The day a Seattle streetcar went to the grocery store

MOTORMAN D.E. STILES, conductor P.J. Donnelly and about 20 passengers were outbound on a Madison Street trolley on the Friday afternoon of Jan. 9, 1920, when it jumped its slippery tracks while "dropping" about 40 feet through the steep block between 18th and 19th avenues. Feeling the car leap forward, Stiles told the police that he applied the brakes, but to no effect. Standing at the back platform, conductor Donnelly wound up with a sprained back. He speculated that he had been thrown against the metal railing there, but added, "I simply can't remember anything about it."

After the streetcar sailed across Madison it jumped the curb and smashed into the front door of Youngs Grocery at the street's northeast corner with 19th Avenue.

Residents of the several apartments above the grocery were described in the next day's Seattle Times as "severely shaken by the impact." (It is not a reach to imagine that some of them have here joined the small crowd to inspect the damage.) Passenger Minnie Aldrich, who collapsed in shock from the excitement, was taken to the hospital but, like conductor Donnelly, she was soon released and taken home, although not by trolley.

Despite its potential for mayhem, the municipal trolley wreck of Jan. 9, 1920, was a mere incident, unlike the tragic derailment on the Green Lake line five days earlier when one passenger was killed and 70 were injured.

Naturally, the wreck on Madison was felt citywide as an aftershock to the Green Lake accident. It was also more evidence that the streetcar system the city had recently purchased from its private builder at an imprudent price was even more dilapidated than thought.

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