The Tragedy at Yesler Way: A Lawyer’s Death and a Woman’s Despair
In May 1904, prominent Seattle lawyer J. Wile was fatally shot by Miss Burke, who then took her own life in a rooming house near the waterfront.
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.
Shot Hill is M.I. SAM Then Turned the Pistol on Herself.
Miss Burke Shot Lawyer Who Died; Girl Her Bullet While at the Face.
SEATTLE, May 14 — It was learned that she had been falsely accused by a young man of 21, this afternoon, who shot and fatally wounded J. Wile, a lawyer of prominence, as he sat at work in a room in a house at 701 Yesler Avenue, and was found dead later.
After the shooting, Miss Burke put a bullet into her own head, passing it full of the man's face. The affair with her sister having been out of office to the Hartford bank. She resided with her sister and elderly daughter at 1702 Madison Street.
Miss Burke had led the young woman to believe that he was a single man and promised to make her his wife. Last Saturday Miss Burke, she lives with friends at 309 Columbia Avenue. Learned that she was about 25 years old and left after an hour's interview, and that she is not surprised when the news of the tragedy reached her.
Yesterday Miss Burke went to a friend and borrowed $10. With that money she bought a revolver. Developments show that the act was premeditated, for in the woman's trunk a letter addressed to a friend in which said her earthly struggles would soon be ended. She made a few remarks regarding her funeral in the letter; she did not mention Wile's name. She requested that no word be said at her funeral, but asked for music. She also asked that her burial should not be at Tacoma, where her father Richard Burke lies, because of some family misunderstandings.
During the past year Wile has paid Miss Burke attention, calling frequently at the house where she boarded. He brought her flowers and other gifts. His devoted affection won her love. Miss Burke had for some time been in poor health, recently elected after an unsuccessful operation to try Christian science and now is at the Holy Normal on Mercer Ave.
This 1904 tragedy highlights the intense social pressures surrounding marriage and reputation in early Seattle, where a broken engagement or perceived deception could lead to catastrophic consequences. The location, Yesler Way, remains one of the city's most historic and busy corridors, now a hub for tech offices and transit rather than the boarding houses and legal offices of the Progressive Era.
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