The Jailbreak at the Center of Town
After four prisoners escaped the local lockup, the Sheriff sounds the alarm on the failing state of the city's crumbling jail.
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.
There has been a great deal of talk among the citizens here pro and con on the subject of the recent jail-breaking by four prisoners. In all this talk, however, Sheriff Witt has had nothing to say further than about the quality of the jail building, which he thinks is the worst in the territory. Yesterday, Mr. Witt was seen at his office by a reporter and asked to say something about the matter. He replied: 'I don't see that I have any more prisoners than the two Sheriffs that preceded me. The first few weeks Sheriff Byrd had to lose three prisoners, about which there was nothing said in the papers. Sheriff Winslow, Byrd's predecessor, had about the same experience. The other day four prisoners escaped from Seattle to Pierce. I told the attorney general's office I would turn my badge over to have a bill passed by the legislature providing for the appointment of a sheriff. It is not my intention to resign until the county can be relieved from failing to fill the vacancy my resignation would cause. The necessity of a new jail is known by everyone in the county, and the grand jury for the past several years has recommended that it be repaired or a new one built. When I was over to Walla Walla I noted the county jail there is a safe one. And if I had one like it I could guarantee not to lose prisoners. In the first place, there is nothing in the cells, and I would sooner be out of it than in it.'
“The necessity of a new jail is known by everyone in the county, and the grand jury for the past several years has recommended that it be repaired or a new one built.”
Sheriff Witt’s complaint about the decrepit state of the 1883 county jail mirrors a persistent challenge in Seattle history: balancing the management of detention facilities with the rapid, often chaotic growth of the city. More than 140 years later, the debate over how to humanely house the incarcerated while modernizing failing infrastructure remains a central tension in local civic politics.
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