When the Entiat Log Jam Let Go
Eight loggers were caught in a sudden torrent near Wenatchee in 1895; two were badly hurt and the river was still rising.
Wenatchee, May 8.—Special.—A large log jam formed on the Entiat, about ten miles above the sawmills, and eight men were detailed to break it. The men were all at work on the jam when it suddenly started with a crash, taking them all with it. Several of the men were caught between logs, and others were thrown into the seething torrent, which rushed down stream like a racehorse, as the logs had dammed the stream and it was all suddenly turned loose. Peterson's legs were caught between two logs and broken in several places before he was finally rescued by his comrades. Tom Ryan received serious internal injuries, the extent of which is not learned. The rest of the men escaped with nothing more than bruises or a ducking in the stream. The river is rising at the rate of four feet in a day at this place.
“The men were all at work on the jam when it suddenly started with a crash, taking them all with it.”
Log drives were among the most dangerous jobs in the Pacific Northwest; a jam could hold back a river and then release it without warning. The Entiat is still a logging-country river, and the story echoes modern concerns about worker safety in extractive industries.
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