Streetcar Tragedy on the Hill
A buggy collision with a freight motor car leads to the death of a horse and the arrest of its driver for public intoxication.
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.
A freight motor car of the T. R. P. company yesterday collided with a buggy driven by Slerly Pilby at North Thirty-fourth and Mason streets. One of the horses was so badly injured that it became necessary to shoot it shortly afterward. Officer Studebaker arrested Pilby later on a charge of intoxication. It is claimed that the man was intoxicated at the time of the accident and that he drove his team directly in front of the oncoming car.
“One of the horses was so badly injured that it became necessary to shoot it soon afterward.”
This incident highlights the early tensions between Tacoma’s nascent electric streetcar system and the older horse-drawn traffic, a common source of conflict as the city's infrastructure modernized. North 34th and Mason in the Proctor District remains a busy intersection, though now shaped by cars rather than freight motors.
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