A South Sound history through words and pictures
100 YEARS AGO TODAY: NOV. 7 1912
One man is dead, and 15 are in the North Pacific hospital in Tacoma, suffering more or less from the effects of gas poisoning following an accident yesterday afternoon in the Northern Pacific Stampede tunnel. An air hose connecting two freight cars broke, automatically setting the brakes and bringing 58 cars and three engines to a standstill in the bore. The smoke from the engines rapidly filled the tunnel with a dense gas, resembling deadly damp that forms in coal mines. The dead man is Leonard Hallett of Seattle, age about 45, conductor of a work train stationed at the Stampede side. Hallett was on his work train at the entrance of the tunnel, and when news reached him, insisted on going in, in an effort to save some of the lives already endangered.
75 YEARS AGO TODAY: NOV. 7, 1937
State Sen. Harry H. Brown, 58, who resides at 948 S. Grant Avenue and represents the 27th Pierce County district in the Legislature, was fighting for his life in St. Joseph’s hospital Saturday night after he was struck down at 11th and Broadway by a runaway automobile. The automobile, with its brakes out of order and its motor not connected with its differential, was in charge of Paul Jurk of Crescent heights, east of Tacoma. Brown, oblivious of the danger ahead, was crossing Broadway from the McMillan Drug Co. corner to the Rhodes Brothers corner. A red traffic light had stopped traffic going north and south on Broadway.
50 YEARS AGO TODAY: NOV. 7, 1962
Blacks scored major political gains in Tuesday’s elections across the nation. Two were elected to statewide offices for the first time, in Massachusetts and Connecticut. In New York state, however, where a black was nominated by a major party for a statewide office for the first time, he went down to defeat along with most of his running mates. Elsewhere, Georgia elected its first black state senator in 92 years. In Pennsylvania, 10 blacks – nine from Philadelphia and one from Pittsburgh, and all Democrats – were re-elected to the state House of Representatives. And one Philadelphia black, Democrat Robert N.C. Nix, was re-elected congressman.
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