Young Railroad Worker Killed Near Relief
A teenager dies attempting to board a moving freight train while on the job.
Abe Lewis, son of Jack Lewis, of the Cowiche, was run over and fatally injured Thursday by a freight train near Relief station, eighty miles east of here. Young Lewis was employed on the section to attend to the lights, and while on this mission he attempted to catch a passing train, and fell or was thrown under the wheels. He died at 6 o'clock this Friday morning. The deceased was 19 years of age.
“He attempted to catch a passing train, and fell or was thrown under the wheels.”
The railroads were the primary employers and primary killers of young men in the 1890s. The danger of 'jumping trains' or working around heavy rail equipment remains a dangerous, though less common, aspect of life near major industrial transit lines.
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