Moffat Tunnel Deaths

Please note that this page and the underlying research on Moffat Tunnel deaths represent ongoing scholarly work. Revisions are made regularly as new information becomes available, and the data presented here should be considered provisional, for now. Finalized analysis and conclusions are anticipated to require several more years of study and verification.

Information on this page was last updated Saturday, November 1, 2025.

This comprehensive memorial is the result of original, ongoing research. Each name added to this list has been carefully vetted through primary sources and corroborated across multiple records. Because much of this information has never before been compiled or published in a single location, we ask that any reuse or citation of this work properly credit the researchers (B. Travis Wright and Kate Wright of Preserve Rollins Pass) and our project. Attribution ensures the integrity of the record and honors the effort that has gone into reconstructing these long-overlooked histories.

In the lead-up to the 100th anniversary of the Moffat Tunnel’s completion in February 2028, we are working to restore the names of the men who lost their lives during its construction. This evolving memorial grows as research confirms individuals, ensuring that by the centennial their sacrifices will no longer be buried beneath time or rock. This is not just a historical exercise—it is a commitment to honoring the workers whose stories were left out of the spotlight for too long. As new documentation and firsthand accounts come to light, this evolving record will reflect both remembrance and recognition.

To our knowledge, there is no plaque, no single list, no formal remembrance for the men who died building the Moffat Tunnel—an absence that speaks volumes. It is a striking omission, especially given that the tunnel is not merely a passage through the Continental Divide; it is, in many ways, a sepulcher of sacrifice carved into stone. That such a monumental achievement lacks a public accounting of its human cost is both sobering and unjust. These were not nameless laborers lost to time—they were fathers, sons, brothers, and husbands whose lives were spent driving progress forward. This effort seeks to correct that silence.

The most commonly cited number of lives lost during the construction of the Moffat Tunnel is 28. But through years of research—cross-referencing historic newspapers, cemetery records, and family accounts—we know the true number is higher. Some deaths were misreported or unacknowledged, leaving gaps in the official record. Names and details have not only been lost over time—they’ve often drifted. In the absence of a centralized record, misinformation took root and repeated itself. For instance, Rade Lekich was the first documented fatality in newspapers, killed in May 1924. Yet by December of that same year, newspapers began reporting Harvey Lee Gilson as the first death. Then, in February 1927, articles claimed that a man named L.E. Trick was the tunnel’s first casualty—despite details that identically match Lekich’s death. It appears the name may have been passed along verbally, with “L.E. Trick” possibly originating from a misheard or misremembered phonetic pronunciation of “Lekich” or, more likely “Lekić.” This kind of confusion underscores why original source material and rigorous citation are essential. Every name we share has been carefully traced, corroborated, and contextualized to restore accuracy and dignity to the historical record.

If your family has a relative who died while working on the tunnel but was never formally recognized, we welcome your insight. Names, photos, letters, or memories could help us honor those whose stories were lost along the way. We’re working to correct the record with dignity and historical accuracy—especially as the 100th anniversary of the tunnel’s opening approaches on February 26, 2028.

METHODOLOGY: HOW WE COUNT THE LIVES LOST BUILDING THE MOFFAT TUNNEL

When we remember the men who built the Moffat Tunnel between 1923 and 1928, we also recognize those who never made it home.

Yet even a century later, there is no definitive list of how many workers died during construction. Records from the time were often incomplete or inconsistent, and there was no modern system like OSHA to formally investigate or track workplace deaths. To respectfully and transparently honor those who died, we use a structured approach grounded in both historical documentation and contemporary health standards.

We’ve categorized each case based on available historical evidence and modern occupational health understanding to ensure transparency and accuracy. First, we include confirmed fatalities—these are workers who were killed on-site in the tunnel or who died shortly afterward as the direct result of a documented accident. We also include documented work-related deaths, which account for workers who sustained injuries inside the tunnel but died later in hospitals or at home; in each of these cases, the connection to tunnel work is clear and well-recorded.

We further include a third category: probable occupational illnesses. These are young, otherwise healthy workers who died of pneumonia or similar conditions following extended exposure to the tunnel’s harsh environment—cold, wet, high altitude, subpar ventilation, and physically exhausting. While these deaths may not have been officially recorded as work-related at the time, they would today likely meet the standards for occupational illness under modern health and safety guidelines. As such, they are included in our total, with clear labeling and explanation.

In rare cases where contemporaneous sources document catastrophic, likely-fatal injuries with an explicit prognosis of death, and no subsequent record of survival or recovery has been found after a reasonable search window, we classify the case as Probable and include it in the total, noting both the evidentiary gap and the specific records sought. This prevents a structural undercount caused by 1920s record gaps, while our labeling ensures immediate correction if contrary documentation emerges.

Finally, we acknowledge a set of unconfirmed or speculative cases—deaths where the connection to tunnel work is based on oral history, family memory, or vague reporting, but where no reliable timeline or documentation exists. These individuals are not included in the official total, but we recognize their stories as part of the broader legacy of the Moffat Tunnel and honor them accordingly.

WHY ILLNESSES ARE COUNTED

Some may wonder why we include deaths from pneumonia and similar illnesses in the total. After all, these men weren’t killed by falling rock or dynamite—but by what seemed, at the time, to be natural causes. But history—and medicine—tell a different story.

While Moffat Tunnel construction crews did implement ventilation systems to manage air quality, those efforts were often overwhelmed by the realities of blasting, fine dust, high altitude, and the immense scale of the bore. By the standards of the 1920s, ventilation was present—but by today’s occupational health expectations, the air would be deemed insufficient for sustained human labor. Combined with cold, wet, and damp conditions and grueling shifts, even modest respiratory infections could—and did—prove fatal, including for otherwise healthy young men, some just 20 years old. While some death records list pneumonia as the cause, it’s likely that at least some of these cases were misdiagnosed respiratory conditions related to extreme dust exposure—such as acute silicosis or pneumonitis from inhaled particulates. Today, these would be classified as occupational lung diseases, not simply infections, and would underscore the systemic respiratory hazards workers faced inside the Moffat Tunnel. Period newspaper accounts frequently note that pneumonia, believed to have been contracted while working at the Moffat Tunnel, was the cause of death for not only laborers, but also superintendents and shift bosses. Far from being protected by their supervisory roles, these individuals often spent extended, continuous hours inside the tunnel overseeing operations, increasing their exposure to cold, damp, and dust-laden air. Their deaths illustrate how pervasive and inescapable the environmental hazards were—affecting workers across all levels of responsibility.

Today, such conditions would be flagged as severe occupational hazards. Pneumonia caused by prolonged cold exposure, physical exhaustion, and unventilated air is widely recognized under modern standards as a work-related illness—the result of environmental neglect, not bad luck. In other words, if these men had been working anywhere else, they likely would have lived.

Excluding their deaths would be to overlook not just individual stories, but systemic risk. Including them restores part of what was erased by silence, incomplete recordkeeping, and the limitations of early 20th-century public health. At the Moffat Tunnel, fatal pneumonia played the role that yellow fever and malaria did at the Panama Canal—an environmental killer that must be counted; excluding pneumonia from the tally would misstate the risks workers actually faced.

These men died because of the tunnel. They deserve to be counted.

