The Tragedy at the Falls
A fatal explosion at Snoqualmie Falls claims the lives of three laborers as the community grapples with the aftermath.
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 three men killed by the explosion of a blast at Snoqualmie Falls have been buried near the fatal scene. Their names were John Kelley, Dejort, and Godfried Kydott. Kelley recently came from Wisconsin with a carload of horses for Myan & McDonald, the contractors, and was of a well-to-do family in Wisconsin. Dejort had been in the employ of Hunt & Patton, the until recently. Kydott was a German and only commenced work the morning of the accident. He came to the coast from none of the men have any relatives in this vicinity. The coroner's inquest resulted in a verdict of accidental death and entirely exonerated the foreman and contractors. The two injured men, August Udhouoe and Frank Keel, were brought to the city last evening and taken once to Providence Hospital. They are considerably cut and bruised, particularly about the head and limbs, but will soon be able to return to work.
“The coroner's inquest resulted in a verdict of accidental death and entirely exonerated the foreman and contractors.”
Workplace safety remains a point of intense friction in the Pacific Northwest, echoing this 1888 account of laborers dying in the construction of the region's infrastructure. While standards have evolved, the precarious nature of transient contract labor continues to be a recurring struggle in the modern economy.
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