Auto Stage Plunges into Gulch
Seventeen passengers survive a terrifying tumble after a mechanical failure on a stage route.
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.
On its trip to Bellingham last Sunday, the five-seated auto stage took a perilous jump after crossing D Street in Lynden. Seventeen people were on board when the stage struck the sidewalk, plunging fifteen feet into a gulch and turning end for end. Miraculously, no one was killed. Rev. J.E. Williams suffered a broken collarbone, and Mrs. W.F. Miller sustained a broken leg. The accident was caused by a wire from the front tire tire tangling in the steering gearing. Chauffeur Harry Belford and owner E. McKay remained in the vehicle as it went over, while other passengers managed to jump clear.
“Wibner Cruikshank says when they struck the sidewalk he was filling his pipe—he jumped—and he landed in the gulch below, he still had his tobacco pouch in his hand but where his meerschaum pipe went he does not know.”
Early motorized transit was as dangerous as it was revolutionary, with unregulated DIY vehicles frequently failing. This event reflects the friction between rapidly expanding regional transit and the lack of vehicle safety standards in 1908.
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