Spirit of Big Thunder

The Spirit of Big Thunder, also called Big Thunder and the Thunderbird, is a deity that lives within the hills of Big Thunder Mountain. It is the cause of the havoc within the mines that leads to the events of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at the Disney Parks.

Background
Indigenous people who lived near Big Thunder Mountain told stories about a spirit that lives within its hills. It was a protective spirit, wrathful and ruthless towards the greedy. The stories spread with the tale of the greedy chief Bodaway, dragged into the depths of the mountains by the spirit for his crimes. When white settlers began to move into the Western River Valley, they were warned of the ill that came to fortune finders.

Those warnings went unheeded the moment gold was discovered in the mountain. Barnabas T. Bullion was given a landgrant to establish the Big Thunder Mining Company in Thunder Mesa in 1848. Later, the towns of Rainbow Ridge and Tumbleweed were established.

Impact
When the mining took off in the towns, they became plagued by natural and supernatural disasters, including earthquakes, droughts, floods, mine collapses, and self-exploding dynamite. The townsfolk blamed it on the spirit, and did their best to ward it off, but the towns still suffered.

Rainbow Ridge suffered a massive population decline.The town was once made up of over 2,000 people, but it shrunk to only a few dozen.

Tumbleweed encountered a terrible drought, and no rain fell for a long time. Soon, the opposite extreme took hold of the town, and massive rainfall flooded the town. A snake oil salesman tried to take advantage of it, but his efforts backfired, leaving him trapped in the flooded town.

In 1860, Thunder Mesa was rocked by a massive earthquake, which killed most of the townsfolk and effectively ended the mining in the town. The people of Thunder Mesa blamed the Rivers of the Far West drying out on the Thunderbird, as well. As a consequence of the earthquake, the souls of those that died were trapped in the ruins of Phantom Canyon and Ravenswood Manor was haunted by a mysterious Phantom.

Trivia

 * The Thunderbird is named for a real religious figure in Native American cultures.