An Investigation into the Filth at Clover Creek
A reporter takes a trip to the Parkland outskirts to document the raw sewage, pigsties, and animal waste contaminating the city's water source.
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 careful survey of the area around Clover Creek convinced me that it drained into the city's water source. There were several tons of offal lying around on the ground, only waiting for the first rains of the fall to wash into the stream. I photographed the whole group of buildings along the bank, including a pigsty, the odor permeating the air for a hundred yards around. The chicken yard was on the very edge, one corner being within four or five feet of the water. I saw houses bunched along the bank; the stream ran right through the fenced-in yards of these houses. I crossed several foul fords and noted barns and outhouses clustering along the creek. I no longer wondered at the epidemic of typhoid fever which broke out in the city last winter. I urge any man who thinks this account is prejudiced to go out to Clover Creek and see for himself.
“Within fifty feet of the bank of the creek and draining down into it by a slope of the ground, I discovered a pigsty.”
This piece of gonzo journalism served as a direct call to action, utilizing the newspaper's influence to demand public health improvements. It highlights the brutal reality of urban growth without sanitation in early 20th-century Washington.
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