A Boy's Terrifying Plunge from the Tide Flats Trestle
A teenager suffers a severe break after his horse shies and throws him from the elevated roadway onto the mud below.
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.
Charlie White, a 14-year-old boy, was thrown from a horse on Weller street yesterday evening at 7 o'clock and suffered a fracture of the left leg below the knee. He was riding down Weller street from South Tenth when a piece of flying paper frightened his pony, which shied and pitched him off the elevated roadway to the tide flats, a distance of about twenty feet. He alighted on his feet in the mud, but with sufficient force to break his left leg. He was carried by spectators to his home on the Grant street bridge. The pony ran away, and when last seen was tearing down the Grant street bridge toward South Seattle.
“The pony ran away, and when last seen was tearing down the Grant street bridge toward South Seattle like a Kansas cyclone.”
In 1892, Seattle was defined by its precarious geography, with residents living on elevated planked roads built over dangerous tide flats. Today, these flats are filled land, and the 'Grant Street Bridge' is long gone, though the physical transition from unstable wood to permanent concrete mirrors the city's massive engineering regrades.
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