Mill Accident Injures South Tacoma Youth
A teenage worker is recovering after being struck by machinery at the Western Mill Company.
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.
Yesterday afternoon at 5 o'clock Harry Case, a boy of 16, in the employ of the Western Mill Company, was struck on the head by a broken drive wheel belt and rendered unconscious. He was immediately conveyed to the office of Dr. Sweatingen, where he received attention, and is now resting easily at his home near Titlow.
“Harry Case, boy of 16, in the employ of the Western Mill company, was struck on the head by a broken drive wheel belt and rendered unconscious.”
Industrial accidents were a grimly routine part of life in mill towns like early Tacoma. Child and adolescent labor was commonplace, and the lack of robust workplace safety regulations often meant that injuries like this were the only way the public learned about the dangers of the industry.
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