The Beer-Throwing Stranger on Front Street
A local farmer is assaulted by a woman in a dance hall while walking home at night.
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.
E. Jorgenson, a farmer and laboring man living at 2013 8th street, complains of an unprovoked and wanton attack upon him last night by a woman, an entire stranger to him. He was walking up Front street, between Stewart and Virginia streets, last night about 10 o'clock, with three companions. When opposite the Maitland block, at 1607 Front, a woman came out of a vacant storeroom on the ground floor, now used as a dancing hall, and without any warning except an 'excuse me,' threw a glass of beer into his face. Mr. Jorgenson was entirely unacquainted with the woman, says in fact, that he never saw her before. She returned to the hall and rejoined the dance which was going on within. Mr. Jorgenson is indignant at the assault, and said last night that he considered it a matter for police notice, deeming it an outrage that he or any other person should thus be the object of unprovoked assault on the public highway.
“She returned to the hall and rejoined the dance which was going on within.”
This incident occurred in the Belltown neighborhood, specifically near the site of the former Maitland Block. It reflects a time when the area between downtown and the northern residential districts was a patchwork of dance halls and transient laborers, a struggle over public space and safety that continues to echo in Seattle’s downtown development today.
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