The Day the Floor Collapsed at the Revivals
A two-story church in Seattle, serving as a school on its lower floor, gave way under the weight of a crowd, resulting in a thirteen-foot plunge and multiple severe injuries.
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.
J. M. Ouster and Dr. L. E. gave an address yesterday evening in favor of prohibition. When they arrived they found a big revival in progress and did not speak. The revival was conducted in a two-story church building, the upper floor being used for church purposes and the lower floor given exclusively to school purposes. Yesterday, while the audience was listening attentively to the exhortations of the minister, the rear end of the floor gave way with a crash. The fall was thirteen feet, and hardly one of those present escaped injury. The injured were quickly rescued from the mill, and three of them were found to be seriously injured. One is fatally hurt.
“The fall was thirteen feet, and hardly one of those present escaped injury.”
This 1887 incident in Seattle highlights the precarious state of early infrastructure during the city's explosive growth, where public and religious gatherings were often held in hastily built, multi-use wooden structures. Today, while building codes prevent such sudden failures, the tension between rapid population growth and the safety of existing community spaces remains a recurring theme in Seattle's housing and civic debates.
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