A NOTE ON EXCLUSIONS

This record documents deaths directly tied to life and work on the Moffat Tunnel project, encompassing both direct accidents and indirect “community deaths” that arose within the tunnel camps. Deaths that could just as plausibly have occurred anywhere, such as fatalities from “bad bootleg” alcohol (poisoning during Prohibition) [Patrick Flynn, March 1925; Horace E. Dudley, October 1925] or suicide from private marital difficulties [Francis R. Baxter, October 1926] are excluded. If new information shows that any listed death does not meet this test, the name will be respectfully removed. The goal is not to inflate numbers, but to preserve an accurate account of the human toll directly associated with the tunnel enterprise.

We have also narrowed the scope of applicable deaths to men directly associated with the tunnel project, excluding the tragic deaths of children and wives from unrelated causes.

A SPECIAL THANK YOU AND CALL TO ACTION

This memorial has grown because of the generosity of families who have shared stories, photographs, and hard-won fragments of history about their loved ones. Every contribution brings us closer to a complete record, ensuring that the men of the Moffat Tunnel are remembered not as anonymous laborers, but as grandfathers, fathers, uncles, and family friends. If you have information, documents, or family recollections connected to the tunnel, we invite you to reach out. Your knowledge may be the missing piece that helps us honor these men fully, as we approach the centennial of the Moffat Tunnel in 2028.

Special thanks to the families and researchers who have contributed so far, including: Susan Stein (for the family of Warren Weaver Wilson), Verna Decker Whaley (for the family of Charley Decker), Jan Stumbo (sexton of the cemetery where James Clinton Platter is buried), Becki (Riverside Cemetery Block 14 expert), and Brooke Ritter (Crown Hill Cemetery in Wheat Ridge, Colorado).

IN MEMORIAM: MOFFAT TUNNEL DEATHS

While our original intent was to wait until the centennial of the Moffat Tunnel’s construction to publish this list—allowing it to grow through deliberate, methodical research—an increasing number of relatives have been reaching out to us. To honor those connected to the Moffat Tunnel and safeguard the historical record, we are releasing provisional information now, well ahead of the 100th anniversary. Doing so provides ample time for families, researchers, and the public to review the list, share additional details, and help ensure that every name and story is recorded accurately for the centennial. This list will continue to be refined, with more names and information added as research progresses and new contributions emerge.

This evolving record honors those who lost their lives connected to construction of the Moffat Tunnel (1923–1928). Each entry maps the event to BLS/MSHA-style categories (e.g., fall of ground, struck-by equipment, explosion, electrocution, asphyxiation, transportation, overexertion/physiologic, or violence) and records the manner separately (accident, homicide, suicide, natural, or undetermined). Historic phrasing—such as “fall of rock”—is retained in quotes, with the modern term in brackets. Where an earlier job injury preceded a later death, we state the causal link and cite the evidence, so the count reflects the full risk workers faced, not just on-site fatalities. Note on modern statistics: The BLS Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) counts traumatic injuries and generally excludes illness-related deaths unless precipitated by an injury event. This memorial includes occupational illnesses to reflect the full risk workers faced, consistent with death-certificate practice distinguishing manner from medical cause.

Note: Names shown in bold have been fully verified through multiple independent sources, confirming not just the individual’s identity but also the date and circumstances of death. Names not yet in bold have been documented in at least one credible source; however, further corroboration is still needed to confirm additional details. This approach reflects both our commitment to accuracy and the reality that, in some cases, full confirmation may never be possible. By distinguishing levels of verification, we aim to honor every individual while transparently acknowledging the limitations of the historical record. Please note that the death numbers below are provisional and may shift forward or backward as additional deaths are validated. Abbreviations used include NLT, meaning “no later than,” and NET, meaning “no earlier than.”

#1 | 1924 | Jonas Wilson Pumphrey, Jr.

• Age: 58
• Townsite Association: East Portal, Gilpin County
• Occupation (role/trade): laborer (electric motor driver in the tunnel)
• Date of Death: Monday, February 25, 1924
• Mechanism (event): exposure/respiratory
• Medical Cause: pneumonia
• Manner: natural (occupational illness)
• Burial: Nederland Cemetery, Nederland, Colorado.
• Headstone: Monument located and confirmed.
• Other Information: we believe this to be the first death related to the Moffat Tunnel project, however, research is still ongoing. Pumphrey’s family moved from Erie to Nederland in 1922. Jonas left behind his wife, Rose, daughter Louise ( 16 ), a son, Wilson ( 16 ), and daughter Virginia ( 8 ). Due to the “bad condition of the road between Nederland and East Portal, owing to snowdrifts, considerable difficulty was experienced by friends of the deceased and of Mrs. Rose Pumphrey… in getting the remains to Nederland.” A separate article mentioned that “Mrs. J.H. Robinson received word on Monday of the death of her brother, J.W. Pumphrey” and the article mentions “the high altitude was a contributing factor to the fatal disease.” Pumphrey was born in Platt County, Missouri on January 24, 1866. He was a “devout member of the Baptist church and of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, being a member of the LaSalle lodge.” Pumphrey is buried in Nederland, alongside Rose.
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about Jonas Wilson Pumphrey, Jr., please let us know.

#2 | 1924 | Lee Rae Thurber

• Age: 21
• Townsite Association: West Portal, Grand County
• Occupation (role/trade): laborer
• Date of Death: Tuesday, April 22, 1924
• Mechanism (event): unknown
• Medical Cause: unknown
• Manner: undetermined
• Burial: Richfield City Cemetery, Richfield, Utah | A.33.12.02
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: none
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about Lee Rae Thurber, please let us know.

#3 | 1924 | Juan Valquez

• Age: unknown
• Townsite Association: N/A
• Occupation (role/trade): laborer, Moffat Road section
• Date of Death: late April 1924 (reported May 2, 1924)
• Mechanism (event): electrocution from contact with snow-buried 40,000-volt transmission line above East Portal
• Medical Cause: electrical burns/electrocution
• Manner: accident
• Burial: unknown
• Headstone: unknown
• Other Information: Valquez, identified as a laborer with the Moffat Road section force on the western slope, attempted to cross the mountains carrying a satchel on a stick over his shoulder. In deep snow, the satchel contacted the energized line strung across the Divide to power tunnel compressors. His death was reported in the Routt County Sentinel (May 2, 1924) and formally documented in Clifford Allen Betts’ completion paper, Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, 1931, 95(1): 334–371 (Paper No. 1771). Betts discussed the electrocution alongside technical challenges of maintaining the inter-portal line, treating it as part of the tunnel’s hazards. Although Valquez may not have been on tunnel payroll, the high-tension line existed solely for tunnel operations; but for the project, the hazard would not have been there. Modern OSHA standards would classify such a case as project-caused regardless of duty status. For that reason, Valquez’s death is recorded here as a project-related fatality tied to tunnel infrastructure.
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about Juan Valquez, please let us know.

#4 | 1924 | Rade (Mike) Lekich

• Age: 38
• Townsite Association: East Portal, Gilpin County
• Occupation (role/trade): trackman
• Date of Death: Thursday, May 22, 1924
• Mechanism (event): transportation/struck by rail equipment (run over by switch cars within the tunnel)
• Medical Cause: blunt trauma
• Manner: accident
• Burial: Riverside Cemetery, Denver, Colorado | Block 14, Lot 10, Section 23, presumably no headstone/unmarked
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: Rade Lekić (Anglicized as: Lekich)
• Contemporary misprints (as reported in newspapers and other sources): L.E. Trick
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about Rade (Mike) Lekich, please let us know.

