Narrow Escape at the Gas Company Well
Drilling for water turns treacherous when a massive gas pocket blows a heavy wooden roof into the air.
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.
The Late Gas Company's well exhibited another streak of depravity last Tuesday. Since the gas and tank fire in it, the precaution has been taken to let down a can filled with blazing material to touch off the gas so as to clear the well for work. Tuesday the opening was found to be full of gas, and on lowering the can gradually it was burned out about half way down. Here the wire broke and dropped the can, and instantly an explosion occurred, sending up a flare of flames with such force that a heavy roof of boards twenty-four feet long and twenty feet wide was shot up into the air and scattered in all directions. Mr. Walter Graham was engineering the well at the time and narrowly escaped serious injury from the fire and from the falling planks. He ran instantly and got about three rods away when one end of a board grazed him, but fortunately did not hurt him. The well is now over 190 feet deep and if the gas does not cause serious delay, water will soon be reached.
“A heavy roof of boards twenty-four feet long and twenty feet wide was shot up into the air and scattered in all directions.”
Seattle’s early industrial development was a literal and figurative blast, with infrastructure projects often proceeding through trial and error—and occasionally catastrophic, albeit minor, explosions.
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