable Turtle Mountain sweeping down the mountain side and pummeling part of the mining town of Frank Alberta we're exploring the site of the disaster seeing what's left of the once booming town down there is the actual mine entrance that was blocked off and visiting the Frank slide interpretive center to see what stories we can learn and remember I've explored several ghost towns across North America but this town's history ranks among the most dramatically gripping stories that I've looked into right up there with the underground fires of Centralia Pennsylvania this is the town of Frank Alberta in Midwest Canada and this is the the story of the terrible Frank rockslide of [Music] 1903 the town of Frank lies in what's called The Crow's Nest pass named for The Crows Nest Mountain to the north prior to the late 1800s the pass was nothing more than a pass mostly uninhabited and used simply for trail access between the populated prairies of Alberta to the East and the booming mining operations in British Columbia to the West I should note that at the time Alberta wasn't even officially a Canadian province yet it was part of the Northwest Territories now the Western Mines were producing huge huge amounts of ore but due to the Rocky Mountains most of the Ore had to be shipped East Via American rails to the South to assert Canada's presence in these western territories the Canadian Pacific Railroad built the crow Nest route stretching from Lethbridge Alberta through the pass to cout Landing in British Columbia with its first rail service in 1898 this new railroad provided the foundation of infrastructure needed to explore the possibilities of opening the pass up for Mining and this brought in a wave of Prospectors to the pass the first real settlement within the pass was the town of blore from which a man named Henry peler set out prospecting he found deposits of coal at the base of turtle Mountain to the east of Blairmore promptly selling his claim to an American entrepreneur named Samuel gabo Mr gabo and his financial backer a Montana businessman named Henry L frank formed the Canadian American coal and Coke company and opened a mine at the claim in the spring of 1901 quickly developing a small settlement with 25 Cottages a boarding house and Office Buildings all to support the new mine the mine was named Frank and the town was named Frank both after Henry Frank and to be completely Frank the town was given an unfair Advantage the duo poured all sorts of money into the town to draw businesses and residents away from the nearby towns to compete and basically make Frank the leading settlement in the past while most mining towns grew up organically based on the prosperity of the mine gabo and Frank wanted to jumpstart the town of Frank by throwing it a big grand opening ceremony the Canadian Pacific Railroad actually loved the idea of this town celebration offering two special Excursion drains which ended up bringing in around 1,400 people Henry Frank the man in the hour actually ended up missing his connection while coming up from Montana and in true Frank fashion he chartered his own private extra train to take him the rest of the way he ended up beating most of the excursionists there the town festivities were a joyous occasion featuring concerts sporting events competitions and a huge feast for anyone who attended free of charge some of the 25 Cottages were opened up to attract families to move into the town and the mining tunnels that were already dugged were also opened for tours to impress visitors it worked after the event people came pouring into the town which boomed to a population of over 600 people by a spring of 1903 it was claimed that Frank would be the Pittsburgh of Canada a comparison which is virtually lost today but at the time Pittsburgh Pennsylvania was one of America's richest industrial cities and the Envy of any optimistic small town hotels restaurants stores and neighborhoods grew up quickly as Frank carved a place for itself in the pass to the northeast of the town is the living Stone range with Robertson Peak dominating the landscape in that direction to the South Towers the mountain where most of the town's mining work was taking place this is a tall ominous mountain known as Turtle Mountain blocking the sun in the late afternoon giving the town of Frank an early Sunset each day while Turtle Mountain was rich in Coal at the base of it its for boating presence over the past made people feel uneasy with both Natives and settlers alike feeling insecure around it the local Blackfoot tribe referred to it as the mountain that moves and they refus to camp near it whenever they would travel through the pass in fact when Explorer David Thompson's Expedition reached the pass in 1800 then they must have heated the warnings of the native population as they ultimately refused to enter the pass at all and took a different one their caution wasn't mere Superstition though the claim that the mountain moves likely referred to Quakes and Tremors or even the slow settling of the mountain over time as it turns out Turtle Mountain