The Rag, the Belt and the Flywheel: A Laundry Hand's Bad Monday
Ray Strong was wiping an engine belt he had no business touching when the cloth whipped him into a spinning flywheel. He was alive, unconscious at times, and the whole town was counting on his 'strong vitality.'
Shortly after 1 o'clock Monday, Ray Strong, an employee of the Newport Steam Laundry, was the victim of an accident, as the result of which he lies in a critical condition at the Vane Hospital.
Strong was engaged in wiping the belt of an engine, although not employed in that department of the work, when the cloth that he was using was caught by the belt and wrapped around the shaft, pulling him onto the rapidly revolving flywheel of the engine. He struck squarely on his forehead and sustained a fracture of the skull.
At first it was thought that he did not have much chance to live, but his strong vitality is giving him a chance to recover. He is now conscious at times and may pull through.
He is a married man, and with his wife and little daughter lives in Cedar Park. He has been unfortunate with sickness and accidents, and his friends hope that he may speedily recover from his injuries.
“He struck squarely on his forehead and sustained a fracture of the skull.”
In 1910 a laundry worker pulled into a flywheel was a paragraph in the local paper and a hospital bill; today the same incident would bring a state Labor & Industries investigation and a citation. Newport's mills, laundries and rail yards ran on unguarded belts and shafts for decades — the kind of workplace that still shapes rural Pend Oreille County, where logging and timber remain among the few steady paychecks.
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