The Bold Third Street Grocery Heist
Three men held a clerk at gunpoint in a Third Street grocery store, escaping with a meager haul after an amateurish robbery.
The boldest hold-up of the season occurred last evening at 6:20 o'clock in the store of R. Marshall & Co. at 1103 Third Street. Joseph Marshall, the clerk, was compelled to give the combination of the money drawer and stand with hands high in the air while the highwaymen pocketed the money. Three men had been seen inspecting the store earlier. When the leader pulled a gun and demanded the contents of the drawer, the robbers were initially stumped by the springs, but the leader forced Marshall to open it for them. They escaped with about $2, heading toward the alley near Pike Street. Police were called, but the men remained at large. Marshall noted that the robbers were poorly coordinated, with one wearing ducking cloth and another boots, but identification remained uncertain.
“Like a sensible young man, Marshall complied before one could say 'Jack Robinson,' and stood looking down the muzzle of a gun that appeared very large.”
While $2 seems trivial today, this incident captures the grit of the 1894 street-level economy in Seattle. The 1100 block of Third Avenue is now near the core of the downtown commercial district, transformed from small-scale grocery shops into dense urban blocks, yet the vulnerability of late-night retail remains a persistent echo of the city's growth.
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