itself was structurally unstable it had formed over the course of tens of millions of years now we're about to get geological here but it is important to the story The top layer was composed of dirt softer Rock and shell and splintered by veins of coal beneath that was a thick layer of heavy Limestone as the Limestone plates pushed together one of them was forced upward as the top layer of dirt wore away the Limestone plate overlapped the dirt layer that was on top of the other plate turtle Mountain was forming but at the same time glacial movements followed by the later Crows Nest River wore away the northern base of the mountain slowly removing the soft layer of matter that the high up layer of limestone rested on eventually the heavy Limestone hung precariously as a steep Cliff looming over the town on top of that cracks forming in the top of the mountain allowed rain water and snow melt to seep into the mountain further undermining its stability this rock slide was almost 100 million years in the making and the timing was so perfect that it happened within less than 2 years of the Town appearing there the mine was at the base of the mountain and it slowly chipped away at the foundation even further now in 1903 the town's population was over 600 and the town was full of life a stroll down Frank's main Commercial Street Dominion Avenue would show you just how Lively that town was becoming at the southern end of dominion Avenue was a boarding house one of the first accommodations built by The Mining Company heading north after passing several homes we reach a hotel a bar and the office of the town's newspaper the Frank Sentinel the newspaper was founded shortly after the town itself and was known for frequent spelling errors hardware stores tinsmiths a drugstore and the Frank Cafe came next the cafe advertising their homebaked bread two hotels stood at the last block before the Canadian Pacific Railroad Track the Frank hotel and the Imperial Hotel the Frank Hotel rather lavishly called itself a resort while the Imperial Hotel boasted steam heating electric lighting and a dining room that was not to be surpassed in all the West a rather bold claim when the bamp spring hotel to the north was practically with an earshot although in 1903 it looked smaller than it does today but still impressive and probably more impressive than the Imperial Hotel out of the dining room of the Imperial Hotel the Frank slide interpretive Center has a dinner plate on display today aside from the street itself there is absolutely nothing left hinting to us of the downtown that once stood here the buildings all removed new ones put in their place and even Dominion Avenue has been renamed to Simply 152nd Street Dominion Avenue terminated at the railroad tracks and just about at this site the CPR was building a newer larger train station for the town of Frank and it was only partway completed at the time of the rock slide until now the town had been using a small shack as the station but this certainly wouldn't do for a town that was quickly becoming the center of Commerce and Industry in the [Music] area so this is the approximate location of the train station the track is still here and active but the station is long gone another railroad construction project at the time was a branch line coming off the railroad east of Frank and heading into the mountains to a new settlement called Lil about 4 miles to the north they had been blasting out the railroad bed and were starting to lay the tracks in this area of the line by this time less than 2 years after opening the Frank mine had made excellent Headway into extracting coal from the mountain encouraged by the eager demand for coal from the Canadian Pacific Railroad work went round the clock at times shipping a, tons of coal a day by early 1903 the miners had dug 1 and A2 km or nearly a mile Under the Mountain because of the way the mountain formed that meant that the coal seam which was was horizontal at the mine entrance began to curve upward the deeper into the mountain they mined so the workers began digging larger vertical Chambers some of these Chambers were 120 M or nearly 400 ft tall the more the miners worked the more they were undermining an already unstable mountain in the months leading up to the disaster it was said that coal was mining itself tremors in the mountain shook loose several tons of coal but that's nothing compared to the compression as the mountain slowly sagged on itself and shifted ever further frames inside the mine buckled and coal squeezed out from between heavier rocks still the warning signs went unheeded it was now the night of April 28th 1903 and nearing midnight the night shift of miners were getting ready to go on duty and Gathering up on Dominion Avenue and walking down the street and across the river to the base of the mountain where the entrance to the mine was there was Turtle Mountain at the foot of which was the mine entrance a lower shaft was also dug for airf flow and an auxiliary Escape Crow Nest River also known as the Middle Fork of the Old Man River separated the