The Tragedy of the Blind Baggage
A man forced to leave Tacoma loses his life on the tracks near Roy.
Joe Davis and a partner named Stewart were recently ordered out of Tacoma and, being obedient, they went. They took the blind baggage route, however, and Joe got separated from his partner. Stewart telegraphed from Yelm that Joe was missing, and train No. 54 brought word in this morning that a man had been run over and killed near Roy and picked up later by the section hands. Coroner Brown sent a man out today to investigate.
“Joe Davis and a partner named Stewart were recently ordered out of Tacoma and, being obedient, they went.”
The practice of 'blind baggage' riding—clinging to the space between railway cars—was a common, desperate method of transit for those forced into homelessness or transience. This story captures the precarious reality of laborers and outsiders in the early 20th century, highlighting how social exclusion often ended in anonymous industrial tragedy.
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