A Tree, a Right of Way, and a Man From Ontario
A hired hand clearing the Idaho & Washington Northern grade is crushed by a falling tree; his body comes home to Newport for burial before the long ride back to Walkerton.
George Gripson, who has been working for E. Morrissey on the extension of the Idaho & Washington Northern, was killed on Thursday of last week by a tree falling upon him. Gripson and a companion were clearing the right of way for the road when the accident occurred. The body was brought to Newport and taken to Miller's Undertaking parlors and prepared for burial. The remains were shipped to Walkerton, Ontario, where he formerly resided. Deceased was about 35 years of age and had been employed here since early last winter.
“Gripson and a companion were clearing the right of way for the road when the accident occurred.”
Gripson was one of a thousand men cutting a railroad grade through the Pend Oreille country, and his death rated four sentences in the local paper. Modern workplace fatalities still land in the back pages far more often than they land on the front, and the men who build the infrastructure we drive over remain the most expendable part of the boom.
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