mine from the town Gold Creek flowed from the north and joined the river the slide rerooted the creek to the path that we see today but before the slide on the night of April 28th and the early hours of 29th the creek flowed more so along this path the railroad followed the pass cutting north of the town when it was first open it didn't travel much farther than the West End of the pass but now in 1903 it connected to several other towns in British Columbia and western United States in fact now after midnight a train from Lethbridge destined for Spokane Washington was running late and expected to arrive at 4:30 a.m. this train was known as the Spokane flyer and several people in the town of Frank were staying in the hotels awaiting the Train's arrival and were ready to board awaiting another train was Ellen and John Thornley John owned a shoe shop to the east of town his sister Ellen was staying with him and Frank all winter for Medical Treatments and with the treatments now over she was awaiting a train to finally return home rather than staying at the Shoe Shop all night where John lived he suggested that they get a hotel room at the Frank hotel which was near the station and then that way the next day they wouldn't have to rush to get there on time Ellen agreed and this simple decision saved both their lives but not the shoes a freight train was slowly moving through the pass running behind schedule due to a snowstorm to the East and now had to wait even longer to give the delayed Spokane flyer the right of way whenever it should finally arrive the freight train pulled into a siding and additional coal cars were hooked up to the end of it to the east of town was a row of seven Cottages the first Cottage closest to the town was the home of Carl and Annie benser Carl was born in Germany and Annie was born near shui in Nova Scotia the next house belonged to the leech family Alex Rosemary and their seven children children they moved to the town shortly after the grand opening and Alex opened the town's first General Store the next house belonged to the acro family from Montana Charles Nancy and their son Lester the fourth Cottage belonged to the ANS family Sam his wife Lucy and their four children as well as Lucy's brother who worked in the mine the fifth Cottage belonged to the Watkins family John Mary and three of their children the sixth Cottage was vacant and the seventh Cottage belonged to the Clark family Alex Clark worked in the mine during the night shift his daughter Lillian worked at the downtown boarding house and was working late this evening Alex's wife and five other children were asleep in the cottage in the valley to the east were various additional Cottages Shacks two ranches and a camp of tramps all told an additional 75 or more people were sleeping soundly beyond the town Bliss ful unaware of the looming danger it was just after 4 a.m. for the nocturnal miners it was lunchtime a small handful of the workers decided to come out of the mines and eat their lunch in the cool fresh nighttime air a mogul locomotive pushed a coal car up a siding in the direction of the mine to leave it there for the night the locomotive was under the command of a Ben mergatroid with two assistants walking alongside the locomotive ready to uncut couple the car a rumbling came from the top of the mountain this rumbling was so loud in fact that Ben could hear it over the steam locomotive that he was driving several large Boulders began rolling down the mountain side jumping across the tracks within sight of them Ben knew exactly what was happening without hesitation he shouted to his two assistants to jump aboard and he opened the throttle up the locomotive began building up speed as the two other men clung to the railings on the side the whole top of the mountain broke loose the full layer of heavy overhanging Limestone collapsed beginning its race into the valley annihilating anything in its path large trees were snapped like Twigs flowing down the mountain side with a movement similar to water 110 million tons of limestone Rock swept across the mine entrance sweeping away all of the workers that were there including Alex Clark and any of the mine buildings the rail car that mgat try's crew had just dropped off a moment ago was picked up and thrown a full 2 miles away mergatroid pushed the locomotive as hard as he could crossing the bridge across Gold Creek no sooner had he done so than the bridge was blown away like paper but the engine and its three crew had gotten out of the way of the slide just in time most weren't so lucky 100 seconds of roaring Carnage elapsed the slide only stopped because it hit the mountain range on the other side of the valley and even went 500 ft up the other side the crash was so loud that it was heard north of Calgary 200 km away or over 120 Mi as mergatroid locomotive came to a stop at the Frank railway station under construction and spared by the rock slide they found out that the incoming late Spokane flyer was last reported by Telegraph to be approaching the town at high speed on the far side of the rock