A Near-Fatal Plunge at the Seattle Waterfront
A young boy fell into the dark, freezing waters of the bay, sparking a desperate rescue attempt that left the child unconscious and the city briefly breathless.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The little son of Mr. Allyn, living on the waterfront between Sixth and Seventh, had a very narrow escape from drowning last evening. About six o'clock, the little fellow was playing near the wharf, when he slipped through a small space and fell into the bay. A gentleman whose name we were unable to learn saw him fall over and ran down the stairs and jumped into the water after him, just as the boy was going down for the last time. The boy was carried to the base of the wharf, where he was revived and, after considerable delay, became conscious.
“A gentleman whose name we were unable to learn saw him fall over and ran down the stairs and jumped into the water after him, just as the boy was going down for the last time.”
This 1887 incident highlights the inherent dangers of Seattle’s early, haphazard waterfront infrastructure, where wood-planked wharves were often loosely constructed. Today, while the waterfront is heavily engineered, the tension between the city's maritime industrial past and its public access remains a constant theme in Seattle's urban development.
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