The Seattle Grist Mill Tragedy
A boiler explosion in the heart of Seattle claims the lives of three workers, leaving the community reeling.
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.
The tubular boiler of Mountain & Co.'s grist mill, in this city, exploded this afternoon, demolishing the boiler house and part of the adjacent buildings. Henry Mead, Joe Richardson, and L. Matthews, three employees, were killed; daily Matthews is thought to be fatally injured, and Miss Fish is slightly hurt.
“The tubular boiler of Mountain & Co.'s grist mill, in this city, exploded this afternoon, demolishing the boiler house.”
In 1885, Seattle was a raw industrial boomtown where workplace safety was often secondary to production. Today, while the industry has shifted from grist mills to tech, the city still grapples with the tension between rapid commercial growth and the protection of its workforce.
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