I See by the Papers...

Come winter, come rain, and in some parts of Santa Rosa, come mud in the streets so deep that it could sink your car or buggy up to the axle. The only good part of this story is that a friendly electric trolleyman pulled the Brenards' wagon out of the muck. Such an accident was not all that unusual for this part of town; an automobile likewise sank up to its axle a year before.

(This is the last in a mini series on the abysmal quality of Santa Rosa streets in 1906; read more here and here.)

BAD STREET IS PUBLIC MENACE

Accident Narrowly Averted on Sebastopol Avenue While Wagon Mires in Mud

Thursday night about nine o'clock, there came near being a very serious and possibly fatal accident at the crossing of the Northwestern tracks on Sebastopol avenue. Mr. and Mrs. Brenard, who reside on Second street, were returning home with a load of wood and just as they had crossed the railroad, the wagon mired in the street, up to the axle, just as an electric car was coming along and the horses became frightened at the car, nearly causing a serious accident.

Mrs. Brenard undertook to jump from the wagon in her fright and landing in the mud, also mired to her knees. The road bed is very narrow along the electric track there, and Mr. Brenard says he did not see his danger until it was too late, and at that place it was impossible for a wagon to turn around, even were the road such that a turn could be made. They waited there fully half an hour, and finally an electric car came along and hitching onto the wagon, pulled it out of the mud.

The City Council has been wrestling with the problem at the crossing of the electric tracks and the steam road for many months and recently at a meeting Councilman Reynolds offered a suggestion that the steam officials be interviewed, with an idea of getting their permission to allow the electric tracks being moved ten feet further north and thus widening the street on one side, and the placing the electric track at the edge of the street curb. This would be a good means of obliviating the present serious condition there, and such a step should be undertaken at once, before there is a loss of life and property from the unsafe conditions which now exist.

- Santa Rosa Republican, February 16, 1906