#5 | 1924 | D. H. Davis

• Age: 44-45
• Townsite Association: West Portal, Grand County
• Occupation (role/trade): laborer
• Date of Death: NLT Monday, September 15, 1924
• Mechanism (event): unknown
• Medical Cause: unknown
• Manner: undetermined
• Burial: Riverside Cemetery, Denver, Colorado | Block 14, Lot 10, Section 27, no headstone/unmarked
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: none
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about D. H. Davis, please let us know.

#6 | 1924 | Victor William Bonham

• Age: 23
• Townsite Association: West Portal, Grand County
• Occupation (role/trade): laborer
• Date of Death: NLT Sunday, September 21, 1924
• Mechanism (event): unknown
• Medical Cause: unknown
• Manner: undetermined
• Burial: Colusa Community Cemetery, Colusa, California
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: none
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about Victor William Bonham, please let us know.

#7 | 1924 | Ivor Williams

• Age: 37
• Townsite Association: East Portal, Gilpin County
• Occupation (role/trade): laborer
• Date of Death: NLT Thursday, October 30, 1924
• Mechanism (event): unknown
• Medical Cause: unknown
• Manner: undetermined
• Burial: Fairmount Cemetery, Denver, Colorado | Block 47, Lot 2, Section 1
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: none
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about Ivor Williams, please let us know.

#8 | 1924 | Ray Harman Coles

• Age: 25
• Townsite Association: West Portal, Grand County
• Occupation (role/trade): laborer
• Date of Death: Thursday, November 13, 1924
• Mechanism (event): illness (diabetes)
• Medical Cause: diabetes mellitus
• Manner: natural (occupational illness)
• Burial: Fairmount Cemetery, Denver, Colorado | Block 55, Lot 49, Section 20
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: Coles died at the West Portal hospital. At first glance, a death from diabetes might be dismissed as a purely natural cause, unrelated to tunnel construction. Yet records note he had been living with diabetes for about a year—a diagnosis that, in the 1920s, often meant survival was measured in months without steady insulin therapy. Even with a modern hospital on site, staffed around the clock and equipped with x-ray capability, the disease remained virtually untreatable. Insulin had only been in use since 1922 and was not reliably available in remote Colorado, and there were no tools to monitor blood sugar beyond symptoms. At just 25, he almost certainly suffered from what is now recognized as Type 1 diabetes, entirely dependent on insulin. Contemporary accounts describe men filing through the mess hall each morning to pack food for their shifts: some took sandwiches, but many carried bread, potatoes, and “five or six pieces of pie and nothing else, or perhaps as many pieces of cake.” For a diabetic, such a diet, combined with hard labor at altitude, produced dangerous blood sugar swings and heightened the risk of diabetic ketoacidosis, a crisis doctors could not reverse without reliable insulin or fluids. While classified as natural, his death was inseparable from the tunneling environment, showing the project claimed lives not only through accidents but also by straining fragile health.
• Contemporary misprints (as reported in newspapers and other sources): Ray Cole
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about Ray Harman Coles, please let us know.

#9 | 1924 | George Schaaf

• Age: 22
• Townsite Association: West Portal, Grand County
• Occupation (role/trade): laborer
• Date of Death: Tuesday, December 9, 1924
• Mechanism (event): exposure/respiratory
• Medical Cause: pneumonia
• Manner: natural (occupational illness)
• Burial: Cedar Creek Cemetery, Montrose, Colorado | Section F, Block 15, Lot 3, NE 1/4.
• Headstone: Monument located and confirmed.
• Other Information: As of April 18, 2011, the grave was marked; sometime afterward, the marker vanished, leaving the site unidentifiable.
• Contemporary misprints (as reported in newspapers and other sources): Shaff
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about George Schaaf, please let us know.

#10 | 1924 | Harvey Lee Gilson

• Age: 50
• Townsite Association: East Portal, Gilpin County
• Occupation (role/trade): laborer
• Date of Death: Sunday, December 28, 1924
• Mechanism (event): fall of ground (rockfall caused lacerations and subsequent blood poisoning; incident occurred approximately three weeks prior to death)
• Medical Cause: sepsis from lacerations
• Manner: accident
• Burial: Mountain View Cemetery, Longmont, Colorado | Block 36, Lot 42, N1/2, Space 3
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: tombstone says ‘Harvy’
• Contemporary misprints (as reported in newspapers and other sources): Jilson
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about Harvey Lee Gilson, please let us know.

#11 | 1925 | Joseph Grusser

• Age: 34
• Townsite Association: West Portal, Grand County
• Occupation (role/trade): laborer
• Date of Death: Thursday, January 22, 1925
• Mechanism (event): fall of ground (cave in)
• Medical Cause: crush/asphyxia
• Manner: accident
• Burial: Riverside Cemetery, Denver, Colorado | Block 12, Lot 31, Section 45, no headstone
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: The following obituary was published in The Moffat County Bell, on February 13, 1925: “TO THE MEMORY OF JOSEPH GRUSSER As the result of the tragic death of our neighbor and companion, Joseph Grusser, it is the desire of his friends that the following article to his memory be published in your columns. The tunnel has taken its toll. The death of our neighbor and friend, tried and true, has been greatly felt by the people in this part of the county. Joe Grusser of Burned Park lost his life at 4 P.M. on Thursday, January 22, as the result of a cave-in at West Portal. His loss to us is irreparable, for a more noble and honorable character never graced our community. Joe was born about 35 years ago in Austria. He came to America in 1914 and to this community in 1919. Since then he has been one of us, loved as a brother by all. He filed on his homestead in Burned Park in August, 1920, and his patient, earnest work thereon gives strong proof of his noble character. The name of Joe was always one of respect. Even while he lived, no one could find fault with him in any way. His happy smile will be remembered by all who knew him, and his absence will be greatly felt in this part of the county. Foreign born, a true American; the laws of his adopted land were as the laws of the Almighty, to whom he now returns. He passed, we feel confident, with no fear of the hereafter, for his life was without reproach. He lived among us, setting an example of honesty and integrity that will leave a strong impression upon us all. May God give you peace, well deserved, and a reward befitting your noble life, departed friend. MASON O. BROUSE”
• Contemporary misprints (as reported in newspapers and other sources): Brusser, Gruesser, Gresser
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about Joseph Grusser, please let us know.

#12 | 1925 | Warren Weaver Wilson

• Age: 32
• Townsite Association: West Portal, Grand County
• Occupation (role/trade): laborer
• Date of Death: Friday, February 27, 1925
• Mechanism (event): fall of ground (falling rock)
• Medical Cause: blunt trauma
• Manner: accident
• Burial: Damascus Church Cemetery, Enterprise, Alabama
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: none
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about Warren Weaver Wilson, please let us know.

