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A Violent Quarrel in the Woods: The Stabbing of W.W. Powell

A logger is brought to Seattle for emergency surgery after a bloody confrontation in a rural camp.

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.

Yesterday evening, a man was brought in from the Skagit Valley and placed in jail. A reporter was detailed to ascertain the cause of his incarceration, when it was ascertained that he had stabbed and seriously wounded W. W. Powell, the well-known logger. The injured man was brought to this city today for surgical treatment. It seems that the two men became engaged in a quarrel, during which Mr. Powell was stabbed as indicated above.

“It seems that the two men became engaged in a quarrel, during which Mr. Powell was stabbed as indicated above.”

— Printed in Seattle Daily Post-Intelligencer (Seattle, W.T. [Wash.]) 1881-1888, 1887
Then · 1887139 years apartNow · 2026

While Seattle’s modern growth is fueled by tech, the 19th-century economy was built on the backs of loggers like W.W. Powell, whose violent work-site conflicts and reliance on the city's nascent medical infrastructure mirror today's headlines about the dangers and lack of safety nets for transient labor.

The original page

Seattle Daily Post-Intelligencer (Seattle, W.T. [Wash.]) 1881-1888, 1887-07-05. Library of Congress, Chronicling America.

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About this story

From
Seattle Daily Post-Intelligencer (Seattle, W.T. [Wash.]) 1881-1888, JUL 5, 1887, Page 4
Rights
Public domain
Place
47.60323, -122.33028 · placed automatically
The paper in the Library of Congress catalog ↗