Tragedy on the Tracks at Porter
A railroad worker suffers a horrific injury while performing his duties, leading to an emergency amputation in Centralia.
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.
Last Wednesday evening Peter Smith, a Northern Pacific railroad employee, was badly injured by the cars. The accident occurred near the depot. The unfortunate man's arm was fractured near the shoulder and the bone was so badly splintered that it protruded from the flesh on the under part of the arm. Dr. Parent was called to attend the injured man, and started soon after the wound was dressed to take him to the railroad hospital at Tacoma, but upon arriving at Centralia, he found it necessary to amputate the member, and assisted by Drs. Baker and Bostwick, the operation was performed.
“The bone was so badly splintered that it protruded from the flesh on the under part of the arm.”
In 1891, the construction of the Northern Pacific line was the lifeblood of the regional economy, but as this account shows, it came at a terrible physical cost to the laboring class. Today, Porter is a small, quiet unincorporated community, but its history remains deeply tied to the same rail corridors that once defined the danger of working on the frontier.
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