Tragic Industrial Accident Claims Life of Local Butcher
A worker dies after suffering catastrophic burns in a workplace accident at a slaughterhouse.
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.
Grant Penwright, the negro butcher who fell in a vat of scalding water at M. A. W. & Co.'s slaughterhouse Friday evening, died yesterday at Providence Hospital from his injuries. He was scalded head to foot so severely that every inch of his skin, except on his feet and face, was taken off. Penwright’s mother, Mrs. Mary Ann Hall, who lives at Stockton, Cal., has been informed by wire of his death, and the body will be held at Bonney's undertaking rooms until an answer is received.
“He was scalded head to foot so severely that every inch of his skin, except on his feet and face, was taken off.”
This horrific incident underscores the brutal reality of unregulated industrial work in 1890s Seattle, where safety protocols were virtually non-existent. While modern labor laws and OSHA regulations have drastically reduced such industrial disasters, the story serves as a stark reminder of the hidden human costs of early urban expansion.
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