65 years before St. Helens blew, another Cascade volcano shocked the Pacific Northwest

65 years before St. Helens blew, another Cascade volcano shocked the Pacific Northwest

The eruption of Mount St. Helens on May 18, 1980, was a defining moment in the Northwest, but it wasn’t the Cascades’ only volcanic eruption in modern history. Mount Lassen, in the southern Cascades, erupted on May 22, 1915, 65 years almost to the day before Mount St. Helens. Also known as Lassen Peak, the mountain is the southernmost active volcano in the Cascade Range. It is located east of Redding, California, about 100 miles south of the Ore…