Tragedy at the Portage: The Frozen Waters of Lake Union
A young immigrant worker drowns in the icy canal connecting Seattle's lakes, leaving his brother to mourn in a community built on the promise of infrastructure development.
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.
On Sunday morning, news was brought to town of the drowning, on Saturday night, of Andrew Hansen. The north arm of Lake Union, popularly known as the 'Portage,' became frozen over last week to a sufficient extent to allow skating. Among those who improved this opportunity to enjoy the rare sport were a number of employees on the Washington Improvement Company's canal, now being built between Lake Union and Lake Washington. On Saturday afternoon, two of these employees, the Hansen brothers, accompanied by a young man named Jim Brownfield, who lives in that neighborhood, came to town to procure skates. They were returning to Canal Camp about 11 o'clock and when about half way across the portage, George and Andrew Hansen fell through the ice. Andrew could not swim, but George, who was more fortunate in that respect, grabbed his brother about the waist and endeavored to hold him above the water until help should come from the shore. Andrew appeared to have been stunned by the first plunge in the cold water, because he continued to struggle and finally slipped from his brother's grasp and sank to the bottom. George clung to the breaking ice until rescued by the help of Jim Brownfield, who had run to the shore and returned with a long pole by which George was helped from the water. On Monday morning, the entire camp instituted a search for the body of the unfortunate young man, which they soon found. The water was thirteen feet deep where the body was found. Andrew Hansen was 19 years of age and a native of Denmark. The funeral took place from Chorey's undertaking rooms yesterday forenoon, and it was attended by nearly all of contractor Hotchbeh's crew.
“George clung to the breaking ice until rescued by the help of Jim Brownfield, who had run to the shore and returned with a long pole by which George was helped from the water.”
The 'Portage' described here, where laborers once skated and died, is now the Montlake Cut. Today, it is a bustling, manicured transit point for boats and cyclists, but the danger of Seattle's evolving geography remains a theme that persists in the city's ongoing battles over land, labor, and water access.
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