#13 | 1925 | Edgar Ellsworth Adams

• Age: 51
• Townsite Association: East Portal, Gilpin County
• Occupation (role/trade): laborer
• Date of Death: Monday, March 2, 1925
• Mechanism (event): traumatic injury complications (amputation of an arm that led to death)
• Medical Cause: amputation sequelae
• Manner: accident
• Burial: Elmwood Cemetery, Fruita, Colorado | Block 5, Row 10
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: none
• Contemporary misprints (as reported in newspapers and other sources): A.E. Adams
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about Edgar Ellsworth Adams, please let us know.

#14 | 1925 | James Guthrie King

• Age: 39
• Townsite Association: unknown
• Occupation (role/trade): laborer
• Date of Death: Tuesday, April 28, 1925
• Mechanism (event): untreated trauma leading to infection and systemic failure
• Medical Cause: death certificate cites chronic endocarditis with secondary pneumonia; family recalls he was injured while working on the Moffat Tunnel, dismissed with a pink slip, and died several days later—no autopsy was performed
• Manner: accident
• Burial: Crown Hill Cemetery, Wheat Ridge, Colorado | Block 43, Plot 265, Grave 2
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: none
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about James Guthrie King, please let us know.

#15 | 1925 | Orville J. Markham

• Age: 25
• Townsite Association: East Portal, Gilpin County
• Occupation (role/trade): laborer
• Date of Death: Thursday, May 14, 1925
• Mechanism (event): exposure/respiratory
• Medical Cause: pneumonia
• Manner: natural (occupational illness)
• Burial: Mountain View Cemetery, Longmont, Colorado | Block 27, Lot 30, Space 2
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: none
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about Orville J. Markham, please let us know.

#16 | 1925 | Gage M. Beegle

• Age: 22
• Townsite Association: West Portal, Grand County
• Occupation (role/trade): laborer
• Date of Death: Friday, June 5, 1925
• Mechanism (event): explosion (drill hit an unexploded charge of dynamite)
• Medical Cause: blast trauma
• Manner: accident
• Burial: Fairview Cemetery, Galion, Ohio | Section 12
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: none
• Contemporary misprints (as reported in newspapers and other sources): G.M or GE, James W Beagle, CM Biegle
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about Gage M. Beegle, please let us know.

#17 | 1925 | Virgil Scott Hosey

• Age: 32-33
• Townsite Association: unknown
• Occupation (role/trade): laborer
• Date of Death: June or July 1925
• Mechanism (event): unknown
• Medical Cause: unknown
• Manner: undetermined
• Burial: Elmwood Cemetery, Brighton, Colorado | Section 2, Block 42
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: none
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about Virgil Scott Hosey, please let us know.

#18 | 1925 | John Henry Nicholls

• Age: 57
• Townsite Association: West Portal, Grand County
• Occupation (role/trade): laborer
• Date of Death: Sunday, August 30, 1925
• Mechanism (event): exposure/respiratory
• Medical Cause: pneumonia
• Manner: natural (occupational illness)
• Burial: Fairmount Cemetery, Denver, Colorado | Block 80, Lot 24, Grave 4
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: none
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about John Henry Nicholls, please let us know.

#19 | 1925 | Elmer H. Swett

• Age: unknown
• Townsite Association: West Portal, Grand County
• Occupation (role/trade): laborer
• Date of Death: NLT Monday, September 21, 1925
• Mechanism (event): unknown
• Medical Cause: unknown
• Manner: undetermined
• Burial: Riverside Cemetery, Denver, Colorado | Block 14, Lot 16, Section 67, no headstone/unmarked
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: none
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about Elmer H. Swett, please let us know.

#20 | 1925 | William M. Giener

• Age: 33
• Townsite Association: East Portal, Gilpin County
• Occupation (role/trade): laborer
• Date of Death: Sunday, September 27, 1925
• Mechanism (event): fall of ground (while scaling loose rock, a large piece gave way and crushed him)
• Medical Cause: crush trauma
• Manner: accident
• Burial: Fairmount Cemetery, Denver, Colorado
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: none
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about William M. Giener, please let us know.

#21 | 1925 | Fred Sperandio

• Age: 37-38
• Townsite Association: West Portal, Grand County
• Occupation (role/trade): West Portal pool hall proprietor
• Date of Death: Sunday, December 20, 1925
• Mechanism (event): violence (murdered, bullet through the heart)
• Medical Cause: gunshot wound
• Manner: homicide
• Burial: Evergreen Cemetery, Leadville, Colorado | IOOF section
• Headstone: Monument located and confirmed.
• Other Information: Burn marks on Sperandio’s clothing, along with evidence that the bed had been set on fire, led authorities to believe the killer attempted to burn the body or the building.
• Contemporary misprints (as reported in newspapers and other sources): Sperando
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about Fred Sperandio, please let us know.

#22 | 1925 | William Marion Gimer

• Age: 34
• Townsite Association: East Portal, Gilpin County
• Occupation (role/trade): laborer
• Date of Death: Sunday, December 27, 1925
• Mechanism (event): unknown
• Medical Cause: unknown
• Manner: undetermined
• Burial: Fairmount Cemetery, Denver, Colorado | Block 48
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: Contemporary newspapers reported his name as “W. M. Ginner,” but burial and genealogical records confirm he was William Marion Gimer (1891–1925), interred at Fairmount Cemetery (Block 48). His death is distinct from that of William M. Giener (#16), who was killed three months earlier in a rock fall at East Portal. The similarity in initials, surnames, and association with East Portal has led to past confusion, but these were two separate fatalities.
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about William Marion Gimer, please let us know.

#23 | 1926 | Peter Giacomelli

• Age: 21
• Townsite Association: East Portal, Gilpin County
• Occupation (role/trade): track repairer
• Date of Death: Saturday, January 2, 1926
• Mechanism (event): asphyxiation (likely gas)
• Medical Cause: anoxic injury
• Manner: accident
• Burial: Crown Hill Cemetery, Wheat Ridge, Colorado | Block 14, Plot 309, Grave 8
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: none
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about Peter Giacomelli, please let us know.

#24 | 1926 | Dan Metroff

• Age: 33
• Townsite Association: East Portal, Gilpin County
• Occupation (role/trade): laborer
• Date of Death: Saturday, January 2, 1926
• Mechanism (event): asphyxiation (likely gas)
• Medical Cause: anoxic injury
• Manner: accident
• Burial: Riverside Cemetery, Denver, Colorado | Block 14, Lot 10, Section 136
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: none
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about Dan Metroff, please let us know.

#25 | 1926 | William Everette Hibbert

• Age: 43
• Townsite Association: West Portal, Grand County
• Occupation (role/trade): laborer
• Date of Death: Friday, January 15, 1926
• Mechanism (event): abscess of the stomach, progressed to sepsis and organ failure
• Medical Cause: stomach abscess
• Manner: natural (community death)
• Burial: Crown Hill Cemetery, Wheat Ridge, Colorado | Block 30, Plot 263, Grave 2
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: “Preparations were made to remove him to Denver… but he passed away before reaching there.” Hibbert started “working in the tunnel last [1925] summer.”
• Contemporary misprints (as reported in newspapers and other sources): Hibbard
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about William Everette Hibbert, please let us know.

