Tragedy on the Tracks: A Young Newsboy Crushed
A teenage news-agent is killed in a switching accident at the Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern railway yard.
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.
At 12:45 o'clock this morning, the train was at Smith's cove, just beyond the bridge. The train backed down to the car to attach it to the caboose. The unfortunate boy stood on the platform of the caboose, waiting for the cars to strike. The approaching train struck the flat-car with such momentum that the caboose was tele-scoped and the two cars were wedged together. The boy was struck in the chest and instantly killed. The remains were identified by Mr. J. W. Vreeland as Edward Fisher, a native of Centralia, 19 years of age. He was employed by the Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway as a news agent.
“From his hips to his head hardly a whole bone remained.”
Railroad Avenue (now Alaskan Way) and the waterfront have long been sites of industrial hazard and civic struggle. This incident reflects the brutal reality of late 19th-century labor, where teenagers like Fisher performed dangerous tasks in active rail yards long before modern workplace safety standards.
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