The Neighborhood Vigilante Cat of Howard Avenue
An aggressive, property-owning tomcat is terrorizing the chicken coops of Seattle, prompting fed-up neighbors to organize a vigilante committee.
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.
A large, matte-black cat, the property of Judge Osborne, who lives on Howard Avenue near 11th Street, has stirred the entire neighborhood into a high state of excitement by making nightly raids on chicken coops. One man, Mr. Lutter, is mourning the killing of his valuable fowls, while other residents report similar losses. Mr. Osborne refuses to kill the cat or pay for the chickens. The neighbors who have had their chickens killed have decided to form a vigilante committee and if the cat is caught 'in the act,' its career will be abruptly ended.
“The neighbors who have had their chickens killed have decided to form a vigilante committee and if the cat is caught 'in the act,' its career will be abruptly ended.”
A century before Nextdoor made local neighborhood feuds digital, Seattle residents were already forming ad-hoc committees to deal with unruly animals and local property disputes. While the 'vigilante' terminology is extreme for a cat-chasing incident, it reflects the intense civic friction inherent in Seattle's dense urban growth periods.
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