May 7, 1907: Bloody Tuesday

May 7 1907, two days into the Carmen’s Union streetcar strike, two workers, 19-year-old James Walsh and 23-year-old John Buchanan, were killed after a confrontation between striking workers and armed scabs in what became known as “Bloody Tuesday.”

The day before the strike was declared, Patrick Calhoun of United Railroads had contacted James A. Farley, “King of the Strikebreakers,” to hire 400 scabs who could operate the cable cars. Workers sought them out found them holding out in a car barn on Turk Street.

Striking streetcar workers surrounded the barn. The car barn opened up and six cable cars rolled out with armed guards and scabs inside. Workers threw stones and bricks at the cars, and scabs fired at them. A shootout occurred that left two workers dead and dozens arrested.

Two died and 20 were wounded on Bloody Tuesday, a fraction of the nearly 31 deaths and 1,100 injuries that were tallied up after the strike was over. After May 7, police and armed guards escorted scabs and the cable cars on any route they attempted to take.