Violence Erupts Against Non-Union Workers
A violent confrontation occurs at a Seattle boarding house as anti-labor tensions boil over.
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.
Within the past two days, four men have been assaulted by a party of men in the vicinity of Fourth avenue and McClure street. One man, Mitchell, was set upon by a party of men and fatally injured. A man named John Gilbert, who was with Mitchell, was severely beaten but escaped. Another man was also assaulted. The boarding house at the corner of Fourth avenue and McClure street, where the colored non-unionists lodged, was attacked and every window in the front of the house broken. Several other cases of assault were reported tonight, and a force of deputy sheriffs is being increased. The conservative element among the locked-out men deplore the disorder and are themselves busy in ferreting out the ones who have been prominent in the attack.
“The boardlng-house at the corner of Fourth avenue and McClure street, where the colored non-unionists lodged, was attacked and every window in the front of the house broken.”
This 1892 report highlights the raw, often brutal nature of labor unrest in early Seattle, where competition for work frequently turned into communal violence. It serves as a reminder that the city's labor history, often sanitized, was defined by sharp divisions and dangerous street-level conflict.
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