Johnson v. Grays Harbor Railroad & Light Co.

Late Christmas eve and early Christmas morning of 1923, there was a severe storm along the North Pacific coast. In the city of Aberdeen, Washington, it reached unusual severity, being greater in its destruction than any in years, not excluding the storm in 1921, that leveled great areas of state timber in the Olympic peninsula.

Between midnight and four o’clock in the morning, plate glass windows in many stores were broken out, windows smashed in homes, chimneys demolished, signs destroyed, telephone wires put out of commission, and power wires broken and service materially interfered with.

One…