St. Helens eruption 38 years ago

Today marks 38 years since the Mount St. Helens eruption that claimed 57 lives. Among those killed was 84-year-old lodge owner Harry Truman, who refused to leave his home despite weeks of natural activity that led to the May 18, 1980 eruption. The violent explosion of the Cascade Range’s most active volcano had been its first major event in more than a century. A series of small earthquakes at the volcano had begun a couple of months earlier. Pictured here are the cover and a couple of inside pages from a magazine published in 1981 in Truman’s memory. The magazine was among a number of publications gifted to me from the estate of my friend Don Coughlin.