Puyallup Leader Peter Stanup Reported Missing in Tacoma
The Puyallup leader vanished after a night of drinking and tension over reservation land, leaving his community in mourning and suspicion.
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.
TACOMA, May 17.—Peter Stanup is missing. Tomorrow morning the Puyallup river will be dragged for his body. He was last seen on Monday at 11 p.m. He had been drinking, but was comparatively sober at that hour. There are suspicions of foul play, and the greatest precaution will be required to pacify his friends and admirers among the Puyallups and prevent bloodshed if his body is found in the river. Tonight there are no bonfires on the beach opposite the city. The Indian graders have deserted the camp and joined in the search for Peter Stanup. They are sullen and reticent. Old women and many of the men believe that the soldiers killed Peter. Others, less superstitious, hint that an enemy of his may have attacked him and thrown him in the river. Suspicion rests mostly on Joe Swayall, a member of the reservation police who had stood with Agent Eells and opposed all of Peter's moves in connection with Frank C. Ross and others to put a railroad through the reservation. Peter was the leader of the Puyallups, and for two years had been making great strides in educational development. He was about ready to be admitted to the bar, and between himself and his father owned 400 acres of the best of the Puyallup reservation land, nominally worth $1,000,000 when the reservation is opened up and the railroad run through it.
“The reservation is in mourning and the Indians are loath to believe that Peter actually struggled into the river and was drowned. As a result, most of them cling to some theory of foul play.”
This story highlights the volatile intersection of Indigenous land rights and industrial encroachment during the late 19th century in the South Sound. The struggle over the Puyallup Reservation’s fate and the subsequent disappearance of a leader remains a dark chapter in the civic history of the region’s development.
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