A Tragic End on the Tide Flats
The body of a missing drayman is discovered by a switchman in the mud near the Northern Pacific tracks.
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.
At low tide last night the dead body of J. B. Showalter, a truck driver for J. L. Kahaley, was found lying on the mud flats near the Northern Pacific track in the rear of the Seattle Transfer stables. The body was discovered by Henry Gilbertson, a switchman. The police were notified and the body taken to the morgue. There were no bruises or wounds upon his body, except that the flesh about the ears and eyes had been partially attacked by crabs. On his person was found a meal ticket issued by Jones Bros., Mechanics' restaurant, a letterhead of J. L. Kahaley, and a memorandum book. The last entry in the book was on November 18, last Saturday. In the pockets were also a watch stopped at twenty-five minutes to 2 o'clock, a pocket knife, and $3 in silver. From the appearance of the body, the man met his death by drowning and had been dead two or three days. It is supposed that he fell into the bay at Mr. Kahaley's barn, on lower Commercial street, where there are no guards on the approaches.
“At the barn there are no guards on the approaches, and there is nothing to prevent a drunken man from falling off the roadway into the bay.”
In 1893, Seattle's industrial waterfront was a dangerous, unregulated space where workers like Showalter lived on the margins, quite literally sleeping at their stables. Today, the area near the old tide flats is heavily redeveloped, yet the tension between the city's growth and the precarious lives of its most vulnerable laborers remains a persistent theme.
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