Trolley Car Disaster Narrowly Averted
A construction car derails near Lake Washington, trapping a man in the mud.
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.
The construction car on the Rainier Avenue Electric railway jumped the track at Taylor's lumber mill near Lake Washington yesterday noon, and in overturning fell upon Albert Miller, a resident of Rainier Beach, who fortunately escaped without serious injuries. The electrician and assistants were repairing the trolley line and were moving the construction car with a motor car. Despite warnings, Miller—who was looking after lumber for a nearby construction project—sat on the car’s brakewheel, hidden from the crew’s view. As they reached Taylor's wharf, the car left the track and rolled into the ditch, crushing Miller into the soft mud. It took several minutes to raise the car and pull him from the slush. Remarkably, not a bone was broken, and his only injuries were a bruised shoulder, arm, and right leg.
“It required several minutes to raise the car and pull Miller out of the slush.”
This accident highlights the hazards of Seattle's early industrialization and the rapid, often dangerous, expansion of streetcar infrastructure across the region's hilly and marshy landscape. It serves as a reminder of how precarious daily labor was during the city's frantic late 19th-century growth.
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