Fatal Landslide Near Richmond Beach
A foreman is buried alive after returning to a construction site to retrieve his coat as the earth gives way.
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.
Word was brought to the city yesterday afternoon of a fatal accident to a man named Johnson, the foreman of a construction gang at work on the line of the Great Northern about three miles south of Richmond Beach. The men had just finished their dinner and were returning to work in a cut which they were excavating, when it was discovered that the surface of the land on the adjacent slope was sliding. The workmen hurriedly caught up their tools and reached a place of safety. Johnson, however, rushed back to get his coat, which had been left, and was buried beneath an avalanche of dirt and gravel. When dug out he was lifeless. The body will be brought to the city this morning by Bonney Stewart.
“The surface of the land on the adjacent slope was sliding... Johnson, however, rushed back to get his coat.”
Geologically, the bluffs along the Puget Sound coastline between Seattle and Everett have always been prone to dangerous landslides, a fact that remains a major concern for both modern railroad infrastructure and residential development today.
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