Tragedy on Tacoma Avenue
A construction accident on a prominent Tacoma building site leaves a labor organizer critically injured and near death.
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.
Tacoma, W. T., June 8.—The scaffold on J. G. Weisbach's new house on Tacoma Avenue broke at 3:30 this afternoon and two carpenters fell from the second story. One was not badly hurt, but the other, Abram Ureh, struck on his head. His skull was crushed and he has been insensible since. He is not expected to live. Ureh was Chairman of the Central Committee of the late People's Party and a prominent Knight of Labor. He has a wife and two children and lives at the corner of Seventeenth and D streets. Drs. Minor and Armstrong are attending him.
“The scaffold on J. G. Weisbach's new house on Tacoma Avenue broke at 3:30 this afternoon and two carpenters fell from the second story.”
In 1887, Tacoma was a booming town where labor organizers were central figures in local politics. This accident highlights the brutal physical risks inherent in the era's rapid urban construction, a reality that persists in the dangerous conditions still faced by workers in the building trades today.
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