Disaster Strikes at the Lime Kilns
A dangerous industrial accident in the San Juan Islands leaves an engineer clinging to a pile for his life as safety measures fail.
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.
Word reached Seattle yesterday that the lime oil retort at San Juan had exploded. It had been out of commission for two weeks for repairs, but was fired up again. When the explosion took place, the engineer jumped overboard but hung onto a pile until he could be rescued. There was no steam gauge or safety valve on the retort, and consequently no way of telling the accumulation of pressure to which it was being subjected.
“There was no steam gauge or safety valve on the retort, and consequently no way of telling the accumulation of pressure to which it was being subjected.”
The San Juan Islands are synonymous with tourism and rural beauty today, but in the 19th century, they were sites of grueling industrial labor. This story highlights how the lack of basic workplace regulations and safety equipment—a common issue in the late 19th-century Pacific Northwest—put the lives of workers at constant risk in remote, poorly monitored extraction facilities.
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