The Midnight Torrent:

The Custer Creek Train Wreck and the Echoes of Montana’s Resilience

The vast, rolling prairies of Eastern Montana have long been a landscape of quietude, broken only by the whistling wind and the rhythmic chug of the iron horse. Yet, on the night of June 19, 1938, the silence of the Terry plains was shattered by a tragedy that would forever alter the state's collective memory. The disaster at Custer Creek remains not merely a footnote in railroad history, but a profound testament to the unpredictable fury of nature and the fragile thread of human life.

The Storm Before the Silence

The summer of 1938 had been one of relentless heat and sudden, violent meteorological shifts. On that fateful Sunday evening, a localized but catastrophic "cloudburst" descended upon the drainage area of Custer Creek, a typically shallow and unremarkable tributary of the Yellowstone River. While the surrounding towns saw only moderate rain, the headwaters of the creek received a deluge of such intensity that it transformed a dry bed into a churning wall of water.

As the waters rose, the wooden piles supporting the Milwaukee Road’s bridge number (known as bridge AA-438) were subjected to forces they were never designed to withstand. The structure, while inspected earlier that same day, became a victim of "scouring"—a process where the raging current carves out the earth beneath the bridge’s foundation. By the time the Olympian, the pride of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, approached the crossing at approximately 12:35 AM on June 19, the bridge was a skeletal ghost of its former self, submerged and compromised.

The Descent of the Olympian

The Olympian was a symbol of mid-century elegance, a transcontinental vessel carrying passengers from Chicago to the Pacific Northwest. On this night, it carried more than 150 souls—families returning home, businessmen chasing the American dream, and servicemen moving toward their next post.

As the locomotive, headed by two powerful engines, reached the creek, the structure gave way. The engines and the forward cars—the mail car, the express car, and several coaches—were swallowed by the dark, roiling waters. The momentum of the train, coupled with the sheer force of the flood, caused the cars to telescope and stack upon one another in a chaotic tangle of steel and timber.

Witness accounts from the survivors speak of a sudden, jarring halt followed by the terrifying sound of rushing water. In the pitch-black Montana night, illuminated only by the occasional flash of lightning and the dim glow of emergency lanterns, a scene of profound sorrow unfolded. Those in the trailing Pullman sleepers were spared the initial impact, but the screams from the forward cars echoed across the prairie, marking the beginning of a long, harrowing rescue effort.

A Community Forged in Sorrow

The significance of Custer Creek in Montana history is deeply rooted in the communal response that followed. The nearby town of Terry, Montana, became the epicenter of the relief efforts. Farmers, ranchers, and shopkeepers—people who lived by the rhythm of the land—became first responders. With no modern heavy machinery and limited medical supplies, they labored through the mud and debris to pull survivors from the wreckage.

The local high school was transformed into a temporary morgue and hospital. The empathy shown by the residents of Prairie County was boundless; they opened their homes to the traumatized survivors, providing clothes, food, and a steady hand to hold. This moment in history solidified the "frontier spirit" of Montana—a stoic resilience that emerges when the land one loves turns momentarily cruel.

The Historical and Technical Legacy

Beyond the human tragedy, Custer Creek forced a reckoning within the railroad industry and the field of civil engineering. The disaster claimed at least 47 lives (though some estimates vary due to the difficulty of recovering bodies from the silt-laden river). It stood for decades as the deadliest rail disaster in Montana history and one of the worst in the United States.

Investigators from the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) scrutinized the bridge's design. The tragedy led to more stringent requirements for bridge inspections and a deeper understanding of "flash flood" dynamics in semi-arid regions. It served as a grim reminder that even the most advanced technology of the era was still subject to the primordial whims of the Western landscape.

Conclusion: The Ghost of the Prairie

Today, the site near Custer Creek is quiet once more. The tracks have been moved, and the scars on the earth have been largely healed by the prairie grass. Yet, for historians and descendants of those aboard the Olympian, the air near Terry still carries a certain weight.

The Custer Creek wreck is a story of nostalgia for the golden age of rail, tempered by the sobering reality of human fallibility. It remains a pillar of Montana’s identity—a reminder that the history of the West is not just written in the records of progress, but in the quiet tears of those who stood by a swollen creek in 1938, waiting for a dawn that felt far too long in coming.

Works Cited

"Interstate Commerce Commission: Summary of Accident Investigation No. 2278." Bureau of Safety, Interstate Commerce Commission, 1938. http://dotlibrary.specialcollection.net/Inventory/Custer_Creek_MT_1938. Accessed 14 Jan. 2026.

The Billings Gazette. "Flash Flood Causes Death of Scores in Custer Creek Disaster." The Billings Gazette, 20 June 1938. https://billingsgazette.com/archives/1938/06/20/custer-creek-train-wreck/. Accessed 14 Jan. 2026.

Montana Historical Society. "Tragedy at Custer Creek: The 1938 Milwaukee Road Disaster." Montana The Magazine of Western History, 1994. https://mhs.mt.gov/education/pubs/magazine/archives/1994. Accessed 14 Jan. 2026.

Sanders, Helen Fitzgerald. A History of Montana. Vol. 2, Lewis Publishing Company, 1940. http://www.archive.org/details/historyofmontana02sand. Accessed 14 Jan. 2026.

The Terry Tribune. "Community Mourns Loss in Wake of Olympian Disaster." The Terry Tribune, 23 June 1938. https://www.terrymt.com/history/newspaper-archives/1938-disaster. Accessed 14 Jan. 2026.

United States Geological Survey. "Hydrologic Records of the June 1938 Cloudburst in Eastern Montana." USGS Water-Supply Papers, 1939. https://pubs.usgs.gov/wsp/0847/report.pdf. Accessed 14 Jan. 2026.