This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: EBERLEIN Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/3BC.2ACE/1967 Message Board Post: The Spokesman Review Tues. Dec. 31, 1918 Front Page Article FALLS 130 FEET IN BRIDGE PIER; DEAD ---------------------------------------- Fred Eberlin, Returned Soldier, Victim of Accident. ------------------------------------- CAUSE UNKNOWN ----------------------------------------- Firemen Recover Body - - Was W.W.P. Employe -- Lewis and Clark Graduate. ----------- Charles Fred Eberlin, age 20, a corporal in the aviation Corp until two weeks ago, lost his life by falling 130 feet inside one of the hollow concrete piers in the center of the Seventh avenue bridge across Hangman creek at 2:45 p.m. yesterday under cirumstances that have not been explained. The body was raised from the hole by firemen after an hours effort. Only One Eyewitness. Four days before the young soldier had been restored to his position as an electrical mechanic for the Washington Water Power company, which he had left nearly a year ago to enter the army. The only eyewitness was G. W. Gibson, a fellow mechanic, who lives at W2407 Boone Avenue. He says he saw nothing that would indicate the cause of the fall. He caught sight of a hat and heard a swishing sound. the bottom of the pit, which comes to a concrete point in the river bed, is a black abyss. Companion Disappears. The two went to the bridge to wind a clock by which the lights of the bridge are controlled. The clock is in a room under the center of the bridge. Gibson entered the room first and Eberlin followed. The room, which has an area of 20 by 20 feet is reached by a manway in the top of the bridge between the sidewalk and the street car tracks. A railing two and one-half to three feet high, separates the clock room from the pit. The lafter? is perhaps 15 by 15 feet wide at the top and spanned by a plank, believed to have been left by the builders. Gibson had concluded his work on the time switch, he told the authorities, and was about to close the door preparatory to leaving, when his companion disappeared. He had seen Eberlin go in the direction of the pit while he was engaged on the clock a moment before. Legs and Skull Broken. A lantern was lowered into the hole by truckmen from No. 5 station under the direction of Captain W. W. Eichelberger. The light revealed a ladderway left by the builders and the body of the victim at the bottom. The ladderway none too secure, was descended by Firemen Millard, Day, and Walker, clinging to a rope. The body was raised by the rope in the hands of eight firemen at the top. Coroner Grieve found fractures of both legs and the skull in an examination at the rooms of Smith & Co. Dr. Grieve said he regarded the death as accidental. Lewis And Clark Graduate. Eberlin was a son of D. W. Eberlin, and electrician to the employ of the Spokane Truction company, and Mrs. Eberlein E??14 Sixth avenue, besides where he is survived by a sister, Miss Laura M. Eberlin, a librarian in the city library, New York. He was born soon after his parents came to Spokane and was graduated from the Lewis and Clark high school. He was a motorcycle dispatch rider, with the rank of corporal in the 56th balloon company, aviation corps. The vessel on which he embarked from Newport News, VA., was on the water two days when recalled by wireless, the order having been issued immediately after the signing of the armistice.