A Close Call at the Buffalo Shingle Mill
A mill worker is lucky to keep his arm after a terrifying accident with a shingle saw.
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.
Monday forenoon, Goodman Hamre mangled his left fore-arm quite badly on a shingle saw, at the Buffalo shingle mill. He had just placed a block on the machine, and tripped the carriage before he had removed his arm; the dog that holds the block caught his sleeve and carried his arm into the saw. He will not lose the arm and if no complications set in, will soon be all right again. After the accident he was brought to town and Dr. Howe dressed the wound.
“The dog that holds the block caught his sleeve and carried his arm into the saw.”
The shingle mills were once the heart of Lynden's economy, but they were notoriously dangerous workplaces. This story serves as a visceral reminder of the human cost behind the massive lumber growth that built many Washington towns.
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