The Price of Industrial Progress: A Port Madison Tragedy
A dockside worker is crushed while maneuvering heavy machinery, highlighting the precarious nature of labor in the Puget Sound timber industry.
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 terrible accident occurred at Port Madison on Saturday, which may possibly result fatally. While workmen were engaged in moving one of the large boilers from the bark Oakland to the machine shops, a Chilean employed on the work crept under it for the purpose of removing some of the blocks or rollers, when the boiler rolled completely over him, crushing him in a terrible manner. The weight was kept off him, partially, by the blocks or he would have undoubtedly been crushed lifeless. He is at present suffering and not expected to survive.
“The weight was kept off him, partially, by the blocks or he would have undoubtedly been crushed lifeless.”
Port Madison was once a massive hub for the Puget Sound timber industry, relying on itinerant international labor. Today, the site is a quiet community, but the story serves as a stark reminder of the hidden physical costs of the rapid, heavy-industrial expansion that built the Pacific Northwest's economy.
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