The Tragic End of a Railroad Worker
A young man, injured on the job, succumbs to his injuries at a local Seattle hotel.
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.
Charles Drunk, the young man who was injured on the railroad last Tuesday, died at the New England Hotel last night. He had received some internal injuries and, ever since the amputation of his foot, had been very low. Last evening he became delirious and was evidently suffering severely, and he expired about 12 o'clock. The funeral will take place tomorrow at 10 o'clock from the Brown Church.
“He had received some internal injuries and ever since the amputation of his foot has been very low.”
This brief report from 1878 highlights the extreme danger of early railway labor in Seattle, where on-the-job injuries often led to slow, agonizing deaths in boarding houses. Today, while the specific risks have shifted, the precarious nature of labor—and the reliance on hotels or temporary housing for the displaced—remains a persistent echo in Seattle’s history.
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