Fatal Fall at Manning's Wharf
A young laborer dies after a forty-foot fall on a piledriver at the Seattle waterfront.
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.
John Brown, a laborer employed on C. T. Albrecht's piledriver, fell forty feet from the third platform of the driver yesterday afternoon, striking on his head on the float below and fracturing his skull so badly that he died in a few hours. The piledriver was employed on Manning's wharf, at the foot of Wall street, and Brown was standing on the platform. The other workmen were eating down below on the float and paying no attention to the man up above, as they had not yet begun work after dinner. The first warning they had of anything being wrong was a sharp cry, and the next instant the body of Brown lay insensible on the float. He was taken to Providence Hospital but died inside of three hours. Brown was a single man, about 23 years of age, and had a number of friends here. His parents live in South Seattle, and he had two brothers at Port Angeles.
“The first warning they had of anything being wrong was a sharp cry, and the next instant the body of Brown lay insensible on the float.”
Workplace safety on the Seattle waterfront has evolved from the era of hazardous, unregulated manual labor and makeshift platforms to strict modern industrial standards. The foot of Wall Street remains a vital part of the city's maritime infrastructure, though it is now significantly more structured and monitored.
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