#26 | 1926 | John Charles “Jack” Davis

• Age: 45
• Townsite Association: West Portal, Grand County
• Occupation (role/trade): laborer
• Date of Death: Wednesday, February 10, 1926
• Mechanism (event): struck-by/timbering accident (accident during timber inspection)
• Medical Cause: blunt trauma
• Manner: accident
• Burial: Victor Sunnyside Cemetery, Victor, Colorado. Elks Rest Section (ER), Row 8, Plot 23
• Headstone: Monument located and confirmed.
• Other Information: On November 29, 2010, the tombstone’s dates were still visible above ground. Over time the grave sank several inches, and by the authors’ visit on September 8, 2025, only the faint tops of the numbers could be felt just beneath the soil. Out of respect for the site, we have noted its condition without further disturbance.
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about John Charles “Jack” Davis, please let us know.

#27 | 1926 | Forest N. Snow

• Age: 29
• Townsite Association: East Portal, Gilpin County
• Occupation (role/trade): mucker
• Date of Death: Wednesday, February 24, 1926
• Mechanism (event): asphyxiation (likely gas)
• Medical Cause: anoxic injury
• Manner: accident
• Burial: unknown (reports show body was unclaimed in the morgue)
• Headstone: unknown
• Other Information: none
• Contemporary misprints (as reported in newspapers and other sources): F. M. or F. W.
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about Forest N. Snow, please let us know.

#28 | 1926 | Charles Cecil “Charley” Decker

• Age: 18
• Townsite Association: East Portal, Gilpin County
• Occupation (role/trade): mucker
• Date of Death: Friday, March 19, 1926
• Mechanism (event): fall of ground (fall of rock)
• Medical Cause: crush trauma
• Manner: accident
• Burial: South Routt Cemetery, Yampa, Colorado | Section 4, Lot 78, Plot 4
• Headstone: Monument located and confirmed.
• Other Information: none
• Contemporary misprints (as reported in newspapers and other sources): Charlie
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about Charles Cecil “Charley” Decker, please let us know.

#29 | 1926 | James Clinton Platter

• Age: 41
• Townsite Association: West Portal, Grand County
• Occupation (role/trade): laborer
• Date of Death: Tuesday, June 22, 1926
• Mechanism (event): jammed between a passing motor and timbers while working in the tunnel
• Medical Cause: crushing injuries to the hips and abdomen (per “seriously bruised about the hips”)
• Manner: accident
• Burial: Pleasant Hill Cemetery, Boone, Iowa | no headstone/unmarked
• Headstone: Approximate location available. (His burial site lies east of the headstone for Walton and Hazel Stumbo and west of the headstone for Clifford and Anna Platter. Facing south toward the church, his unmarked grave rests approximately midway between those two markers.)
• Other Information: James Clinton Platter was born on September 11, 1884, in Marcy Township, Boone County, Iowa, the son of Jonathan Tibet and Susan (Weyer) Platter. When he was only three years old, his mother died. James helped his father as a laborer on the family farm until about age thirteen, then went to live with his sister Clara in Montana. At sixteen he returned to Iowa to be near relatives. In February 1907, he married Lena Leona Longfellow in Iowa. The couple had no children. Around 1910, James and Lena moved to Steamboat Springs, Colorado, where he farmed for the next fourteen years. Lena died there on April 25, 1919, a victim of the influenza epidemic that swept across Colorado. Her body was returned to Bonner Springs, Kansas, for burial near her parents, Jacob William and Sarah (Davis) Longfellow. On March 20, 1922, James married Mary L. Stanko in Steamboat Springs. They had two daughters, Cora Elnore and Edna Laurent. Seeking steady work to support his young family, James traveled in January 1924 to the West Portal construction camp of the Moffat Tunnel project in Grand County, Colorado. Two and a half years later, on May 2, 1926, James was badly crushed while working underground. Despite the severity of his injuries, he survived for seven more weeks before dying on June 22, 1926, at the age of 41. His body was returned to Ogden, Iowa, where he was buried in an unmarked grave in Pleasant Hill Cemetery alongside his parents, brother Andrew, and sister Susan.
• Contemporary misprints (as reported in newspapers and other sources): Clint
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about James Clinton Platter, please let us know.

#30 | 1926 | Ralph McClellan

• Age: 33
• Townsite Association: West Portal, Grand County
• Occupation (role/trade): miner
• Date of Death: Thursday, July 22, 1926
• Mechanism (event): fall of ground (fall of rock)
• Medical Cause: crush trauma
• Manner: accident
• Burial: Fairmount Cemetery, Denver, Colorado | Block 84, Lot 1, Section 64
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: none
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about Ralph McClellan, please let us know.

#31 | 1926 | John Adams

• Age: 50
• Townsite Association: West Portal, Grand County
• Occupation (role/trade): shift boss
• Date of Death: Friday, July 30, 1926
• Mechanism (event): fall of ground (fall of rock)
• Medical Cause: crush trauma
• Manner: accident
• Burial: Walsenburg Masonic Cemetery, Walsenburg, Colorado (cemetery ledger records “John Adams, born 1875, died 1925”—the year of death is almost certainly a clerical error for 1926)
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: Contemporary articles and source accounts estimate that approximately 125 tons of rock fell during this accident. Newspapers identified the victim as John Adams of Walsenburg, employed as a shift boss. While “John Adams” is a common name, burial searches at Denver’s principal cemeteries that frequently received Moffat Tunnel fatalities (Crown Hill, Riverside, Fairmount, etc.) yielded no matching records. By contrast, the Walsenburg Masonic Cemetery register lists a John Adams with the correct birth year (1875) and age (50). The single-year discrepancy in the death date is best explained as a clerical error, a known issue in early cemetery ledgers. Although absolute confirmation would benefit from a headstone inscription, obituary, or deed, the convergence of age, name, residence, and the absence of records in the Denver cemeteries makes it historically defensible to conclude that John Adams, killed in the 1926 tunnel collapse, is buried in the Walsenburg Masonic Cemetery.
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about John Adams, please let us know.

#32 | 1926 | Henry Ferguson

• Age: 48
• Townsite Association: West Portal, Grand County
• Occupation (role/trade): laborer
• Date of Death: Friday, July 30, 1926
• Mechanism (event): fall of ground (fall of rock)
• Medical Cause: crush trauma
• Manner: accident
• Burial: Vivian, Louisiana (unknown)
• Headstone: Town location available.
• Other Information: Contemporary articles and source accounts estimate that approximately 125 tons of rock fell during this accident.
• Contemporary misprints (as reported in newspapers and other sources): Harry
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about Henry Ferguson, please let us know.

#33 | 1926 | Park A. Gasaway

• Age: 42
• Townsite Association: West Portal, Grand County
• Occupation (role/trade): laborer
• Date of Death: Friday, July 30, 1926
• Mechanism (event): fall of ground (fall of rock)
• Medical Cause: crush trauma
• Manner: accident
• Burial: Vinzant Cemetery, Indiana | Jackson Township, Section 26
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: Contemporary articles and source accounts estimate that approximately 125 tons of rock fell during this accident.
• Contemporary misprints (as reported in newspapers and other sources): Gassoway, Gasoway, Pat or Patrick or Peter
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about Park A. Gasaway, please let us know.

