Miraculous Escape on the Hanford Road
Two cars collided head-on near Grant's Corner, leaving a Ford wrecked but its four passengers remarkably unharmed.
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.
Colliding head-on with a Chevrolet driven by Ed Peterson of Hanford on the Hanford road just south of Grant’s corner, the Ford touring car of George Harrington turned over and was badly wrecked. However, the four occupants—Mr. and Mrs. Harrington and Mr. and Mrs. Franklin Beyers—miraculously escaped injury beyond a bad shaking up and a few minor scratches. The party was returning from Pasco when they met the Peterson car, which had only one headlight and, according to Franklin Beyers, was traveling in the middle of the road. When the Ford turned over, Mrs. Harrington was trapped between the wrecked top and the front seat, but was rescued uninjured. The Chevrolet sustained only a broken front wheel.
“Mrs. Harrington, who was riding in the back seat, was caught between the wrecked top and the front seat in such a way that she was able to breath but could not speak.”
Road safety was a novel concern in 1924, as the transition from horse-drawn transit to high-speed automobiles created new, lethal risks on rural roads. Grant's Corner remains a landmark in local memory, even as the landscape has been fundamentally altered.
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