A Mother's Sorrow at the City Jail
A woman travels from Spokane to Seattle to reunite with her son, only to find him imprisoned for vagrancy.
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.
Stowell Wheeler, a man who once held a responsible position in La Crosse, Wisconsin, has fallen into destitution in Seattle. His mother traveled from Spokane, expecting a warm greeting at the depot, but instead discovered her son in the city jail, where he was being held on a vagrancy charge. Captain Hogle granted the two a private meeting in the officers' room. His mother noted with sorrow how much her son had changed since he moved West.
“Stowell Wheeler is a good-for-nothing fellow who has sunk so low that his name is a by-word in police circles.”
This story captures the dark side of the 'Booster' era, where the promise of a new start in the West often ended in systemic failure, homelessness, and the criminalization of poverty—an issue that echoes loudly in today's civic debates.
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