Monday, March 5, 2012

Some More Seattle History

The other day I went to a the museum at Edmonds - a local town about ten minutes from where I live. They had some fascinating stories of hardship from the workers of the Shingle Mill. It was very rough work and very unsafe, apparently sometimes the mill would be so full of cedar sawdust that you could not see or breathe! The saws ran extremely fast and without any protection, so the workers were easily spotted around town because they often were missing fingers and limbs!

The men found some protection from local unions, but the unions were heavily scrutinized by police and the company and there were several very bloody battles resulting from union rallies, absolute blood baths with countless injuries and many deaths! Apparently once there was an attack on union demonstrators on a boat, and one of the union men hid behind a tough metal plate on the bridge - he survived but the metal plate was hit 175 times!

It was so interesting to see and learn about the history, they also had really old fashioned cook books in the gift shop, some included strange old recipes like steak stuffed with canned spaghetti... mmm delicious! haha!

Here is the link to to museum website if you want to see pictures or want more information :)
http://www.historicedmonds.org/index.html

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