slide worse yet the telegraph lines had been severed in the slide and they had no way to warn them to stop the Spokane flyer carrying dozens of passengers was speeding through the darkness towards twisted and mangled rails that were buried under a wall of limestone 100 ft deep Sid choat one of the two men who were assisting Ben mergatroid and dodged the rock slide at the last second aboard the locomotive grabbed a signal flag and set out running across the still settling rocks through dust and smoke and heat because the Rocks were quite hot when they fell and he ran for for 2 and 1/2 km or almost a mile and a half across these rocks to the other side and he got there just in time to signal to the train to stop this was his second Race Against Time that night that he won by the skin of his teeth and saved lives to reward his heroism the Canadian Pacific Railroad gave him a check for $25 or about 600 Canadian today as awful as the rock slide was it could have been a lot worse the main part of Frank was spared with the slide narrowly missing it and only destroying the Eastern outskirts but for those in that area it was absolutely devastating the two ranches were completely wiped out every temporary Shack that was built out in the Eastern Flats was gone along with their occupants the row of seven Cottages occupied by the families were obliterated but their occupants had mixed outcomes you see as the Rocks Came Crashing Down the Mountain they first hit Crow's Nest river which picked up a wall of water and mud and dirt which preceded the rocks in the rock slide so dense was the rock slide that air couldn't really flow within it so a solid wall of displaced air preceded the dirt and the mud which was ahead of the Rocks so this air moved things and threw things but kind of soften the impact in some cases Alex Clark was one of the first victims of the rock slide as he ate lunch by the mine entrance and his wife and children in their Cottage back home stood no chance being the closest of those seven Cottages the only survivor of the family was his daughter Lillian the oldest who was working at the boarding house and ended up spending the night there the boarding house was safely out of the path of the slide the other six Cottages were mangled some on fire with other individuals climbing out of the debris While others called for help the town of Frank was thrown awake and several people came rushing out of their houses across Gold Creek to help anyone pinned in the rubble the Anis family was lucky they all survived including their infant daughter despite the house being a complete ruin the Watkins family next door was just as lucky with all the children surviving Mrs Watkins had been thrown clear from the house and was now trapped under the rubble of the Enis home how she survived with just a couple broken bones is a miracle the acro family wasn't so lucky even though they were farther away than both the Enis and the Watkins homes Mr and Mrs Acro likely survived the rock slide but perished in the ensuing moments when their house burned their son Lester was was in bed and he and his bed were thrown from the house and he was found impaled through his mattress by a piece of laugh wood he was still alive and managed to pull the wood out and walk away Lester was laying in bed at the time of the slide as most residents were a mangled Twisted bed frame was found among the ruins and is on display in the museum a reminder of where most people were at the time sleeping soundly in their bed the leech family second farthest from the slide had completely mixed luck their home had been cut into two the top being severed from the bottom and the bottom completely shredded Alex and rosemary leech along with all four boys were lost to further bitter that tragedy only a week prior a relative was visiting the leech household and commented to Rosemary on how small that Cottage was was they offered to Mrs leech to take all four boys on a twoe vacation so that the house wouldn't be so cramped I'm sure the boys were excited at the offer but Mrs leech politely declined had she accepted their offer those four boys would not have been there at the time of the rock slide two of the leech daughters were pulled out from under the collapsed roof and survived the youngest Maran leech 2 years old was thrown from the roof section rather than landing on the hard limestone rocks which came down the mountain and now spread out for miles from the house she landed squarely on a single baale of hay this baale of Hay's Journey started a half a mile back when the rock slide tore through the horse stables Mar and leech was found sitting on this bale of hay unharmed similarly 3-year-old Fernie Watkins had been thrown from her home and was found Landing in a pile of soft debris not far from Mar and leech newspapers later sensationalized their stories individually and claimed that they were unidentified orphans and the sole survivors of the Frank rock slide that's not true the farthest Cottage belonging to the benser family had been picked up and rode along the slide virtually undamaged