The cause of the accident will never be known for the men who were in a position to know are both dead. The usual reason (cold water in a hot boiler) is thought to have been responsible.
At the time of the explosion the mill had been temporally closed down to file the saw. Wilson Lowman was filing and James E. Kilby working in the mill. The men in the engine room were buried in the rubbish of the mill and the escape of Kilby was almost a miracle as broken timbers were piled all around him. He was bruised and stunned for a time but soon recovered and got a horse and rode to the Stehman home and phoned to Rainier for Dr. Welch and then walked in to Rainier to telephone relatives of Clarence Brown.
Coroner F. H. Sherwood reached the scene early in the afternoon and found both men dead but the circumstances such that the inquest held could throw no light on the cause of the accident.
Mr. Brown was a man about 27 years of age and had been married about two years and leaves a wife and baby. Mr. Lowman was a man about 45 years of age and leaves three children. Arrangements for the funerals had not been made at the time of going to press.
Reported Thursday, December 21, 1911 Rainier Review Vol. VII No. 20
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