Fisticuffs at City Hall
A drainage ditch dispute erupts into a physical brawl between two men in the county commissioners' corridor.
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.
The board of county commissioners was in session yesterday morning considering the petition for the White river drainage ditch. Many objections, protests, etc., were filed, but no action was taken on them. The matter will come up again at the next session of the board tomorrow morning. Surveyor O. F. Wegener and W. R. Ross, of O'Brien, became involved in a dispute over some question in regard to the proper cost of the ditch, and when the board adjourned they also adjourned to the corridor in front of the door of the commissioners' room. There, after a few words, the lie was passed and a short two-round contest of an unscientific, but very spirited nature followed. The men were separated by the bystanders and the rest of the fight was carried on over the heads of intervening spectators and without any further bloodshed. It is probable that nothing more will come of the affair.
“After a few words, the lie was passed and a short two-round contest of an unscientific, but very spirited nature followed.”
Public works projects in King County still stir intense passions, though modern disputes over drainage or infrastructure rarely end in fisticuffs in the hallway of the County Courthouse. The White River drainage remains a complex part of the region's historical efforts to tame the wetlands south of Seattle.
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