Street Improvement Disaster in Tacoma
A routine effort to clear stumps for new streets ends in a 250-pound boulder tearing through a family’s roof.
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.
While blowing out giant stumps with dynamite near Bee and Johnson streets for street improvements today, the home of A. Shumway was badly damaged by flying stone and wood. A 250-pound boulder was blown seventy-five feet high and fell through the roof, cutting a hole through the attic and the second story. Shumway's daughter is prostrated with the shock, and his grandchildren were slightly injured.
“A 250-pound boulder was blown seventy-five feet high, and fell through the roof, cutting a hole through the attic and second story.”
While Tacoma's rapid infrastructure growth in 1892 used dynamite to clear the way, the underlying struggle of residents caught in the crosshairs of rapid urban development remains a familiar, if modernized, tension in the Puget Sound region.
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