virtual of course being a relative term and the family was spared a scheduling mixup was tragic for some but fortunate for others two Welsh miners were scheduled to leave town about a week prior to the rock slide but they had trouble with their tickets they were living in a cottage and two other miners moved into the town waiting to move into that Cottage because of the scheduling mixup these two other miners ended up having to stay a week or more in the Union hotel while waiting for these welshmen to sort out their tickets and leave at the time of the rock slide the two welshmen occupied the cabin and the cabin was gone because of this ticketing error it was the welshmen that were taken and not these two other miners as Dawn broke search parties went out across the miles of rock looking for survivors but they had a new problem the rock slide had completely damned The Crows Nest River and a portion of the area had flooded out perhaps claiming further victims who were pinned under debris the main entrance to the Frank mine was buried in rocks they would have had the lower entrance to escape from but that was now flooded and submerged 17 men and at least one workhorse were trapped in the mine under the Shattered Mountain the chance of outside rescue was null so their fate was in their own hands several of the miners were injured by air blasts and Tremors as the slide occurred and quick evaluation showed showed that every last air vent in the mine was blocked to make matters worse yet the Tremors in the shaking had stirred up poisonous gases that were previously trapped in the Rocks the air was quickly going bad and they had assessed that the mine entrance had collapsed back about 300 ft so they'd have to dig 300 ft out not even aware that there was an additional 100 ft of solid Stone Beyond them that they made little progress digging through but one of the miners pointed out that because of the way the mountain was formed the coal seams turned vertical that's why they built those chambers where they were digging them out but some of those vertical coal seams went straight to the surface coal was significantly quicker to dig through than the solid Limestone so they set to work literally mining their way out through the coal one by one the miners collapsed as they ran out of air until only three of them were still digging it was at that time that they broke through to the surface around 5:00 in the evening a full 13 hours past the rock slide this Photograph was shot of the 17 surviving miners as well as Rescuers who were trying to dig their way into the mines returning to the devastated Town many of these men had family in the path of the slide some returned home to good news While others were met with tragedy while it's easy to visit the Frank slide Museum today and walk through the paths in the rubble that were carved out I wanted to see if I could find the mine entrance itself finding the entrance to the mine was described in the' 60s as already being difficult I spoke with some of the people at the Museum and they said someone was there about a decade or two ago and got some photographs but since then it has likely grown over and people kind of forgot where it is when I went looking for it some folks hanging out by the river said it simply doesn't exist anymore so this might be a Fool's errand I ended up leaving my wife and son to hang out around where the seven Cottages once stood although the bridge across Crow Nest River was eventually rebuilt after the slide in the eagerness to reopen the mining operations the bridge is once again gone these posts right here were actually the pilings for uh the railroad bridge that used to cut through here these are actually from when the bridge was rebuilt after the rock slide I had no easy way to cross which reminded me vaguely of The Rescuers who went after the men trapped in the mine they had to craft a makeshift raft out of debris in order to cross this River I'm trying to find my way across the uh fairly deep stream here without getting my clothes in gear too wet if you're ever out hiking bear in mind that even if the water is simply a foot deep it can still have quite a strong current so be careful that was pretty strong and after an hour's search I finally found machinery it's tough to say what this is behind me when I spoke to the people around here they said it's piece of an old fan but just looking at it it kind of looks like a hoist I could easily see some sort of a long cable just pulling carts or or ore out of there uh but I could be completely wrong well we've managed to find the mine it's incredible to think about the story of this place place it wasn't easy to find it's boarded up down there but I'm sure they don't have to worry about too many people trying to get inside there's a strong smell of sulfur coming out of there it smells pretty bad I'm not going to stay here long I'm sure it's not good air it's just nice to have been able to find it like I said it wasn't lost it was just misplaced okay that that stinks that smells like weak old KFC there's Old Brick caked in the mud