Tragedy at the Shingle Mill
A worker is killed in a horrific industrial accident in Everett, serving as a grim reminder of the dangers inherent in the Pacific Northwest's booming timber industry.
EVERETT, May 14. A horrible death overtook William A. Erickson at McNeeley's shingle mill yesterday afternoon. While pulling shingle bolts from a drag saw his hook slipped and he fell backward upon a huge circular bolter. An instant more and his body was cut in pieces and scattered upon the mill floor. Erickson leaves a wife and several children.
“An instant more and his body was cut in pieces and scattered upon the mill floor.”
This brief, brutal account is typical of early 20th-century reportage, which often laid bare the physical cost of the region's primary industrial engine: timber. It mirrors the era's lack of safety standards in mills, a precursor to the labor reforms that would eventually redefine worker rights.
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