The Waterfront Opium Mystery
A suspicious midnight sloop sighting and a conversation overheard on the Lake Union shoreline lead police to believe a massive shipment of contraband has been landed.
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.
A sensational report to the effect that a sloop containing 200 pounds of smuggled opium had landed in the harbor reached police headquarters last evening at 6 o'clock, but up to 12 o'clock the rumor was not confirmed. At 8 o'clock last evening a small sloop was seen coming stealthily into the harbor, keeping well out into the bay until opposite the Oregon Improvement Company's coal bunkers, when the helmsman headed her for shore. A few minutes after touching at the bunkers the sloop again set sail and tacked rapidly out of the harbor, disappearing towards Smith's Cove. An hour after the landing of the sloop, Officer W. A. Johnson, whose beat skirts the shore of Lake Union, overheard two men talking. One of them said: 'Did Toney sell the dope?' 'No, he was leery of the officer,' was the reply. 'How much did he have?' 'Two hundred pounds.' 'He was afraid he would be caught when he landed,' resumed the first man, 'but he got off lucky.' The officer says he drew near, but the two men, noticing his brass buttons, parted, and in a moment were lost in the darkness. The conversation was immediately reported to police headquarters by telephone. About the same time the report came from a water front policeman that a mysterious sloop was seen to touch at the coal bunkers, and then leave again. Connecting the two circumstances, the police believe there is ground for the rumor that 200 pounds of contraband opium was landed. If it is first quality it represents a value of about $3,000.
“Did Toney sell the dope? ... He was afraid he would be caught when he landed, but he got off lucky.”
The waterfront and the area near the former Oregon Improvement Company coal bunkers (now roughly near the Seattle Waterfront's southern end) remains a place of mystery, though the 'contraband' of today has shifted from opium to the complex economics of modern global trade. This account highlights the persistent role of the Seattle police in surveilling the shadowy, unregulated corners of the city's maritime transit zones.
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