Team of Horses Nearly Plunge Into The Bay
A local expressman is injured after his runaway team bolts through railroad yards and narrowly misses a deadly drop from a coal bunker.
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.
Frightened at a passing switching engine, a team of horses hitched to the express wagon of Nick Reuter, a local expressman, dashed madly across the Northern Pacific "half moon" yards about 6 o'clock last night. Breaking loose from the express wagon and throwing Reuter to the ground, the team galloped at top speed up the railroad grade leading to the Gravity Coal Bunkers. The horses were stopped by an employee of the bunkers just as they had reached the edge of the elevated platform, 150 feet above the water. Mr. Reuter was severely shaken up by the fall and suffered numerous bruises. He did not reach home for several hours after the accident, and was reported today as unable to leave his bed.
“The horses would have undoubtedly jumped into the bay if he had not been there to prevent them from doing so.”
The 'Gravity Coal Bunkers' were a massive industrial fixture of the Tacoma waterfront. Today, the area where these horses almost plunged into the bay is part of the revitalized Foss Waterway, a site now defined by residential lofts and public parks rather than heavy coal-loading infrastructure.
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