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A Bloody Row on the Quincy Wharf

A waterfront altercation between two men, Wiley and a ship's crew member, leaves the docks bloodied before authorities intervene.

The story, cleaned up

A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.

Quite an interesting event occurred on Monday night on the Quincy wharf. A man named Wiley, armed with a freight hook, and one of the crew of the Eldor with a steel bar in his hand, while intoxicated, came to a fight. After considerable blood had been spilled, they were separated and allowed to go unmolested.

“After considerable blood had been spilled, they were separated and allowed to go unmolested.”

— Printed in Seattle Daily Post-Intelligencer (Seattle, W.T. [Wash.]) 1881-1888, 1887
Then · 1887139 years apartNow · 2026

While Seattle’s modern waterfront is a gleaming tourist and tech corridor, it retains a long history of intense, often violent labor and social friction. This 1887 brawl serves as a gritty reminder that the docks were once a raw, lawless space where physical altercations were common fixtures of daily life.

The original page

Seattle Daily Post-Intelligencer (Seattle, W.T. [Wash.]) 1881-1888, 1887-10-06. Library of Congress, Chronicling America.

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About this story

From
Seattle Daily Post-Intelligencer (Seattle, W.T. [Wash.]) 1881-1888, OCT 6, 1887, Page 2
Rights
Public domain
Place
47.60323, -122.33028 · placed automatically
The paper in the Library of Congress catalog ↗