Ogden’s Waterfall Canyon is as deadly as it is beautiful.

Over the decades, more people have likely been killed or injured there than in any other canyon in the Ogden area.

There’s the infamous triple tragedy of Dec. 26, 1962, when three youngsters, all under age 10, fell off the rocks above the falls and plunged to their deaths.

But there were other fatal accidents there too. Here are some of them:

— “Boy, 14, plunges from top of Waterfall Canyon” was a May 16, 1941 headline in the Standard-Examiner.

Leland Oxnam, a student from Washington School, was climbing on rocks directly above the falls, when he slipped and was killed. He was with two other classmates at the time.

— Kimball Vaughn, 25, of Ogden, died in an Ogden hospital on April 24, 1939, from injuries sustained two days prior from a 50-foot fall in Waterfall Canyon.

— Andrew Cooper, 17, of Ogden, was found dead in the water at the base of the waterfall on April 23, 1974, after a fall from the top the rocks. He was alone at the time.

There were also lucky survivors from accidents too:

— On Aug. 6, 1883, some boys found a strange metal capsule inside the canyon. It turned out to be an explosive device and went off when one of the boys shook it. His hands were mutilated and he lost two fingers. The other boys suffered face and head wounds.

— David Melvin, 16, fell 30 feet off a cliff in the canyon in April of 1895. He somehow was only bruised.

— “Eludes a rattlesnake, but breaks a leg” was a Aug. 13, 1910 headline in the Salt Lake Herald. “Preferring to take the chance of jumping from a thirty-foot cliff in Waterfall Canyon, than being bitten by a rattlesnake, Fred Craner, 19, today, suffered a severe fracture of his left leg,” the story reported.

The man said the rattler was coiled and ready to strike behind him when he chose leaping to a pile of boulders below instead.

— “Brinks ‘comes back’ after fall to death” was a Nov. 14, 1910 headline in the Salt Lake Herald. William Sawyer of Ogden claimed his bull terrier, “Brinks,” had fallen some 200 feet off a cliff while hunting in Waterfall Canyon. Sawyer said it took hours to climb down to where the mangled animal was and he buried it there, as best he could.

Two weeks later, the dog somehow amazingly came through his family’s gate, collapsing lean and hungry on the doorstep. The family nursed the dog back to health, but could not find a single broken bone. He ate enormous amounts of food, but the family and neighborhood considered it a miracle.

— “Climber rescued after 23 hours on death perch” was an Aug. 3, 1925 newspaper headline. Louis Buswell, 28, became stranded on the cliffs near the waterfall and rescuers needed 300 feet of rope to haul him off a cliff face.

— On May 28, 1958, Larry Smith, 14, fell some 40 feet from the rocks around the falls and was severely injured. He was on an Ogden High outing to celebrate the end of the school year, but he apparently did recover after a lengthy hospital stay.

Lynn Arave is a veteran journalist who started writing for newspapers in 1970 at Roy High School and for daily papers starting in 1976 with high school game reports for the Standard-Examiner. He has been an avid history researcher for three decades. He can be reached at lynnarave@comcast.net.