Tragedy at the Lynden Light Plant
A dedicated engineer is killed while volunteering his time to maintain local machinery.
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 very sad accident happened last Thursday evening at the electric light plant. Charles McKettrick, while fixing the machinery around the generator, accidentally formed a short circuit for the full current of the machine, which is 2,300 volts, and was instantly killed. Mr. McKettrick was day engineer, and at the time, it seems, he had volunteered to fix the belt, which runs the big dynamo, for the night engineer, Isaac Stoutjesdyk, before leaving the plant. Fred Saxauer, the electrician, was to take part in the play 'Pride of Virginia' and the men at the plant did not wish to bother him that evening, if possible. He leaves a wife and two small children to mourn his loss. Charles McKettrick was born in 1876, in the northern part of New Brunswick. When a boy his parents brought him to Omaha, Neb., where he learned the printer's trade. The people of Lynden are best acquainted with him as editor of the Lynden Sun, a paper which he established here about four years ago.
“Charles McKettrick, while fixing the machinery around the generator, accidentally formed a short circuit for the full current of the machine, which is 2,300 volts, and was instantly killed.”
The death of Charles McKettrick highlights the extreme dangers of early electrical infrastructure, a stark reminder of the risks workers faced in the infancy of public utilities. Today, while workplace safety regulations are vastly improved, the legacy of these early builders remains in the fundamental civic systems they developed.
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