Fatal Plunge into the Tide
A runaway team forces a Seattle teamster off the unguarded planks of Commercial Street to his death.
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.
Thomas White, a driver for the Caas Commission Company on West Street, was thrown from his wagon into the bay by runaway horses at the corner of lower Commercial and Charles streets, at 4:43 p.m. yesterday, and drowned. The lower part of Commercial street is built on piles high above the water; the west half is planked, but the other half is open. The east side has a railing, but at the corner of Commercial and Charles streets, there is no guard, as a road leads off to local barns. While the cause of the runaway remains a mystery, witnesses saw the team tearing down the street. White, holding the reins with a tight grip, was seen sitting on the high seat before the wagon struck the corner, sending him into the air. He hit his chin on the end of the railing and plunged sixteen feet into the water. Michael McGinnis was lowered into the cold water to retrieve him, and though efforts were made to revive him, he was pronounced dead. White was 33 years old, a native of Indiana, and a resident of Seattle for four years.
“White's body was found doubled up like a jack knife, head and feet under.”
The waterfront of the 1890s was a precarious, makeshift landscape of wooden pilings and gaps where industrial reality met the tide. Today, the modern waterfront is defined by concrete, seawalls, and the massive overhaul of the Alaskan Way Viaduct’s removal, but the danger of Seattle's evolving edge remains a recurring theme in the city's history.
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