The Mail Thief from Livingston
A postal worker flees Montana after looting dozens of packages, only to be found hiding in a Seattle hotel with a revolver and a stash of mutilated bills.
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 negro man named Wall, a former employee at the Northern Pacific depot in Livingston, Montana, was arrested yesterday morning at the Alaska Hotel in Seattle on the charge of robbing the United States mails. He had been suspected of looting around fifty packages from the mail bags. On July 26, Wall disappeared. Federal inspectors trailed him to Seattle, where they located him at the Alaska Hotel. When the officers knocked on his door, Wall was found sitting on the bed with a large revolver. He did not deny his identity and was taken to the police station. On his person was found $179 in mutilated bills, denominations of $5, $10, and $20. About half the money was in such a condition that it could not have been used. Wall admitted taking money from the mail bag at Livingston, and after throwing the paper wrappers into the Yellowstone River, he jumped on a freight train and made his exit from the town.
“He was found sitting on the bed, with a large revolver close at hand. He did not deny his identity.”
While modern mail theft is often digital, the era's reliance on physical rail transit made the postal system vulnerable to employees working the lines. The Alaska Hotel, once a temporary refuge for such figures, is long gone, reflecting the rapid churn of downtown Seattle’s lodging landscape.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.