Runaway Horses Plunge Into Waterfront Slip, One Drowns
A runaway horse team plunges into the harbor near the wharves, resulting in the death of one animal.
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 runaway team on the waterfront yesterday afternoon went headlong into the slip between Brown's and Merchant's wharves, where one of the horses was drowned. The team belonged to the California Commission Company and got frightened on Railroad Avenue south of the Gilman hangers. The driver was off the wagon and the team ran along close to the edge of the planking until they went over. A crowd was on hand in a few minutes to get the rig out, but one of the horses seemed to have been hurt and was drowned immediately, while the other swam vigorously and kept his mate and the wagon afloat until the harness was cut from him. He then swam ashore under the warehouses. The dead horse was towed out into the bay and left to the mercy of the tide.
“The dead horse was towed out into the bay and left to the mercy of the tide.”
Before the concrete seawall and the modern Alaskan Way, Seattle’s waterfront was a dangerous, disjointed network of wooden piers and planking. This story captures the grit of the 19th-century industrial port where horses and heavy wagons shared narrow, unstable thoroughfares.
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