The Franklin Miners' Riot and a Bullet in a Corset
A trial over a labor-related shooting in Franklin reveals a harrowing account of guards targeting women from a moving train.
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 trial of the $25,000 damage suit filed by Mrs. Robert Thorburn against the Oregon Improvement Company and its managers, including detective M.C. Sullivan, continued in the superior court yesterday. Mrs. Thorburn, the wife of a miner who was shot during a riot at Franklin a year prior, claimed damages for a gunshot wound she sustained. On the evening of June 29, 1891, while standing in her kitchen, she was struck by a bullet that entered her right arm and lodged in the stays of her corset. Polly Law, a young woman who lived in Franklin during the riots, provided sensational testimony. She stated that when a train from Black Diamond pulled into Franklin, guards on the platform shouted, 'Hello, there's Polly Law; let's take a shot at her.' Law and her companions fled for the woods, but a bullet struck her hat, knocking out the feathers. Other miners testified that the company had established a 'dead line' and allowed no miners to cross it except in the custody of guards. The trial is ongoing as attorneys debate a motion for a non-suit.
“Hello, there's Polly Law; let's take a shot at her.”
This case highlights the violent power dynamics of the 1890s labor wars in Washington, where private detective agencies acted with impunity against mining families. Today, the ruins of the company town of Franklin remain a stark, overgrown site of regional history, illustrating the human cost of the era's brutal labor-management conflicts.
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