Unemployed Rail Worker Attempts Suicide After Years of Hardship
A former American Railway Union member, struggling to find work since the great strike, attempts to take his own life near the Denny clay works.
Patrick Speilman, a desperate railroad man who has been idle since the great strike, tried to kill himself yesterday afternoon by shooting himself in the head, but only succeeded in inflicting an ugly wound from which he doubtless will recover. Speilman left the city yesterday about noon armed with a revolver and a bottle of whisky. When he got on the hill in front of the Denny clay works he seems to have taken a big drink to steady his nerves, and shot himself in front of his right ear. Speilman told the officers he was out of work and out of funds and had tried to kill himself. He said he was a member of the American Railway Union and had followed railroading. He had been in Seattle for three weeks and was unable to find work.
“He said he was out of work and out of funds and had tried to kill himself.”
This story provides a grim look at the human cost of the 1894 Pullman Strike, which devastated the lives of many railroad workers across the West. The 'Denny clay works' were located in what is now the Denny Triangle/Belltown area, a neighborhood that has undergone radical transformation from industrial site to dense urban core.
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