Fatal Fall from a Cascade Bridge
A young bridge builder falls thirty feet to his death on the Northern Pacific railroad line, leaving a grieving mother in Oak Harbor.
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.
Frank O'Leary, a 22-year-old bridge builder, lost his life while working for contractor G.W. Bell on the Cascade division of the Northern Pacific railroad in King County. On Tuesday, while straightening a track stringer on a bridge over the White River, O'Leary stood on the outside cord. As he attempted to pull his crowbar out of the timber, he stepped on a stringer, lost his balance, and fell thirty feet to the ground. Upon being picked up, it was discovered his left leg was broken, his hip knocked out of shape, his left arm dislocated, and his back badly bruised. Most critically, he was internally injured. Although a messenger was sent to Tacoma for a physician, the doctor arrived too late. After lingering for seven hours in excruciating pain, O'Leary died. Two fellow workmen, C.A. Winters and E. Stone, transported his body home to Oak Harbor in Island County. The news of the death proved too much for the young man's mother, who was already in frail health.
“After lingering for seven hours, during which he suffered the most excruciating pain, Frank O'Leary breathed his last.”
Railroad and bridge construction were the backbone of Seattle's early expansion, but the human cost was often relegated to the back pages of newspapers. O'Leary's death in the 1880s underscores the immense dangers laborers faced as the Northern Pacific tore through the wilderness, a sharp reminder of the brutal work conditions that built the modern infrastructure of King County.
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