A Rough Road for Blackman Brothers
A massive timber haul turns into a dangerous mishap, highlighting the perils of Snohomish's logging industry.
Blackman Bros. met with quite an accident a few days ago. In hauling a very long stick (114 feet long) on trucks, the rope that held the brake slipped, so that the brake gave way, while coming down the grade between John Swett's and the premises of Frank Mathews. The heavily loaded truck came with such force on the team as to cause one of the mules to stumble and fall, throwing the trucks off the track and seriously injuring a very valuable horse. The damage to the trucks was slight and easily repaired.
“The heavily loaded truck came with such force on the team as to cause one of the mules to stumble and fall.”
Logging has always been a high-stakes, dangerous business in the Pacific Northwest. While modern safety regulations have drastically reduced the frequency of runaway equipment, the tension between the physical infrastructure of the landscape and the heavy machinery required to work it remains a defining characteristic of our regional economy.
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