The Mud-Slinging Rivalry of Newcastle and Gilman
A friendly visit between two mining towns turns into a disastrous, mud-caked lesson in humility for a local horseman.
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.
A warm rivalry of horsemanship has sprung up lately between the two mining camps at Newcastle and Gilman, extending from the highest official of each place to the rank and file of the miners. Last Wednesday, Superintendent T. B. Corey, Assistant Superintendent James Anderson, and Storekeeper R. G. Roberts of Newcastle rode over to Gilman on a social visit. In the afternoon, Manager Wesley Wilson and Engineer George A. Brooke mounted their steeds to escort them part of the way home. As they passed George W. Tibbetts' farm, the road takes a sharp turn near a deep mud hole. Mr. Brooke's horse checked suddenly, causing his rider to fly over his head into the soft cushion of earth and water. The rest of the party roared with laughter, which redoubled when the be-daubed man dived to the bottom of the mud hole and brought up a shapeless thing which had once borne the semblance of a hat. Mr. Brooke did not find speech easy, and the woods rang with such laughter as they have rarely heard. It was a queer pair of horsemen who rode back to Gilman—Mr. Wilson shaking his sides with merriment and Mr. Brooke divided between the ludicrous and disagreeable aspects of his adventure.
“The woods rang with such laughter as they have rarely heard, and it was redoubled when one of the be-daubed ones dived down to the bottom of the mud hole and brought up a shapeless thing which had once borne the semblance of a hat.”
Today, Newcastle and the area formerly known as Gilman (now Issaquah) are quiet, affluent suburbs connected by high-speed highways, but in 1894, they were rugged, competitive coal-mining towns. The 'rivalry' described—often played out through feats of horsemanship and occasional legal scuffles—was a vital part of the social glue that defined isolated industrial communities before the automobile era.
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