The Unwelcome Guest in the Banana Crate
A Black Diamond baker discovers a live stowaway from the tropics in his pantry.
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.
Philip Rupert, a baker at Black Diamond, took a live tarantula from a bunch of bananas a few days ago and he still lives in a glass jar where the baker has confined him. He was snugly established in his nest, which was as large as a man's fist and made of dry leaves. Mr. Rupert owes his escape from being stung to the cold weather, which had benumbed the animal, and he hopes the thermometer will be forty degrees below zero when the next tarantula comes to see him.
“He was snugly established in his nest, which was as large as a man's fist.”
While banana spiders (and occasionally more venomous stowaways) are still a common, albeit unsettling, discovery for produce workers in modern Seattle, the era's fascination with exotic species in storefront jars highlights how the city’s rapid connection to global trade networks brought the world into the neighborhood, often literally.
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