A Fire, a Locked Door, and a Daring Escape
A local reverend barely survived the blaze that destroyed his home in Black Diamond by shattering a window to escape the flames.
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.
Rev. H. T. Shepard, of Black Diamond, had a narrow escape in the fire which destroyed his house on Thursday evening. Returning from a walk, he found flames issuing from beneath the house. Upon opening the door, the draft caught the fire, and an automatic Yale lock closed the door behind him. Trapped, Shepard made a plunge in the dark toward what he supposed was an adjoining room, broke through a thin wooden door, and leaped through the sash and glass of a window on the other side. His injuries were a severely burned hand and slight face burns. His library and personal effects were lost in the fire, which caused about $1,500 in damages.
“He broke through the door and leaped through the sash and glass of a window.”
A vivid, human-interest disaster story that highlights the isolation of life in Washington's coal-mining towns during the 1890s, where one's entire life could be lost in a matter of minutes.
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