A busy peach packing house in Horatio, Arkansas, became the scene of a deadly disaster in July 1907 when the building suddenly collapsed while it was crowded with workers.
The packing house belonged to the Southern Orchard Planting Company and was in the midst of handling the Elberta peach crop for shipment. Inside were numerous women and girls sorting and packing fruit when the structure gave way without warning.
Mrs. Tom Doggett, the sister of the local station agent, was killed outright in the collapse. Another woman was reported to have been fatally injured, while about a dozen additional workers suffered serious injuries.
The brief newspaper account offered few details about what caused the building to fall. There was no immediate explanation of whether the collapse resulted from structural failure, excessive weight, faulty construction, or some other problem. What was clear was that the accident struck at one of the busiest times of the agricultural season, when packing houses would have been filled with workers preparing harvested fruit for transportation to distant markets.
Peach Packing House
Peach packing was labor-intensive work, and women and girls made up a significant part of the workforce in many packing sheds and agricultural processing operations. A sudden structural failure in a crowded building could therefore produce devastating consequences within seconds.
Woman Killed, Many Injured
HORATIO, Arkansas. — The peach packing house of the Southern Orchard Planting Company at Horatio, Arkansas, fell yesterday afternoon.
One woman was killed outright, another was fatally wounded, and about a dozen others were seriously injured.
The house was crowded at the time with women and girls packing the Elberta peach crop for shipment.
The woman killed is Mrs. Tom Doggett, sister of the station agent at Horatio. Details of the accident could not be ascertained.
Source: Pine Bluff Daily Graphic. Pine Bluff, Ark. July 17, 1907.
