The Juvenile 'Stables' Syndicate of 1892
A band of boys from Spokane's elite families formed an organized criminal ring, stealing horses and sleighs to stash in a secret suburban hideout.
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.
The police of Spokane have just succeeded in capturing one of the toughest gangs of young thieves that ever banded together. For some time, horses and sleighs had been disappearing from Union Park. Mr. Moore, one of the victims, saw two boys with butcher knives strapped to their hips pass his house and followed them to a vacant building on the outskirts of the city. Upon investigation, he discovered a rendezvous containing several horses in a corral, multiple sleighs, and a dozen sets of harness. Chief Mertz and his officers moved in, capturing Tom Downer and Horace Warner, aged 14. Downer confessed, implicating three other boys. When police tracked down Fred Pachen, the 10-year-old son of a prominent contractor, he attempted a three-mile escape on horseback before being caught. Hunter Crane was also arrested, and police were searching for the final member, a boy named McCullom. The gang had successfully stolen and concealed hundreds of dollars' worth of property in just a few weeks.
“The police of this city have just succeeded in capturing one of the toughest gangs of young thieves that ever banded together.”
While contemporary discourse often centers on youth crime as a byproduct of poverty, this 1892 report mirrors modern 'boredom-induced' property crime, reminding us that organized theft isn't limited by a family's tax bracket or social standing.
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