A Saloon Brawl Turns Deadly in Zillah
A bartender kills a man behind his bar after a confrontation over who was in charge of the establishment.
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.
Coroner Tapperd received notification to come to Zillah, twenty miles south of North Yakima, where a man had been murdered. Louie Ott, who runs a bar at Zillah, was in a bedroom when he heard a man, Martin Edner, behind the bar. When Ott asked Edner what he was doing, Edner replied that he was 'running the bar.' Ott objected and told Edner to get out. Edner refused, and when Ott persisted, Edner hit him in the face. A struggle ensued, and Edner pulled a pistol. The weapon flew out of Edner's hand, and Ott snatched it up, shooting Edner in the chin; the bullet ranged upward, killing him instantly. Edner was well known in the area for having run a ferryboat on the river below Toppenish for years.
“Ott reached and got it and shot Edner in the chin, the ball ranging upward, killing him instantly.”
Zillah remains a small agricultural hub, but the rough-and-tumble frontier justice of the 1890s saloon culture feels worlds away. Yet, disputes over property and 'rights' to space—whether a bar counter or a modern street corner—remain a constant source of friction in Washington's evolving communities.
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