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The Stevie Ray Vaughan crash site can be found at Alpine Valley Resort near East Troy, Wisconsin, where blues guitar legend Stevie Ray Vaughan’s life was cut short on August 27, 1990. Vaughan had just delivered a blistering set with his band Double Trouble as part of an all‑star bill featuring icons like Eric Clapton, Robert Cray and Buddy Guy at the outdoor Alpine Valley Music Theatre when the night took a heartbreaking turn. Following the show, Vaughan and four members of Clapton’s touring entourage boarded a helicopter bound for Chicago. Dense fog and rising terrain robbed the flight of visibility, and the Bell 206B helicopter crashed into a hillside within the Alpine Valley ski area shortly after takeoff, killing everyone on board instantly. Vaughan was 35, at the peak of his creative ability, a towering figure in the blues revival of the 1980s whose sudden death sent shockwaves through the music world and beyond.
A modest memorial plaque commemorating Stevie Ray Vaughan can be found affixed to a light pole on the hill where the helicopter impacted, serving as a quiet, understated tribute that anchors the memory of one of blues history’s most influential figures in the rural Wisconsin terrain where he took his final bow.
The at the crash site memorial reads:
On Monday, August 27, 1990 at 12:50 a.m. Vaughan and members of Eric Clapton’s touring entourage played an all-star encore jam session at Alpine Valley Music Theatre in Alpine Valley Resort in East Troy, Wisconsin. They then left for Midway International Airport in Chicago in a Bell206B helicopter. The helicopter crashed into a nearby ski hill shortly after takeoff. Vaughan and the four others on board—pilot Jeff Brown, agent Bobby Brooks, bodyguard Nigel Browne, and tour manager Colin Smythe died instantly.
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Stevie Ray Vaughan Crash Site
Stevie Ray Vaughan Helicopter Crash