here the mine was reopened a month after the slide and all the mine buildings near the entrance which were completely wiped away were rebuilt all of the rock that blocked this tunnel was promptly cleared away the mine having been found there's just one more thing in this immediate area that I want to see if I could find and that is the hole from which the uh miners dug themselves in out there's an old photograph with x's on it that show where the mine is and show where that hole is relative to the mine it's just above and a little bit to the left so I want to see if I can get up there there's no Trails obviously I need to be extra cautious with my footing coming through here cuz if there's a hole in the ground I got to be prepared not to fall into it so here's the Rock in that old photograph which means it should be right here the hole they came out of but here's the thing there's Concrete in this in this slab right here and you can see it's sitting on top of some sort of a opening we've managed to find their emergency exit we we we found where they mined themselves out of the tunnel this is unbelievable I'm taking a moment to sit here and just just think about it think about how they were trapped in there for hours on end not knowing what has happened air is running out and they're desperate to dig themselves out by the time they finally emerge it's daytime and all they see is just rock stretching out to the far mountain side now a new dread must set in with them are are their family and friends okay and I'm just thinking about the men climbing out of this hole here and some would go home some don't have a home to go home to and some would return to Good News some would return to bad news and some would return to mixed news but it does make sense that they would cover the whole up and uh here it [Music] is in a sense this is one of the world's largest tombstones an exact death toll can't be established since so few bodies have been recovered it's estimated to be somewhere around 90 people lost in the tragedy some people believe that there was a campsite of transient workers who were camping by the railroad and if you believe that if they were actually there you can add perhaps 50 people to that 90 person death toll a special train sent out by the Canadian Pacific Railroad arrived the next day and it was carrying supplies police and doctors but the town had little need for doctors because so few people who were in the path of the rock slide actually survived and because those who did miraculously walked away with minor injuries the town's resident doctor and nurse already had a handle on the situation another problem was brewing though there were fears of a second rock slide as big boulders were still breaking off the mountain and Tumbling Down 2 days after the the slide the entire town of Frank was evacuated by rail to nearby towns anyone caught trespassing in the town was presumed to be a looter and would be shot on site fortunately nobody risked it one of the few people given permission to re-enter the town during the 9 days in which the evacuation was enforced was Harry mat who owned the Frank Sentinel he was given permission to come in and make his spelling errors and in the midst of it all he published this newspaper typos and all the typos this time around could certainly be excused given the circumstances this of course is a replica but we can see the Vivid account that he gives of the disaster and a list of confirmed dead all of this surrounded by advertisements for businesses currently deserted in fact on the front page is an advertisement for Alexander leech's grocery the store was still intact but Mr leech was gone the Press plate for this newspaper still exists today in the museum eventually the evacuation was lifted but it was a long time before the majority of people moved back in May 30th a full month after the slide the mines were finally reopened and the workers made a startling Discovery one of the workhorses a horse named Charlie was still alive and had been living in the mines this entire time he drank the flood water and he ate wood from the support beams of the tunnels when he was found he was starving and in urgent need of a veterinarian and as the miners pulled him out they let him Gorge himself on all the oats and Brandy that he could eat after surviving all this time it was gorging himself that finally did him in in the wake of the disaster it was hotly debated just how much the mine was to blame for the rock slide they were carving out massive Caverns Under the Mountain but Caverns like these were no problem under other normally stable mountains the slide itself stretched almost exactly from the southern most of the chambers that they dug to the entrance to the north so the mine itself defined the extent of the rock slide the mine itself was not the only Factor at play we know the mountain was already unstable natur Al and the previous few Winters were exceptionally snowy so when that snow melted more water than usual went into the cracks and fissures in the mountain which also helped to erode away at