The Electrocution of a Lineman
A routine day for a Seattle Electric company worker ended in a harrowing, public death that left his body suspended over the city's Sixth Avenue for fifteen minutes.
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.
Electrocuted by a 2,800-volt current, the body of Edward L. Moore, a lineman, hung over the network of wires on a telegraph pole at the corner of Sixth Avenue and Stewart Street for fully fifteen minutes. While sitting on a cross-tree of the pole and connecting new wires, the man by some means dipped his head into a live wire, suffering probably instantaneous death. Men from the fire station on Olive Street rushed out to take the body down, and the limp figure was removed to the Bonney-Watson morgue. Moore was working for the Seattle Electric company as a lineman, along with George O'Connor, who acted as ground-man. The two were stringing wires along Sixth Avenue, and shortly after 3 o'clock Moore climbed the pole while O'Connor stood on the street ready to help pull the line when given the word. O'Connor says he suddenly heard a sizzing, and looking up observed the bent form of the dead man. The alarm was given, and a rush made for help to the company's barns on Olive Street. O'Connor climbed the pole, but could do nothing for his comrade. Several men ran out to the corner, where a crowd had already collected, and two company employees climbed up to Moore's body. With the same rope which Moore and his partner had used in running their wires the body was lowered to the ground. The work of extricating Moore from the position he was in was difficult. When the men reached his remains on the pole, the limbs, with the exception of the right hand, were disentangled from the wires. The legs were firmly held around the cross tree and the head hung downward. O'Connor was much affected by the accident and could talk little. He heard no cry, and is convinced Moore died instantly. Moore had been in the employ of the Seattle Electric company for about four years and was known as a careful worker. He leaves a wife and three children in South Park. Examination of Moore's body by Coroner Hoye shows burns on the back of the head and a burn on the right hand; he wore no gloves at the time of the accident.
“O'Connor says he suddenly heard a sizzing, and looking up observed the bent form of the dead man.”
This tragic workplace death occurred at the corner of 6th and Stewart, right in the heart of modern downtown Seattle. The rapid electrification of cities in the early 20th century transformed urban life, but the lack of basic safety regulations for utility workers like Moore turned the job into a high-stakes, often lethal profession.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.