Drunken Brakeman Crushed on Northern Pacific Line
A railroad worker is killed near Meeker after falling between cars while intoxicated.
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.
James Garvey, a brakeman on the Northern Pacific freight train, fell between the cars and was killed near Meeker yesterday morning. Thomas Carstens, the butcher, who was in charge of a carload of cattle on the same train, witnessed the events. He stated that Garvey was visibly intoxicated when the train arrived at Meeker. Despite a fireman's attempt to assist him into the caboose, Garvey attempted to work the brakes as the train pulled away. The jerk of the starting train threw him between the cars, and he was run over. Both his legs were severed, and he died approximately fifteen minutes later without regaining consciousness.
“I was just remarking to the conductor that it was dangerous for the man to be on the train in that condition, when somebody shouted 'There's a man under the wheels,' and we felt a bump as the car passed over him.”
This tragedy reflects the brutal physical risks inherent in early railroad labor, where intoxication or simple error often resulted in immediate, gruesome death. It highlights a period of industrial development where worker safety was secondary to the velocity of cargo transit.
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