The Tragedy of a Sailor’s Train-Hopping Gamble
A penniless traveler, desperate to reach San Francisco, attempts to ride a moving freight train through the Washington wilderness—with fatal consequences.
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.
Albert Konald, a sailor, attempted to catch an attachment of a moving train at a station in this county, but missed his foothold and was injured so that he died that same day. He was a sailor, was sick and poor, and was trying to beat his way to San Francisco. His brother was a brakeman on the same train.
“He was a sailor, was sick and poor, and was trying to beat his way to San Francisco.”
This brief, tragic report from 1885 captures the perilous reality of transient labor in Washington's boom years. Today, while we no longer see laborers 'beating their way' on freight trains as a common form of transport, the precariousness of itinerant workers remains a constant thread in the regional economy.
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