A Fatal Fall at Meydenbauer Bay
A local rancher met his end in a tragic construction accident while building a new home for his family on the shores of Lake Washington.
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.
J. W. Zessinger, a rancher residing at Meydenbauer Bay, fell from the roof of his house yesterday morning at 9:00 a.m., dislocating his neck and dying instantly. Zessinger had been clearing ten acres of land and was in the process of building a one-and-a-half-story frame house. His wife had seen him on the roof at 7:30 a.m. but found his body near the foot of a ladder at 9:00 a.m. Dr. Martin, summoned to the scene, confirmed that the impact of the fall against the ground had snapped his spinal cord. Zessinger, who had previously lost a young son in 1891, leaves behind a wife and three children. The funeral was scheduled to be held near the uncompleted home.
“She found his body lying at full length face down. The vertebra of the neck had been dislocated and the spinal cord snapped.”
Meydenbauer Bay, once a site of isolated homesteads and berry patches, is today a dense residential area in Bellevue. The story is a poignant snapshot of the perilous, self-built nature of early expansion into the Eastside.
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