Mining Mishaps and Holiday Near-Misses
A local mining prospector and his daughter both survive dangerous accidents during the holiday season.
Miss Edwyna Tilley, while skating with a party of young friends, had a very severe fall on the ice Wednesday. Fortunately no permanent injury resulted, though she lost consciousness for some time, and it was feared at first that her skull had been fractured. Likewise fortunate was her father, on Tuesday. In exploring the Forty-Ninth Parallel mine he plunged down an 18-foot shaft, and but for striking a workman employed below might have been seriously injured. To be able to get at the bottom of things quickly is a desirable faculty ordinarily, but the rule does not apply to mining shafts or rivers.
“To be able to get at the bottom of things quickly is a desirable faculty ordinarily, but the rule does not apply to mining shafts or rivers.”
Mining and ice skating remain quintessential, if occasionally treacherous, parts of life in Okanogan County. This incident highlights how quickly the pioneer era’s precarious daily life—from unregulated shafts to frozen ponds—could turn from a holiday celebration into a brush with mortality.
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