it over the course of several months a path was blasted through the Rocks using Dynamite for the CPR line to reopen following the path of the original Railroad and service was continued and it still runs this track today CPR was sort of mining Rock from along the tracks that they carved out and using it for ballast elsewhere in Canada and in 1949 they uncovered a case of old shoes in the vicinity of thornley's shoe shop a pair of these shoes is on display in the museum had Mr Thornley not suggested staying in a hotel that night CPR might have found two more bodies along with these shoes looping for about a mile around the interpretive Center is a walking trail that brings you through a part of the rock slide as you go through some of the Rocks Tower over you giving you an idea of how terrifying it was for millions of these to be rolling down the mountain at 75 mph a portion of the walking trail actually follows the railroad bed for the branch line up to the town of Lil to the north the railroad to Lil was eventually completed at at times carved through the remains of this rock slide this sure doesn't look like it today because the topography was decimated by the landslide but right now we're walking along an Old Railway bed the Frank and Grassy Mountain Railroad came right through here and it was under construction at the time of the rock slide as it was night time the construction of the railroad had paused and not too far from here is where the men were camping we don't know how many were there but the rock slide wiped them all out they were awaiting more men to joined them but they were delayed by a day their death toll would have been a lot higher had they been on time the town of Frank continued to flourish as the mining in the mountain expanded the mine was soon producing twice as much coal as it had been prior to the slide by 1905 the population had outgrown the original Town plot and a new subdivision was built on the north side of the railroad tracks this area featured more homes businesses churches and schools Town co-founder Sam gabo even had a mansion built in this portion of the town in 1906 nicknamed the castle by local children sites like Sam's castle and a Catholic Church were blown down in a windstorm in 1917 but I wanted to see what might have been left behind at some of these places even though this area had nothing to do with the story of the slide [Music] itself okay so we're at the site of the Catholic church this is old this is very very old it's still got the nails could almost put this whole boot back together I wish I could make that label out I bet someone in the comments is going to recognize that logo you can kind of see some letters on it behind the church barbed wire fence and then this post there's a few of them there's at least three in a row of these 1 2 3 it's a fourth one [Music] an insulator glass insulator for telegraph poles or some sort of electrical line oh we're inside an old building stone wall more of those pillars what could this have been the mountain loomed ever present the scar from the slide prominent fears of additional slides never went away and in 1911 after a survey detected new fissures at the top of the mountain the government ordered the southern portion of the town the portion that existed at the time of the slide to be vacated most of the buildings were either torn down or packed up and relocated elsewhere leaving just the barren Town site marked by dirt roads for example the old Imperial Hotel was packed up and shipped 100 km away to Vulcan Alberta and is now the Vulcan Hotel over time the fears laxed and in recent years some industrial buildings were allowed to move in but what remains of the old portion of the Town well aside from the street plans not much honestly aside from what's buried under the Rocks I can only find this old fire hydrant this rusted piece of metal is the one final marker for a once thriving settlement all these little Mounds here were once buildings and some of these dips were sellers I wasn't sure what area I was exploring at the time but it seems like this may be the location of the old frank Hotel you know the alleged Resort it's also here that the Thornley stayed on the night of the slide saving their lives the mining operations continued but declined after a few years of prosperity there were accidents and even fires inside the mine and it was a great underground fire in 1918 that finally shut the mine down for good after that many of the residents of Frank left though it holds a a sizable population still in the 1905 subdivision right here about 1,000 ft or so beyond the interpretive Center is where the original Town Cemetery was we know that at least seven people died in the town of Frank prior to the slide but we don't know who was buried here as opposed to in nearby cemeteries the only two confirmed burials that we know of in this Cemetery are John Simon and Peter VIN on April 26th 1902 the Frank mine suffered an underground explosion that claimed the lives of these two men their headstones along with the headstones of anyone else buried here