Street Robbery on South Third
A laborer is clubbed and robbed of his savings near the Northern Pacific tracks by men posing as dance hall patrons.
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.
John Bircho, an Austrian laborer, reported that he was held up and robbed of $10 last night on South Third Street near the Northern Pacific railroad tracks. Police have two men under arrest on suspicion of committing the robbery. Bircho stated he had been shoveling snow for several days and was carrying his earnings. He was at a dance house on South Third Street when he was induced to go to another location by three men. After they led him near the railroad tracks, one man struck him in the back of the head with a club, knocking him senseless. When he recovered, the men were gone and his money had been stolen. Police have arrested J. Donohue at a boarding house and Detective Cullhee found a man named Levey on Washington Street shortly thereafter. The third man remains at large.
“When they got him down near the railroad track one hit him in the back of the head with a club and knocked him senseless.”
This violent robbery in the Pioneer Square area (formerly the industrial fringe of South Third Street) reflects the brutal precarity of labor in 1893 Seattle, where a man's entire week's wages could be lost to a club in an alley. It serves as a reminder that the rapid development of the city center was built on top of a gritty, often lawless history.
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