A Night at the Dance Costs Seven Their Jobs
A drunken revelry among Northern Pacific crewmen at Yacolt leads to a locomotive wreck and mass termination.
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.
As a result of the injury done to two locomotives on the line of the Northern Pacific at Yacolt, seven trainmen have been discharged, the list including four brakemen, an engineer, a watchman, and a conductor. The engine was left standing on the track while all the railroad men went to a dance. Liquor was used freely and the men were discharged the following day. The engine was backed about a quarter of a mile and ran into a car of logs, smashing the locomotive badly. The man who started the engine cannot as yet be located. It is said the practice of drinking among employees on the line in this section will be strongly discountenanced in the future and all train employees will be required to keep straight, as this is the second accident that has occurred through the medium of drink lately.
“The engine was left standing on the track while all the railroad men went to a dance.”
This incident highlights the hazardous realities of early railroad life and the intense social struggle over worker sobriety that preceded the dry laws of 1916. The clash between social life and industrial safety remains a classic tension in labor history.
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