#34 | 1926 | William E. Pierson

• Age: 39
• Townsite Association: West Portal, Grand County
• Occupation (role/trade): laborer
• Date of Death: Friday, July 30, 1926
• Mechanism (event): fall of ground (fall of rock)
• Medical Cause: crush trauma
• Manner: accident
• Burial: Westlawn-Hillcrest Memorial Park, Omaha, Nebraska | Section 23, Lot 158-A, Space 3
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: Heartbreakingly, William Pierson’s first day on the job was also his last. Contemporary articles and source accounts estimate that approximately 125 tons of rock fell during this accident.
• Contemporary misprints (as reported in newspapers and other sources): William Pearson, Piersn
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about William E. Pierson, please let us know.

#35 | 1926 | John Parosek

• Age: 48
• Townsite Association: West Portal, Grand County
• Occupation (role/trade): laborer
• Date of Death: Friday, July 30, 1926
• Mechanism (event): fall of ground (fall of rock)
• Medical Cause: crush trauma
• Manner: accident
• Burial: Mount Olivet Catholic Cemetery, Wheat Ridge, Colorado | 12-7-0-20
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: Contemporary articles and source accounts estimate that approximately 125 tons of rock fell during this accident.
• Contemporary misprints (as reported in newspapers and other sources): John Prosek or John Proske
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about John Parosek, please let us know.

#36 | 1926 | Hartzel T. Thompson

• Age: 20-21
• Townsite Association: West Portal, Grand County
• Occupation (role/trade): mucker
• Date of Death: Friday, July 30, 1926
• Mechanism (event): fall of ground (fall of rock)
• Medical Cause: crush trauma
• Manner: accident
• Burial: Meeker Highland Cemetery, Meeker, Colorado | Highland C, West 22
• Headstone: Monument located and confirmed.
• Other Information: Contemporary articles and source accounts estimate that approximately 125 tons of rock fell during this accident.
• Contemporary misprints (as reported in newspapers and other sources): Hartsell, Hartsel, Hartzell Compson
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about Hartzel T. Thompson, please let us know.

#37 | 1926 | George Shores

• Age: 21
• Townsite Association: East Portal, Gilpin County
• Occupation (role/trade): brakeman
• Date of Death: Thursday, October 14, 1926
• Mechanism (event): fall from moving equipment (fell from an electric motor/tunnel car)
• Medical Cause: multiple trauma
• Manner: accident
• Burial: Riverside Cemetery, Denver, Colorado | Block 14, Lot 9, Section 31, no headstone/unmarked
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: none
• Contemporary misprints (as reported in newspapers and other sources): George Fhores, Foers, Forest
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about George Shores, please let us know.

#38 | 1926 | George Dewey Fortune

• Age: 29
• Townsite Association: West Portal, Grand County
• Occupation (role/trade): chuck tender
• Date of Death: Monday, November 1, 1926
• Mechanism (event): fall of ground (fall of rock)
• Medical Cause: crush trauma
• Manner: accident
• Burial: Crown Hill Cemetery, Wheat Ridge, Colorado | Block 15, Plot 66, Grave 27
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: none
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about George Dewey Fortune, please let us know.

#39 | 1926 | Frank Bird Pierce

• Age: 48
• Townsite Association: West Portal, Grand County
• Occupation (role/trade): laborer
• Date of Death: Saturday, November 20, 1926
• Mechanism (event): engine fell from a [dump] trestle that was weakened by precipitation
• Medical Cause: crush trauma
• Manner: accident
• Burial: Crown Hill Cemetery, Wheat Ridge, Colorado | Block 22, Plot 121, Grave 1
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: none
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about Frank Bird Pierce, please let us know.

#40 | 1926 | Harley Smith

• Age: 27-28
• Townsite Association: West Portal, Grand County
• Occupation (role/trade): laborer
• Date of Death: Thursday, December 9, 1926
• Mechanism (event): unknown
• Medical Cause: unknown
• Manner: undetermined
• Burial: Riverside Cemetery, Denver, Colorado | Block 14, Lot 9, Section 33, no headstone/unmarked
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: none
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about Harley Smith, please let us know.

#41 | 1926 | Charles Frederick Billings

• Age: 52
• Townsite Association: West Portal, Grand County
• Occupation (role/trade): laborer
• Date of Death: Monday, December 13, 1926
• Mechanism (event): exposure/respiratory
• Medical Cause: pneumonia
• Manner: natural (occupational illness)
• Burial: Fairmount Cemetery, Denver, Colorado | Block 22, Lot 39, Grave 4
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: none
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about Charles Frederick Billings, please let us know.

#42 | 1927 | King Francis Weston

• Age: 31
• Townsite Association: East Portal, Gilpin County
• Occupation (role/trade): chief electrician
• Date of Death: Wednesday, February 16, 1927
• Mechanism (event): electrocution (touched a wire carrying 2,300 volts)
• Medical Cause: cardiac/thermal injury
• Manner: accident
• Burial: Crown Hill Cemetery, Wheat Ridge, Colorado | Block 34, Plot 307, Grave 2
• Headstone: Monument located and confirmed.
• Other Information: Contemporary newspaper accounts identifying King F. Weston as the twenty-seventh fatality of the Moffat Tunnel project reveal that the oft-repeated total of twenty-eight deaths is inaccurate—several additional fatalities and serious accidents occurred afterward. Additional information about Weston:
  • Records describe a pivotal incident during construction: on February 15, 1925, tunneling progress halted roughly 1,100 feet beneath Crater Lake when an estimated 1,800 gallons per minute of water began pouring into the bore. At the suggestion of an electrician recorded as K.S. Weston, crews cut through three feet of lake ice and poured in ten pounds of chloride of lime. When traces of the chemical appeared inside the tunnel, a stick of dynamite was thrown into the lake to seal the fissure—reducing the inflow to 150 gallons per minute, and soon after, to a trickle. Based on cross-referenced documentation, we believe the “K.S.” attribution was a typographical or auditory error and that the individual was in fact K.F. Weston, the same King Weston who later perished during the project. It seems improbable that two electricians with the initials K. Weston would have been working on the Moffat Tunnel simultaneously, making it highly likely this was the same man—first identified in connection with the Crater Lake incident and later lost just days before the tunnel’s holing-through.
  • Weston’s death occurred amid renewed efforts to control underground water as final preparations for the holing-through ceremony accelerated. He had served as the project’s chief electrician for three years. The motor powering the pumps broke on the preceding Thursday and was eventually removed; workers then spent all of Wednesday night repairing it so it could be reinstalled, as the motors drove the pumps that removed roughly 1,000 gallons of water each minute. Weston was electrocuted early Wednesday morning. The pump’s week-long outage had already intensified the pressure to complete repairs before the long-planned ceremony.
  • The date of the holing-through had been postponed multiple times—from February 16, to February 17, and finally to February 18, 1927—a date described as “mutually agreeable to Governor William H. Adams of Colorado and President Calvin Coolidge.” Given that two previous changes had already been coordinated with the White House, it is reasonable to infer that the Moffat Tunnel Commission was reluctant to request another postponement. That likely contributed to a sense of “go-fever”—a determination to meet the fixed date regardless of the accumulating risks underground. When Coolidge touched the golden telegraph key from Washington, D.C., symbolically detonating the final blast that joined the east and west headings, newspapers reported that Weston “falls victim as preparations for Moffat Celebration are rushed.”
  • Viewed together, the parallels are striking. The same man whose quick thinking in 1925 helped seal a leak beneath Crater Lake appears again two years later at the center of another water-related emergency, this time at the end of the tunnel’s holing-through rather than its beginning. His life effectively brackets that milestone—a reminder that even monumental engineering achievements are measured not just by cubic yards of rock removed, but by the people who gave everything to see them joined.
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about King Francis Weston, please let us know.

