A Runaway Team Crashes into the Merchants' National Bank
A runaway wagon careens down the city's steepest slope, narrowly missing a bank employee.
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.
A team of horses, attached to a wagon load of dirt, ran away last evening while coming down Cherry street from Third and smashed into the front entrance of the Merchants' National bank at the foot of Cherry street, breaking through the doors and causing about $250 damage. Both horses were thrown violently to the pavement and were severely injured. One of them will probably die. The horses and wagon, which belong to R. Becker, of Walla Walla addition, have been hauling earth from where workmen are excavating for the new opera house, at the corner of Third and Cherry streets. While coming down Cherry street the break rod broke, throwing the driver, James Marshall, to the ground. The horses then took fright and went down the steep street like a streak of lightning, scattering the pedestrians. C. A. Pickarts, a bookkeeper in the bank, was at his desk in line with the plate glass front when the crash came. If the horses had veered a little to the right they would have gone through the glass and Mr. Pickarts would probably have been seriously hurt.
“There was a roar like that of thunder as the horses tore down the street, then there was a crash like the falling of a building.”
The steepness of downtown Seattle streets was a constant danger in the horse-and-buggy era, frequently resulting in spectacular 'runaway' accidents. Today, this location is in the heart of the financial district, far removed from the dirt-hauling wagons of 1892, though the topography remains just as challenging.
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