A Tragic End at K and 11th
A Tacoma carpenter, struggling with alcoholism and personal despair, takes his own life.
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.
Nelson Lipscomb, formerly of Au Sable, Michigan, aged 45 and a carpenter by trade, committed suicide today by taking morphine. He kept a fruit and tobacco stand at the corner of K and 11th Street, and lived with his family at 1142 K Street. He had been a hard drinker for some time and imagined his daughter turned him out of doors. Last night some friends took a revolver from Lipscomb; he intended to shoot himself if he did not succeed in killing himself with morphine. His son Frank resides at Cosmopolis and his daughter is Mrs. R. C. Koons of this city. Lipscomb died at 12 Thursday morning.
“He had been a hard drinker for some time and imagined his daughter turned him out of doors.”
This story documents the human cost of alcoholism and untreated mental health struggles in early Tacoma. Today, the corner of K Street (now MLK Jr. Way) and 11th Street remains a central part of the Hilltop neighborhood, where current public health initiatives continue to address the same cycles of addiction and isolation.
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