Electrician Lost in Narrows During Gale
A Seattle man is presumed dead after attempting a perilous rowboat crossing of the Narrows during a storm.
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.
Daniel Buck, an electrician, aged 40 years, who resided in Seattle, is missing and has undoubtedly been drowned in the Narrows, west of Tacoma. The Tacoma police were notified this morning to search for him, but there is slight hope of finding him alive, as he disappeared while crossing the Narrows in a rowboat during a severe windstorm which raged throughout the Sound country Monday afternoon. Buck had been to his ranch on Fox Island and was attempting to return to Higgins Beach, where he had rented the boat, when he was driven north by the high wind and suddenly dropped out of sight behind Point Fosdick. The inlet is about three miles wide there, and the waves were rolling so high that friends attempted to dissuade him from making the trip. His uncle watched him with a spyglass until he disappeared.
“The waves were rolling so high that friends attempted to dissuade him from making the perilous trip.”
The Narrows, now spanned by the Tacoma Narrows Bridges, remains notoriously treacherous for small craft due to its powerful tidal currents and unpredictable wind tunnels. Even a century later, the stretch of water between Fox Island and the mainland requires immense caution, mirroring the same dangers that defined local travel before modern infrastructure.
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