The End of the Line for a Local Favorite
A beloved South Tacoma conductor passes away, leaving a community mourning his good nature.
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.
Death early this morning claimed Harry E. Davis of 935 Commerce street, the second oldest conductor in the service of the Tacoma Railway & Power company. For 13 years, the length of his residence in this city, he collected fares and made friends with both his employers and passengers. Mr. Davis was a conductor on the South Tacoma line. One of the boys around the barn this morning, in speaking of his departed friend, said that the South Tacoma people often waited to ride on his car because of his good nature and efforts to please the patrons of the line. Only nine days ago he was taken with a mild attack of typhoid fever, and indications were favorable for his speedy recovery, but at 3 o'clock this morning he was seized with a hemorrhage of the bowels and death soon resulted.
“South Tacoma people often waited to ride on his car because of his good nature and efforts to please the patrons of the line.”
In an era before mass transit apps, the conductor was a vital, personal face of urban infrastructure. Davis’s popularity speaks to the intimacy of early 20th-century streetcar culture, where a driver was not just an employee, but a recognizable neighbor on a daily route.
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