MYNORTHWEST HISTORY

Fourth of July Tacoma trolley tragedy was one of the worst in history

Jun 30, 2016, 1:18 PM | Updated: Jul 5, 2021, 10:03 am

A vintage newspaper clipping shows the old trestle in Tacoma at South Delin Street and C Street where 44 people were killed in a trolley accident on July 4, 1900. (Feliks Banel) The remains of the trolley are hard to make out at the bottom of a trestle in this old newspaper clipping showing the wreck that killed 44 people in Tacoma on July 4, 1990. (Feliks Banel) Author Russell Holter stands where a trestle once connected trolley tracks from South Delin Street to C Street in Tacoma, and where an accident killed 44 people on July 4, 1900. (Feliks Banel) South Tacoma Way now runs through what was once called “Gallagher’s Gulch,” site of a deadly July 4, 1900 trolley crash that Russell Holter has researched for 20 years. (Feliks Banel) Washington Governor John Rogers took part in Tacoma’s Fourth of July parade in 1900, the day of the deadly trolley tragedy. (Washington State Archives) The damaged headstone of trolley crash victim Reverend Herbert Gregory at the cemetery in Roy Cemetery in Roy, Pierce County. (Findagrave.com via Russell Holter) The headstone of trolley crash victim Ole Ransen at the Roy Cemetery in Roy, Pierce County. (Findagrave.com via Russell Holter)

Fourth of July in Pierce County has been a big deal longer than anywhere else in Washington, even as far back as 1841. So in 1900, it wasn’t unusual for the holiday to be a big deal in Tacoma.

Like so many Independence Days around Puget Sound, the patriotic Wednesday 116 years ago began with typical clouds and a light mist. But before the holiday was over, it would be remembered as anything but typical. Nearly 50 people would be dead in one of the worst transit accidents in American history.

Tacoma had big plans that year, and as many as 50,000 people began gathering early for a major parade downtown. Naval vessels were docked in Commencement Bay. The parade would feature marching bands, sailors, soldiers and dignitaries, including Washington Governor John Rogers. Rogers lived in Puyallup before being elected Washington’s third governor in 1896, and the Populist official was up for re-election in 1900.

At approximately 8 a.m. a trolley car left the Parkland/Spanaway area and headed for the city. It was a big trolley car, but it was a busy day, and the car was soon was overflowing with families, including many young children.

Just how crowded was the trolley?

“One person who was on board [later] testified under oath that the car was packed so tightly that he couldn’t reach his own hand into his pocket to get a dime,” said Russell Holter.

Russell Holter lives in Tacoma, and knows more than anyone about what happened that “Fateful Fourth” back in 1900. Holter works for the Washington State Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation in Olympia. In his spare time, he’s been researching the incident for 20 years. This fall, he’ll be publishing a book about it.

Holter says that by the time the trolley neared a steep hill on South Delin Street, 141 passengers were on board or as many as three times its capacity. Holter says those on board included families headed for the parade, plus several railroad workers who’d just got off the night shift.

On a recent morning, Holter stood on the sidewalk along South Tacoma Way and pointed across the roadway and up an embankment toward South Delin Street.

“That’s where the trolley line came down the hill. When it reached ‘C’ Street or what’s now called Commerce, there was a trestle there,” Holter said. “As it crested the top of the hill, the motorman [what the driver was called in those days] conducted a safety stop, which was required by the operating rules of the Tacoma Railway and Power Company.”

The “safety stop” was successful, meaning the motorman was able to halt the trolley before the slope, Holter says.

But then something went terribly wrong.

The overloaded trolley headed down the hill and began to accelerate. The motorman tried to slow it down. He applied the brakes, and even switched the electric motor into reverse. But it kept accelerating.

“At a certain point, inertia just kind of takes over and the ability of the brakes is nullified by the inertia because it just doesn’t have enough stopping power to be able to check the speed as it was going down the hill,” Holter said.

The trolley, which should’ve been traveling less than 10 mph, may have reached speeds as high as 50 mph as it careened down the hill. In the horse-drawn era, 50 mph would have felt like lightning speed to the doomed passengers.

“You can imagine there were people riding standing everywhere, hanging on to the side of the car, and as they’re building momentum, they’re literally going faster than they’ve ever ridden on any type of conveyance,” Holter said.

