A Chaotic Buggy Crash on Third Street
A pair of young, half-broken horses went berserk in downtown Seattle, leading to a violent wreck that left the passengers with broken bones and the animals severely injured.
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.
As a man named Potter and Jimmie Dolan were out in a buggy, exercising a team of young, half-broken horses belonging to Bob Abrams, the team took fright and ran away. They dashed along Third Street and turned down the hill at the street in front of the residence of D. Sires. At the foot of the hill, the front wheels parted from the balance of the buggy, and it capsized, throwing both the occupants out with great force, seriously injuring them. The team brought up against a stump; one of the horses had its head laid open and one eye knocked out, and the other, a pretty little black mare formerly belonging to Dr. Calhoun, had its leg seriously injured. The men were taken down town to a drug store and it was found that Potter had a scalp wound and a severe contusion on the side of his head, and Jimmy Dolan had his ankle sprained and his leg broken. Dr. Weed attended Potter, and Dr. Calhoun attended Dolan.
“At the foot of the hill the front wheels parted from the balance of the buggy, and it capsized, throwing both the occupants out with great force.”
While Third Street is now a bustling urban corridor dominated by skyscrapers and transit rather than horse-drawn buggies, the unpredictable danger of local streets remains a constant theme in Seattle's civic life. The chaotic scene vividly captures the transition of a pioneer town still learning how to navigate the tension between man, animal, and infrastructure.
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