A Hop-Pickers' Row Turns Fatal
A summer labor dispute in the Ahtanum Valley ends in a death and a day-long court hearing for an accused man.
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.
On the night of September 13, a number of Indians engaged in hop-picking in the Ahtanum Valley got into a drunken row, in which Willopo received stab wounds from the effects of which he died on the 10th of October. The wounds were supposed to have been inflicted by an Indian named Allen Satwell, who, after the fracas, mounted his cayuse and left for the hills. Satwell was recently caught, and on Tuesday was up before Justice Heuton for a preliminary hearing on the charge of murder. A large number of Indian witnesses were present, and the hearing consumed the entire day. Satwell, who claims that the cutting was done by some other Indian, was bound over to the superior court.
“A number of Indians engaged in hop-picking on the Ahtanum got into a drunken row.”
This account captures the often-violent reality of seasonal labor camps in early Washington, where disparate groups were brought together for the hop harvest. Today, the Yakima Valley remains an agricultural powerhouse, but the legal and social marginalization of the labor force seen here persists in modern debates surrounding migrant worker housing and rights.
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