The Midnight Chicken Thief Shootout
A marine engineer's late-night attempt to protect his coop creates a neighborhood-wide panic in North Seattle.
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.
Mike Farley, a marine engineer living at 118 Warren street, surprised some chicken thieves in his hen-house Wednesday night and took a shot at them, but the only result was the recovery of the chickens and throwing the whole neighborhood into consternation. Mr. Farley was awakened by the sudden closing of the chicken house door. He jumped out of bed, located his revolver, and slipped out through the rear door. An instant later he heard some chickens fluttering and saw a shadow pass the chicken house. He fired at the shadow, and two thieves darted out and ran for their lives. It was about 1 o'clock in the morning, and the firing aroused the whole neighborhood; men, women and children ran out in their night clothes to see what was the matter. Farley later examined the building for bullet marks but found none, concluding he was a poor marksman.
“The firing aroused the whole neighborhood. Men, women and children ran out in their night clothes to see what the matter was.”
While chicken theft feels like a bygone rural problem, the anxiety over property security and the immediate, neighbor-shaking reaction to a gunshot are hallmarks of Seattle's evolving urban tension. Modern neighborhood watch apps often serve the same function as Farley's midnight alarm—turning private grievances into communal spectacles.
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