Death on the Division Street Bridge
A morning commute turned into a catastrophe when a steel span over the Spokane River collapsed, sending two trolley cars into the freezing water.
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.
Spokane, Wash.—Two Washington Water Power trolley cars fell into the Spokane river Saturday morning shortly after 6 o’clock when the north span of the old steel bridge at Division St., 150 feet or more in length, collapsed. One of the largest of the bridge’s steel girders fell on top of the inbound Astor street car, killing five of the 17 men on that car and injuring more or less seriously all the others. The outbound Hillyard car, with two passengers, was about to clear the collapsed section, but slid back as the bridge fell and ended with its smashed rear end in the river and its front trucks still on the north end of the bridge. No one in the Hillyard car was severely hurt. Responsibility for the accident is denied both by city officials and by the heads of the Washington Water Power company. The former assert that the city always had given careful attention to the bridge, and the Water Power company contends that the company can only be held responsible for minor details of maintenance that could not have been factors of the accident. The breaking of a steel support on the east side of the bridge was considered by engineers to have caused the fall. None of the men killed was drowned; they were struck by the collapsing steel superstructure as it tore the car to pieces. One great steel girder pinned underneath it every passenger on the east side of the car, and at the same time swept away the shattered wood and metal to an extent that allowed the other occupants to clamber clear of the wreckage.
“One great steel girder pinned underneath it every passenger on the east side of the car, and at the same time swept away the shattered wood and metal to an extent that allowed the other occupants to clamber clear.”
The disaster at the Division Street Bridge highlights the vulnerability of early 20th-century infrastructure during a period of rapid urban expansion. Today, the Division Street Bridge remains a vital artery in Spokane, though far removed from the era of trolley-related fatalities and debates over private versus municipal liability for public works.
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