The four men knew they were in danger. Heavy, wet snow falling on an icy crust of old snow was the perfect recipe for avalanche on Jan. 7, 1912. The men left the sawmill anyway, their wagon loaded with lumber, and drove cautiously down Blacksmith Fork Canyon southeast of Logan, Utah.
Four miles below, the road was blocked by a snowslide. As the men worked to free their stalled wagon, a field of snow broke loose and crashed down upon them. George William Ellis of Smithfield, 45, father of seven with an eighth child to be born the following March, was crushed against the heavy wagon and died almost instantly. Daniel Fletcher Norris of Paradise, 23, married less than a year, was buried by snow and died slowly of suffocation. John Edward Miles, Jr. of Paradise, 21, son of the sawmill’s owner, was carried down the ravine and flung into a creek, his shoulders pinned against a rock by snow which hardened like concrete around him.