A Bloody Feud on Sixth and Stewart
A candy store dispute between two Russian merchants escalates into a public street shooting in downtown 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.
N. Kalof, a Russian merchant, was shot and wounded by W. D. Wilkie, another Russian, at the corner of Sixth Avenue and Stewart Street this morning. The shooting was the result of a quarrel between N. Kalof and M. K. Kalof on Second Avenue yesterday afternoon. Kalof passed Malouf's candy store, and it is alleged that he tore down a sign. Malouf snatched a hatchet, and it is said that Kalof pushed Malouf through a window in the store, but the latter recovered himself and started toward Kalof with his hatchet. An officer intervened, and they were both arrested, but put up bail. This morning Kalof's brother, K. M. Kalof, met W. D. Wilkie, who is a son-in-law of Malouf, and drawing a gun, he fired five shots at him. One bullet struck him in the arm, causing a wound, but the other bullets went wild. They will appear before Judge Case this afternoon.
“Malouf snatched a hatchet, and it is said that Kalof pushed Malouf through a window in the store.”
A violent confrontation over a business sign in 1898 feels uncomfortably familiar in an era where neighborhood commercial disputes and sidewalk tensions often flare into public conflict. While Sixth and Stewart today hosts modern high-rises and tech infrastructure, the intensity of personal grievances in the city’s dense urban core remains a constant thread of the Seattle experience.
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