As it sped down the hill, several passengers were able to jump off the accelerating trolley. This was likely, Holter says, because they’d ridden the route before and knew the danger that lay ahead.

At the bottom of the hill, Holter says, was a nearly 90-degree left turn that took the trolley across a high trestle over what was known as Gallagher’s Gulch, where South Tacoma Way now runs.

“Once it makes this corner, it’s gonna wanna barrel roll,” Holter said. “And that’s exactly what it did. And then it fell down into the gulch.”

It was, to put it mildly, a gruesome scene.

“The humanity at this location is something that’s difficult to fathom because you have all the victims of the [trolley] wreck and they’re scattered all over the hillside over here. But you also have all those people that were jumping off,” Holter said. Those who had jumped were spread all along the hillside leading down to the trestle.

Authorities responded quickly to the disaster. Among the first on the scene was a platoon of Tacoma police officers. They were nearby and getting ready to take part in the parade, all decked out in their dress blues and British style “bobby” hats. Civilians pitched in, too.

“People that ran out to the site to render aid and assistance were overwhelmed by the sheer volume of brokenness. There was injured people everywhere and it was very emotional for those people who were trying to help,” Holter said, his voice catching. “I mean, where do you start?”

When it was all over, 44 men, women, and children were dead. A coroner’s inquest held in Tacoma blamed the overloading of the car and inadequate brakes for the tragedy. In those years before anything like the National Transportation Safety Board, it was up to local authorities to investigate even major incidents like what happened in Tacoma on July 4, 1900.

Russell Holter says that in the aftermath of the crash, the trestle was never used for trolleys ever again, and was eventually torn down. But the results of the investigation weren’t shared with other trolley systems, as they would be nowadays.

“The lessons learned were applied largely to Puget Sound, not necessarily to Washington State, and certainly not on the national level,” Holter said.

And that’s one of the things that has changed for the better since 1900, according to Georgetta Gregory, Railroad Division Chief of the National Transportation Safety Board. Gregory says that the NTSB investigates transit accidents with a “holistic” approach, and issues detailed reports that are widely shared and that often result in changes to operating procedures that improve safety.

“If you go back in our history, you’ll find how every year gets better, [and] we learn from those lessons. We document those lessons learned and continue to beat that drum on those lessons learned,” Gregory said. “The [number of] railroad accidents [has] decreased, the number of fatalities has dramatically decreased, and that’s true in the transit world, as well.

Gregory had never heard of the Tacoma crash because the federal government didn’t begin tracking transit accidents until much later in the 20th century. She also says that there’s far more safety testing of new trolleys and trolley systems before any passenger ever gets aboard, and catastrophic accidents such as what happened in Tacoma in 1900 are rare nowadays.

“The public has a much greater expectation of safety,” than they did 100 years ago, Gregory said.

Though the trolley operator, the Tacoma Railway and Power Company, was a private entity, Holter says that it was indemnified by the City of Tacoma. After the crash, Holter says, authorities acted to aid victims and the families of survivors.

“In lieu of a lawsuit, there was a kind of a plea bargain agreement that said that Tacoma Railway and Power would invest a certain amount of money towards the care of the victims to the point where [the company] could still be able to function and operate, because they didn’t want to put it out of business,” Holter said.

Fourth of July festivities the rest of the day in Tacoma were dampened somewhat by the trolley tragedy, and the parade was canceled. Crowds began to disperse, and even Governor Rogers headed out of town. But then, Holter says, somebody decided that the show must go on, and the parade started up again.

“When [Governor] Rogers got word that the parade was going on without him, he ordered his driver to do a U-turn and head back,” Holter said. “And he literally ran his coach through the entourage, through the Washington National Guard, to be able to position himself in a better location when he got to the reviewing stand.”

A year and a half later, the streets of Tacoma would again be lined with crowds while National Guard troops, Spanish-American war veterans and police officers marched in procession with Governor Rogers. Though it was winter, the marchers traveled along some of the same streets where the Fourth of July parade had traveled in 1900.

This time, however, the crowds knew in advance that they were gathered to mark a more somber occasion. John Rogers had been reelected in fall 1900 but had then died in office in December 1901. New Year’s Day 1902 was the day of the late governor’s memorial.

You can hear Feliks every Wednesday and Friday morning on Seattle’s Morning News, read more from him here, and subscribe to The Resident Historian Podcast here. If you have a story idea, please email Feliks here.

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