Tragedy at the Tacoma Coal Bunkers
A collapse of a loading chute drops seven men into forty feet of water, leading to a desperate rescue attempt and a tragic loss.
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.
William Grady, aged 22, was drowned this afternoon at the Northern Pacific coal bunkers in Tacoma. Six of his fellow workmen were also thrown into the water by the giving way of one of the chutes. Quartermaster Smith, of the steamship Tacoma, distinguished himself by heroic efforts in rescuing the men. Smith was on the deck when the wires holding the chute parted, allowing the end of the chute to tumble into the water, which at that point is nearly forty feet deep. These seven men were at work on the chute, and they, together with a half-ton of coal, plunged into the Sound. Smith dove into the water and assisted three of the men to a place of safety. The coal dust blinded the workmen as they fell, and Grady was seen to come to the surface twice, but did not see the ropes thrown to him. After he went down the final time, Smith dove for him but failed to find his body. It is claimed by the friends of the longshoremen that the wires that parted were corroded and rotted.
“The dust from the coal blinded the workmen as they fell, and besides they were all more or less stunned.”
This industrial tragedy highlights the life-and-death stakes of early waterfront labor in the Pacific Northwest. Today, the Port of Tacoma remains a major industrial engine, though safety standards and modern engineering have replaced the rotted wire chutes of the 1890s.
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