A Deadly Nap by the Tracks
A store clerk near Mount Vernon meets a tragic end after falling asleep on a rail platform.
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.
The south-bound freight on the Great Northern coast line struck Merton E. Brown, a clerk in Mann's store at Milltown, nine miles south of Mount Vernon, about 12:30 o'clock yesterday morning, killing him instantly. According to the report of the conductor, Brown must have been lying on the platform with his lantern waiting to flag the train and had fallen asleep. On hearing the train approach he must have jumped up, only half awake, and leaped on the track. He ran toward the train and swerved to one side just as he came close to the engine, but not in time to escape. He was struck on the head by the cow-catcher and thrown from the track, his neck and back being broken, so that death must have been instantaneous.
“Brown must have been lying on the platform with his lantern waiting to flag the train and had fallen asleep.”
Rail safety and the hazards of living and working near industrial tracks remain a recurring theme in modern Seattle infrastructure debates. This 1893 tragedy serves as a stark reminder of the physical stakes involved in the city's relationship with the Great Northern line.
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