Violence in the Blue Front Saloon
A jealous confrontation over a woman leads to a stabbing in Seattle's historic Whitechapel district, highlighting the dangerous intersections of social life in the 1890s.
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 Blue Front saloon on King street, in the upper portion of Whitechapel, was the scene of a bloody cutting affray last evening at 6 o'clock. W. Turner, a colored miner from Newcastle, stabbed Frank Anderson, also colored, from Franklin. The men fought over a colored woman who lives over the Blue Front saloon. Anderson has three cuts in his body and it is not yet known how seriously he is injured. Several days ago Anderson, who is married, arrived in the city with his family. Tuesday he visited the Dove dance house, and there met a girl named 'Bess.' Her father was a negro and her mother a squaw; but Anderson took quite a fancy to her just the same, and the two went to the Blue Front saloon together. Yesterday W. Turner, who had been out of town for a few days, visited Whitechapel and called on the girl; but she refused to have anything to do with him, and when he accused her of having a new lover, admitted the fact and said his name was Frank Anderson. 'I'll fix him,' said Turner, and he strode from the room. Turner remained about the girl's lodgings all day. Last evening at 6 o'clock Anderson appeared on the scene and, all unconscious of the danger he was in, went into the Blue Front saloon, and the girl joined him. The man sat down near the stove, in the rear part of the saloon. The girl was standing talking to him, when suddenly Turner, with an open knife in his hand, rushed in and stabbed Anderson in the body. The blade struck a rib and thus he escaped a fatal wound. Anderson made an attempt to get away, but with an oath Turner said: 'You will steal my girl, will you?' At the same instant he stabbed him again in the shoulder. Anderson staggered against the stove and before he could recover his balance he was stabbed again in the opposite shoulder. He then fell to the floor and Turner turned on the girl, but by this time the bartender arrived and, seizing the infuriated negro from behind, disarmed him and kicked him out of the saloon. Dr. George H. Sparling was sent for and the police were notified. Detective Cave found Turner and locked him up.
“You will steal my girl, will you?”
This incident occurred in the heart of the historic Black community in Pioneer Square/King Street area—a neighborhood that faced intense displacement and systemic erasure. Today, that same area remains a site of significant socio-economic tension, reflecting the same volatile mix of local precarity and struggle for domestic stability seen in the late 19th century.
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