were wiped Away by the rock slide and I had no luck finding them we're driving along the old frank Slide Road built in 1906 right through the rock field in 1922 as a team was widening a portion of the Road near the old Cottages that were buried they uncovered the remains of the Clark family including a baby's cradle The Remains were buried where they were found and this marker was erected in their memory and this became known as the Frank slide Cemetery two survivors have actually elected to be buried here and we see their Stones there now I did manage to find some Timbers in the rocks in the area of James Graham's Ranch House whether these Timbers are from that ranch or not is anybody's guess now somebody did gain a bit from the slide itself the rock slide was all Limestone and Limestone has many uses in construction such as concrete and plaster or in Coal Mines to help manage the dust once again the mountain had mined it itself and all this Limestone was just waiting to be picked up a businessman named Joe little wanted to tap into the Limestone market and he wouldn't have to Quarry it out all of that work has been done for him it's just sitting here waiting for someone to pick it up so in 1909 he bought a portion of the rock slide and then by 1912 he and a couple of his other investor friends had built two of these lime kils here A year later The Firm was sold and the new owners built a third one of Cheaper material but it still did the job these two kils here are actually the original 1911 ones they're of a more expensive poured concrete whereas this one here on the side the odd one out this is the newer one that was built a year later and it's simply of rock pulled right out of the rock slide [Music] the kilms are responsible for removing a small portion of the Rock from the slide clearing up some of the areas that were once covered in Old photographs but look clearer [Music] today a single Shack stands near the kils barely hanging on although small the bathtub inside indicates that this might have been someone's whole [Music] house all around the base of the Lime Kiln a small community started to pop up and this was known as Lime City it was the workers and their families it was short-lived come 1918 the lime Kil had actually shut down and by 1923 the site was completely deserted one can say that l city is a ghost town within a ghost town despite their efforts to work the rock they would never have been able to clear up the whole site it's been estimated that 10 gravel trucks hauling 3 tons each 10 times a day would need a full 66 years to clean that mess up there are other interesting mining related ruins in the Crow's Nest pass only a Stones Throw from the slide while Alex leech and most of his immediate family were wiped out in the rock slide his other relatives went on to established the leech ceries in 1907 to the east the ruins of this site are expansive and well preserved as well as easy to access for visitors the ruins include a massive Powerhouse made of sandstone built in 1910 which supplied electricity to their mine and nearby towns a row of 101 Coke Ovens designed to convert the coal into Coke by heating it the manager's house and a Tipple are also at this site while these have no direct connection to the Frank slide these give us a great idea of what the work was like in the Crow's Nest pass the Frank slide interpretive Center sits a top the hill to the north of the rock slide overlooking the haunting alley of rock the museum is a fantastic place to visit and learn about the disaster as well as Life In The Crows Nest pass it features artifacts photographs countless stories and a theater Turtle Mountain Still lingers over the valley although noticeably shorter than it was prior to the slide the threat of another slide is still a concern with efforts in place to study the mountain monitor it seismically and keep an eye on those fissures another slide is probable eventually from one of its Peaks but it's expected to give plenty of warning signs well in advance and unlike in 1903 they plan to heed those warnings still the general attitude of most of the Frank residents is if it happens it happens I want to thank my viewers here for suggesting this site to me I happened to be visiting Alberta and asked my channel what stories would they want me to investigate and this was a fantastic suggestion if you enjoyed this video and want to explore more forgotten history and lost towns be sure to subscribe to my channel you can also check out my patreon at the link below a special thank you to my patrons especially Marlo Perez Kelly black Kaiser vilhelm II Kaiser Friedrich I third Zack Richards Donald Anderson Cody Henrik Joan Haynes sha Kimble Glenn biscom Steven schwankert Gabriel colom Nick K RGB Tara mikar Keith Holland miles Garrett Jennifer Rob M Amos Mayu Corey Andrews 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Channel: Part-Time Explorer

Views: 943,331

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Id: RsRhLnh3CVQ

Length: 50min 25sec (3025 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 17 2023