Tragedy at Poverty Bay
A cabin collapse at the mining camp near the Black Diamond coal mines leaves three men dead.
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.
Black Diamond, Jan. 25.—Yesterday, a slide carried away a cabin at the coal mines located at Poverty Bay, near Black Diamond. Three men—Alexander, John St. John, and a man named Ox—were killed. The bodies were recovered today. Another slide carried away a cabin in the same mining camp, occupied by H. Herbert and H. Collins, both of whom escaped daily.
“Three men were killed. The bodies were recovered today.”
This 1886 incident highlights the inherent, often lethal, dangers workers faced in early Washington's coal country. Today, the struggle over labor safety and the environmental impact of extractive industries continues to resonate in the Pacific Northwest as communities grapple with the legacy of these industrial sites.
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