Two Men Crushed Under Tons of Falling Lumber
A routine measurement at the St. Paul mill yards turned into a harrowing disaster when overhead lumber supports gave way.
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.
Two men, Charles Ekwell and O. Schnyder, were caught beneath 15,000 feet of falling lumber at the St. Paul mill yards about noon today and both received dangerous, if not fatal, injuries. Ekwell, who was tallyman at the city yard, and Schnyder, the shipping clerk for the Pacific Manufacturing company, went into the lumber shed to begin to measure off a load of lumber when the scantlings supporting between 15,000 and 20,000 feet of dressed lumber broke above their heads, allowing the lumber to fall to the ground, a distance of about 12 feet. The fall came without warning and before the men had time to escape they were caught and crushed to the ground. Workmen who heard the crash rushed to the rescue and began removing the lumber, which had fallen with sufficient force to break the two-inch scantlings and the floor of the building, which is also built of solid plank. It was fully 15 minutes after the accident before the men were taken from the debris. The ambulance and the patrol wagon were then called and the injured men were taken to the Fannie Paddock hospital, where their wounds were dressed. Both of the men are in a very precarious condition. Besides a compound fracture of the left leg, Ekwell has several deep scalp wounds and is badly bruised about the body. The injuries to Schnyder were even more serious than those received by Ekwell; he has several gashes on the head and face and is injured internally.
“The fall came without warning and before the men had time to escape they were caught and crushed to the ground.”
Workplace safety in the lumber industry was a persistent concern in early 20th-century Tacoma, reflecting the human cost of the city's primary economic engine. While regulatory oversight has vastly improved, the inherent dangers of heavy manufacturing and industrial labor remain a resonance with current safety debates.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.