Steamer Vashon Disabled in Puget Sound Accident
A faulty boiler plate leaves a fireman injured and passengers stranded off Manzanita Beach.
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.
During her early morning trip from Quartermaster Harbor to Tacoma this morning, a boiler plate of the steamer Vashon blew out, disabling the steamer and dangerously burning the hands of the fireman, Fred Elmendorf. The steamer was stranded near Manzanita beach, and a launch was dispatched to take off the passengers and tow the ship to a dock. This is the second accident of the kind to have occurred on the boat in the past two weeks.
“This is the second accident of the kind to have occurred on the boat in the past two weeks.”
Steamboat accidents were a regular, often lethal, feature of commuting between the Vashon Island ferry docks and the mainland in the early 20th century. Today, modern safety regulations for our ferry system have replaced these boiler failures, but the reliance on the water as a vital transit corridor remains the backbone of Tacoma's regional connectivity.
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