A Deadly Afternoon in Seattle
A rifle shot aimed at a magazine door results in a catastrophic explosion, claiming lives and damaging buildings across the neighborhood.
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 3:30 this afternoon, a magazine of powder belonging to the Seattle Coal and Iron Company, half a mile south of the Seattle Iron Works in the suburbs of this city, blew up. It contained 1,500 pounds of black powder and a quantity of dynamite. The explosion was caused by John Weaver, an employee of the iron works, shooting at a mark on the door of the magazine with a Winchester rifle. Weaver was instantly killed. His companion, C. Nelson, was fatally injured. Buildings within a radius of two miles were more or less injured. Later reports from the scene are to the effect that the damage to the buildings and property are only slight. When found, both men were also stripped of their clothing, their limbs were broken, their eyes blown out, both presumably spontaneous. The place where the magazine stood is indicated by a blackened hole in the ground twenty or thirty feet across and ten feet deep. Nelson is reported to be dying.
“The place where the magazine stood is indicated by a blackened hole in the ground twenty or thirty feet across and ten feet deep.”
This incident highlights the precarious nature of early industrial development in Seattle, where dangerous explosives were often stored in close proximity to growing residential and manufacturing zones. Today, the site of the former 'suburbs' mentioned is part of the dense industrial and urban fabric of Seattle, though the city still grapples with the legacy of managing hazardous industrial materials near populated neighborhoods.
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