The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1895-12-27
DEMOLISHED BY LOGS
House on the Seattle Tide Flats
Broken Into Kindling Wood.
OCCUPANT ESCAPES UNHURT
He Awakes In Bed to Find Timbers
Falling All Around Him-For-ioo
tunate Outcome OF
Train Wreck. 4. ~

Seattle Post-Intelligencer: what
could startle a man more than Z, to
awake from a sound sleep to find his
house whirling through the air. his
pans. pots. kettles and dishes dancing
a whirlwind polka, sticks of wood
chasing the cat from corner to corner,
the earth grumbling. the doors OF his
house falling from their hinges and
the shouts of people ringing in his
his ears? Gus Stoddard. who lived in
small house that stood on piling close
to the track of the Columbia & Puget
Sound railroad, two blocks south of the
electric light plant. had such an expert
ence Saturday night, and went through
IL unframed. He did not even get rat
tied, as many men would have done,
but jumped from his bed. and running
to the door just as his house landed
in the bay, yelled OUT
What IN - are you doing?"
No one answered him. but at his
front door lay a log about eight feet in
diameter by fully 80 feet in length. and
up the track he heard a clashing of
cars and could see in the darkness dim
images Of giant columns, some rolling
around as IL intoxicated, while others
were blowing up the earth as II mad
with rage. Then he heard the people
yelling about him, and suddenly real
lied that there had been some kind of
a wreck on the Columbia & Puget
Sound railroad. He never thought
moment of how near he had come TO
losing his life, but went flying up the
track to a saloon, where his partners,
Ed Mckay and Ford Youman. were
enjoying a grand opening" and told
the news.
This was the time we made no mis-
take In coming to a saloon" replied
| a
knowledge that his house had been
used for a football by a giant from the
forests of Washington.
The accident would not have hap
pened II local freight No. 20 had not
started for the city from Franklin with
20 cars of coal and on the way picked
up is more cars and trucks on which
were loaded immense logs from Earie's
logging camp at Maple Valley. These
logs averaged three to a car and each
of them had a diameter ranging from
six to eight feet. Conductor Mathes
was in charge of the train and En-
gineer O'Brien stood at the throttle.
Necessarily the train ran slowly, but
as II approached the city the speed
was slackened down to about eight
miles an hour. eiir a
About two blocks south of the cleo
trio light plant there is a sharp curve.
and as the cars swung around IL one
of the flats on which were three of the
largest logs, jumped the track, and
away went the logs like so many bat
tering rams. One of them struck Stod-
| dard's house. which stood on piles
| about eight feet above the tide flats.
| and in a moment, the house, on
| where was it?" Not on the piles, as
| one can see, but knocked like a card
| house It went flying into the bay while
| the train went slowly on despite the
| - hn q
| to bring IL to a stop. When the frogs
| at the point where the switches run.
| one to the electric light plant and the
| other to the Standard OIL company's
| warehouse, were encountered three
| more cars with logs took II into their
heads to play leap frog, and away
| they went The logs cavorted like
| whales out for sport and plowed UP
| the ground, knocked down anything
| that came in their way, and finally
| settled down in calm possession OF the
| earth under them and a portion or the
| railroad track.
| Assistant Superintendent L. E. Smith
| was Immediately notified and wreck
| ing train was sent down. work or
| clearing the track was commenced and
| by the middle of the afternoon the
| monsters of the forest were either
| rolled away from the rails or cut up
| and removed. Superintendent Smith
| said yesterday that he thought the
trouble was occasioned by the logs on
| one car being unevenly loaded. After
| one car was off and went humping
along II was natural that the others
should follow II when the frogs OF the
| track were struck. The engineer and
| conductor were in no wise to blame Tor
| what occurred. The actual damage
| will not amount TO much. The owners
| OF the cabin lament the loss OF 81
| worth of winter rations.