Laundry Worker Falls into the Dark Mud of the Bay
A late-night misstep behind a waterfront laundry lands an employee in the treacherous, tide-stripped mudflats.
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.
A man named Olson, employed at the Puget Sound Steam Laundry, on Commercial near Charles street, fell a distance of twenty feet into the bay last night about 9 o'clock and was seriously injured. He was walking around back of the laundry and stepped off the edge of the plank, it being quite dark. The water was very low, as the tide was out, and he struck the bottom with his head so forcibly that it almost broke his neck. Officer Hoffman and several others soon came to his assistance, got him out, took him to his room in the Vienna house and summoned a doctor. It was found that he was considerably injured about the neck and shoulders, but the doctor did not consider the hurt dangerous. The water was so low that his clothes had scarcely been wet.
“The water was very low, as the tide was out, and he struck the bottom with his head so forcibly that it almost broke his neck.”
The waterfront of the 1890s was a treacherous, jagged edge of city life where men frequently disappeared into the mud at low tide. Today, the area near Commercial and Charles has been filled in and built up into the industrial landscape of SODO, far removed from the tidal hazards that once threatened workers.
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