The Opium Standoff at Sedro
When a customs discovery led to a tense standoff in a small town, an armed family stood their ground against federal agents.
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.
Customs Inspector Currie and Chinese Inspector Larner arrived in the city yesterday with the fifty-five-tael cans of opium found at Sedro on the previous day. The opium was in an old pair of overalls fastened under the trucks of a Lake Shore car which had come down from Sumas. The discovery was made by the man who examines the car wheels. He cornered the dope and telegraphed the customs officers. News of the find was noised abroad and the deputy United States marshal attempted to take possession of the stuff, but the man who had found it refused to give it up, and with his wife, children and a gun kept guard all night until Inspectors Currie and Larner arrived. The opium was forwarded to Port Townsend, where $20,000 worth of the stuff is already awaiting sale.
“The man who had found it refused to give it up, and with his wife, children and a gun kept guard all night.”
Drug enforcement has long been a source of volatility in Washington, though the methods of 1894 feel starkly lawless. Today’s debates over the war on drugs rarely involve rail car inspectors holding federal agents at bay with family shotguns.
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