The Bank Cashier Who Vanished
After leaving the North End bank during the workday, a prominent cashier disappeared, leaving behind a trail of confusing clues and a frantic search in the Olympic Mountains.
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.
The mystery as to the whereabouts of J. W. Bixby, cashier of the North End bank, remains unsolved. On the morning of his disappearance, Bixby walked up and down the bank floor in an abstracted manner. He left at 9:10 A.M. and was seen boarding a Front street cable car, heading toward the water front. He was later spotted near the Great Northern depot. While it was initially assumed he headed to his ranch at Fir, his father-in-law confirmed he never arrived. Associate C. M. Anderson believes Bixby may have been lost on the Kitsap Peninsula while attempting to reach a mining camp in the Olympic Mountains. A search party is being organized to check the trail, fearing he may be snowbound.
“It would be an easy matter to identify him by the remarkable breadth between the eyes. While on the street he was in the habit of chewing gum almost incessantly.”
Bankers vanishing under mysterious circumstances in the 1890s often pointed to the high-stakes, unregulated nature of frontier finance. Today, with digital trails, such a total disappearance is nearly impossible, but the sense of unease regarding the safety of prominent figures remains a civic staple.
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