The Tragedy at the Olequa Barn
A drunken dispute between brothers ends in a fatal shooting, leaving the survivor to wake up beside the corpse of his victim.
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.
Frank La Quash languishes in an iron cell at Kalama after firing the fatal shot that entered his brother's heart in an old barn near Olequa. The brothers, along with two other men, Capt. Peter and Semour, had been drinking. After a fight ensued and the victim bested Frank, Frank went home, retrieved a rifle, and returned to shoot his brother. Capt. Peter states that after the shooting, La Quash laid down beside the corpse and slept, only realizing he had killed his brother when he awoke. The murderer, who is 23 years old, told a reporter he was too drunk to know what he had done. George F. Johns and J. F. Foul made the arrest.
“I did not know I had killed my brother for a long time. I did not intend to kill him. I was so drunk I did not know when I did it.”
This 1891 account captures a grim cycle of violence and alcohol-fueled desperation in the rural territories. It mirrors the persistent, often overlooked struggles in Washington's more isolated regions regarding mental health and substance access that remain challenging in rural communities today.
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