#43 | 1927 | James Gerald Engleman

• Age: 20
• Townsite Association: West Portal, Grand County
• Occupation (role/trade): laborer
• Date of Death: Wednesday, April 20, 1927
• Mechanism (event): exposure/respiratory
• Medical Cause: pneumonia
• Manner: natural (occupational illness)
• Burial: Craig Cemetery, Craig, Colorado | Section Fairview 28, Plot 6
• Headstone: Monument located and confirmed.
• Other Information: none
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about James Gerald Engleman, please let us know.

#44| 1927 | Frank Davis

• Age: 39-40
• Townsite Association: East Portal, Gilpin County
• Occupation (role/trade): laborer
• Date of Death: Thursday, April 28, 1927
• Mechanism (event): exposure/respiratory
• Medical Cause: pneumonia
• Manner: natural (occupational illness)
• Burial: Riverside Cemetery, Denver, Colorado | Block 14, Lot 12, Section 80, no headstone/unmarked
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: “Pneumonia, contracted while working at the Moffat [T]unnel, is believed to have caused the death of Frank Davis of East Portal, at St. Anthony’s hospital Thursday. Funeral arrangements are in charge of Spillane’s mortuary. Davis was a shift boss.”
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about Frank Davis, please let us know.

#45 | 1927 | Clarence Elmer McKown

• Age: 51
• Townsite Association: East Portal, Gilpin County
• Occupation (role/trade): laborer
• Date of Death: Sunday, May 29, 1927
• Mechanism (event): overexertion/physiologic
• Medical Cause: severe rupture while lifting a heavy object
• Manner: accident
• Burial: Hendley Cemetery, Hendley, Nebraska
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: McKown was taken into surgery on Sunday morning and passed away before leaving the operating table.
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about Clarence Elmer McKown, please let us know.

#46 | 1927 | Charles L. Rice

• Age: 27
• Townsite Association: West Portal, Grand County
• Occupation (role/trade): driller
• Date of Death: Thursday, July 14, 1927
• Mechanism (event): explosion
• Medical Cause: blast trauma
• Manner: accident
• Burial: unknown
• Headstone: unknown
• Other Information: The incident occurred on Friday, June 24, 1927, when a premature dynamite explosion sent rocks flying, inflicting a severe facial wound and a broken jaw. Contemporary reports described him as gravely injured—believed to be dying, in critical condition, and unlikely to recover due to blood loss. Rice succumbed to his injuries on July 14, 1927.
• Contemporary misprints (as reported in newspapers and other sources): C.L. Wright
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about Charles L. Rice, please let us know.

#47 | 1927 | Michael Tomavsky

• Age: 38
• Townsite Association: West Portal, Grand County
• Occupation (role/trade): laborer
• Date of Death: NLT Sunday, July 31, 1927
• Mechanism (event): unknown
• Medical Cause: unknown
• Manner: undetermined
• Burial: Riverside Cemetery, Denver, Colorado | Block 19, Lot SMP
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: none
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about Michael Tomavsky, please let us know.

#48 | 1927 | Thomas T. Williams

• Age: 43
• Townsite Association: West Portal, Grand County
• Occupation (role/trade): superintendent
• Date of Death: Sunday, August 28, 1927
• Mechanism (event): struck-by equipment (motor dropped and threw him against tunnel; fractured skull)
• Medical Cause: skull fracture
• Manner: accident
• Burial: Crown Hill Cemetery, Wheat Ridge, Colorado | Block 34, Plot 314, Grave 2
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: none
• Contemporary misprints (as reported in newspapers and other sources): Thomas G. Williams
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about Thomas T. Williams, please let us know.

#49 | 1927 | Frank M. Myers

• Age: 47
• Townsite Association: East Portal, Gilpin County
• Occupation (role/trade): miner
• Date of Death: Tuesday, September 20, 1927
• Mechanism (event): fall of ground (died when struck in the back of the neck by a falling rock)
• Medical Cause: neck trauma
• Manner: accident
• Burial: Crown Hill Cemetery, Wheat Ridge, Colorado | Block 18, Plot 312, Grave 2
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: none
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about Frank M. Myers, please let us know.

#50 | 1927 | John J. Hawley

• Age: unknown
• Townsite Association: West Portal, Grand County
• Occupation (role/trade): laborer
• Date of Death: Wednesday, October 12, 1927
• Mechanism (event): unknown
• Medical Cause: unknown
• Manner: undetermined
• Burial: Crown Hill Cemetery, Wheat Ridge, Colorado | Block 14, Plot 44, Grave 8
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: none
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about John J. Hawley, please let us know.

#51 | 1927 | Peter Medich

• Age: 40
• Townsite Association: East Portal, Gilpin County
• Occupation (role/trade): mucker
• Date of Death: Tuesday, October 18, 1927
• Mechanism (event): struck-by timber
• Medical Cause: blunt trauma
• Manner: accident
• Burial: Riverside Cemetery, Denver, Colorado | Block 19, Lot SMP, Section 269
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: none
• Contemporary misprints (as reported in newspapers and other sources): Nadich
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about Peter Medich, please let us know.

#52 | 1928 | John Zuzulis

• Age: 39-40
• Townsite Association: unknown
• Date of Death: (approximately) Sunday, February 26, 1928
• Occupation (role/trade): laborer
• Mechanism (event): unknown
• Medical Cause: unknown
• Manner: unspecified
• Burial: Riverside Cemetery, Denver, Colorado | Block 14, Lot 2, Section 133, no headstone/unmarked
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: none
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about John Zuzulis, please let us know.

#53 | 1928 | Frederick Stanley Watt

• Age: 54 (or 52)
• Townsite Association: West Portal, Grand County
• Occupation (role/trade): laborer
• Date of Death: Tuesday, March 13, 1928
• Mechanism (event): exposure/respiratory
• Medical Cause: pneumonia (persisting from roughly opening day through March 13th)
• Manner: natural (occupational illness)
• Burial: Fairmount Cemetery, Denver, Colorado
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: none
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about Frederick Stanley Watt, please let us know.

#54 | 1928 | Theodore Leo Smith

• Age: 25
• Townsite Association: death occurred outside of the Moffat Tunnel or associated townsite; original townsite association is unknown
• Occupation (role/trade): laborer
• Date of Death: Monday, April 9, 1928
• Mechanism (event): poisoning
• Medical Cause: gas inhalation
• Manner: suicide
• Burial: Crown Hill Cemetery, Wheat Ridge, Colorado | Block 18, Plot 326, Grave 8
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: Relatives believed that Theodore’s declining health, stemming from an accident at the Moffat Tunnel two years earlier, led to his death. Although he passed away after the tunnel had officially opened to rail traffic, his case is included here because the injury almost certainly occurred during construction, likely in 1926. The exact nature of the accident remains unknown.
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about Theodore Leo Smith, please let us know.

