The Blast at Mason Slip
A steam tug carrying three crew members is obliterated in a freak explosion on the Seattle waterfront.
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.
Clinton, Dec. 31—The tug Admiral, lashed to the side of the barge D. S. Wilson in Mason slip, near the foot of Main and Washington streets, blew up yesterday when a terrible explosion occurred. The spot where the tug lay was marked only by whirling debris and clouds of steam and smoke. All portions of the tug above water had been blown into fragments, and the hull was torn or sight windows were blown out. The crew on the barge were knocked on deck almost senseless. The masts and head gear of the Wilson were damaged away, and it is thought that her timbers were started. The cabin of a schooner alongside of the tug was thrown heavily against the wharf and, it is feared, was seriously damaged. The owners of the tug say the only persons on board of her were Captain William O'Neal, Engineer Joseph Logan, and Thomas Hoar, but men who were working in the vicinity assert there were two other men on the tug, making a crew of five. The only remains of the fire victims are a hat and a boot containing a bloody leg, which were found at the foot of the wharf, and on the rocks, a mangled corpse, supposed to be Thomas Hoar. The left arm was severed from the body, and the torso was shockingly bruised and burned. It is certain that the boiler was hurled into the air, over the barges, and, striking the wharf a glancing direction, dropped back into the water. It is surmised that the men were deceased when they came within range of the blast.
“The spot where the tug lay was marked only by whirling debris and clouds of steam and smoke.”
This 1885 tragedy captures the industrial grit of Seattle's early waterfront, where high-pressure steam power frequently posed lethal risks to workers. Today, Mason Slip and the old wooden wharves have been paved over or replaced by the concrete of the modern container port and Alaskan Way, but the tension between rapid capital growth and worker safety remains a defining feature of the local narrative.
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