09 June 2009

Tribune Tuesday: A Dangerous Bathing Place

Items of interest from today's 1891 Oakland Tribune.

A Dangerous Bathing Place in the Hills Near the Cable Road

The old quarry just below the bridge on the gravity loop on the Piedmont cableline, which for years has been filled with water, is again being used by the Oakland young hopefuls for a swimming pond. Every day as many as ten or twelve of these youngsters sport through the cold waters of the pond, and evidently enjoy themselves. As the cable cars pass by the s[?] visions of limbs rapidly disappearing in the water may be seen. This pond has a history. Formerly it was an active quarry and much stone was taken from it. One day, however, a man struck a spring and before his fellow workmen could get their tools out of the way the place filled up with water, hiding the cars on the tracks and all the implements used in working the quarry. Frequent accidents have happened here. Only recently a boy was drowned, and it was impossible to find his body until Professor Fleming in a diving suit discovered it under the wheels of a car at the bottom. The place is dangerous and hardly a summer passes by but some injury or fatality happens.

From: The Oakland Tribune, 09 June 1891, Page 8, Column 2

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