CONSTRUCTION YEAR SUBTOTALS

Fatalities will be updated as research continues. Presently, we have 54 fatalities related to the Moffat Tunnel (31 at West Portal, 18 at East Portal, with three unknown and two as N/A):

1923: 0 lives confirmed lost

1924: 10 lives confirmed lost

1925: 12 lives confirmed lost

1926: 19 lives confirmed lost

1927: 10 lives confirmed lost

1928: 3 lives confirmed lost

This comprehensive memorial is the result of original, ongoing research. Each name added to this list has been carefully vetted through primary sources and corroborated across multiple records. Because much of this information has never before been compiled or published in a single location, we ask that any reuse or citation of this work properly credit the researchers (B. Travis Wright and Kate Wright of Preserve Rollins Pass) and our project. Attribution ensures the integrity of the record and honors the effort that has gone into reconstructing these long-overlooked histories.

WHY THE MOFFAT TUNNEL NEEDS A CENOTAPH

Given that the final resting places of many who died during the construction of the Moffat Tunnel remain unknown, or are located in distant cemeteries far from the site, it is time to consider establishing a cenotaph to be unveiled during the tunnel’s 100th anniversary weekend in February 2028. This memorial would serve as a permanent and solemn acknowledgment of the laborers whose lives made the tunnel possible, regardless of where they are buried. Some were never given headstones. Others were misidentified, their names lost to clerical error or the passage of time. A cenotaph near the tunnel would offer families, historians, and the public a place to reflect, to mourn, and to remember. It would anchor their sacrifice to the very landscape they helped shape and ensure that their legacy is not forgotten.

BEYOND THE WORKERS: UNCOUNTED LOSSES AT THE MOFFAT TUNNEL CAMPS

Workers were not the only ones who died during the construction of the Moffat Tunnel—tragedy extended to their families as well. Life in the remote tunnel camps was unforgiving, and the toll included wives and children who lived alongside the laborers. As one example, The Steamboat Pilot reported on January 6, 1926: “Mrs. W.C. Dell died at West Portal on Christmas Day. Her husband is a driller in the Moffat Tunnel. She leaves a 4-year-old son.” While these deaths are not included in our official worker fatality totals, they bear mentioning nonetheless. Their losses, though quieter and less often recorded, are part of the broader human cost of this project and deserve remembrance.

A FOOTNOTE: THE TUNNEL THAT TOOK—AND GAVE

We also track unique stories where the existence of the Moffat Tunnel—prior to its official opening to rail traffic in 1928—may have repaid, in part, some of the lives it had taken. These instances, though rare, reflect moments where the partially completed tunnel was used in ways that offered life-saving utility or emergency access:

1927 | Volla Slater

• Age: 2
• Townsite Association: West Portal
• Date of Birth: early 1925
• Mechanism (event): While playing in her home in West Portal on Wednesday, February 23, 1927, the “little girl was seriously burned when clothing caught fire after her mother had thrown gasoline into a smoldering fire. Her body was a mass of burns before the fire could be extinguished.”
• Medical Cause: burn trauma
• Burial: Volla would be 100 as of 2025. No death information can be located.
• Other Information: “No medical aid being near at hand, it was necessary that the child be brought to Denver, but the road to Denver over Berthoud pass was closed by snow and it was decided that the only way to save the life of the little girl was to carry her thru the tunnel to East Portal, where she could be put into an automobile and brought to Denver. Wrapped in soft clothes, Volla rode six miles thru the tunnel in one of the small electric muck cars and Thursday morning arrived in Denver in an automobile. She was taken to the Children’s hospital, where it was said she would live.” Volla is credited as the first person to travel through the length of the Moffat Tunnel (pioneer bore). Of interesting note is this happened just days after President Coolidge connected both sides of the pioneer bore.
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share, please let us know.

DEATHS AFTER THE 1923-1928 CONSTRUCTION PERIOD

Even after the completion of the Moffat Tunnel in 1928, the danger did not end. The tunnel and its surrounding infrastructure continued to claim lives in the years that followed—through accidents, maintenance incidents, and railway-related fatalities. These post-construction deaths are not included in our tally of lives lost during the tunnel’s building phase, but they are part of the tunnel’s extended legacy. From workers struck during improvement work to those involved in derailments or caught in mechanical failures, these later losses serve as a sobering reminder that the cost of such monumental infrastructure is not confined to its construction alone. The tunnel has long symbolized engineering triumph—but it also carries a quieter, enduring human toll.

Note: Names shown in bold have been fully verified through multiple independent sources, confirming not just the individual’s identity but also the date and circumstances of death. Names not yet in bold have been documented in at least one credible source; however, further corroboration is still needed to confirm additional details. This approach reflects both our commitment to accuracy and the reality that, in some cases, full confirmation may never be possible. By distinguishing levels of verification, we aim to honor every individual while transparently acknowledging the limitations of the historical record.

Moffat Tunnel Deaths: In Memoriam of The Lives Lost After Building Colorado’s Historic Tunnel

1932 | Ralph C. Poucher

• Age: 42
• Project/Incident: moving large boulders within the Moffat Water Tunnel
• Date of Death: Sunday, October 16, 1932
• Mechanism (event): high compression drill struck a stick of dynamite that was in the bore unexploded for ~six years from the original construction period
• Manner: accident
• Burial: Crown Hill Cemetery, Wheat Ridge, Colorado | Block 40, Plot 105, Grave 8
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: none
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about Ralph C. Poucher, please let us know.

1935 | Joseph O. McCloskey

• Age: 27
• Project/Incident: relining the Moffat Water Tunnel
• Date of Death: Thursday, July 11, 1935
• Mechanism (event): injured when a jack hammer he was operating exploded a charge of powder which had not ignited during blasting operations a few minutes before. The explosion drove the handle of the heavy hammer into his abdomen
• Manner: accident
• Burial: Fairmount Cemetery, Denver, Colorado | Block 48, Lot 151, Section 1
• Headstone: Approximate location available.
• Other Information: none
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about Joseph O. McCloskey, please let us know.

1937 | Martin Callahan

• Age: 56
• Project/Incident: pushing a train over the apex from West Portal
• Date of Death: Saturday, February 13, 1937
• Mechanism (event): crushed and scalded to death by a helper engine that derailed in the tunnel; first rail accident in the tunnel and “died instantly”
• Manner: accident
• Burial: Mount Olivet Catholic Cemetery, Wheat Ridge, Colorado | Section 13, Block 6, Lot 12, Grave 1
• Headstone: Monument located and confirmed.
• Other Information: Martin was an engineer on the second section of the first train to run on schedule through the tunnel on opening day in February 1928
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about Martin Callahan, please let us know.

1937 | Charles Lee Root

• Age: 47
• Project/Incident: pushing a train over the apex from West Portal
• Date of Death: Tuesday, February 16, 1937
• Mechanism (event): severely scalded on Saturday, February 13 and died several days later; staggered through 1.5 miles to carry the news about the engineer (see above)
• Manner: accident
• Burial: Crown Hill Cemetery, Wheat Ridge, Colorado | Block 55, Plot 73, Grave C-3
• Headstone: Monument located and confirmed.
• Other Information: none
• Community or family contributions welcome: if you have information to share about Charles Lee Root, please let us know.

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