The Great Scrubdown of 1888
Seattle’s new police chief takes a hose to the city jail, sweeping away years of filth and notoriety.
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.
Chief of Police Mitchell is getting into his work with but little fuss or loud trumpeting. He seems to care less to say what he is going to do, but rather to let his acts tell for themselves. Already, however, he has initiated one much-needed reform. He has finally boarded up the city jail, and Mr. Mitchell has undertaken to make the old jail a fit place for the confinement of human beings. Yesterday he moved every movable article out of doors and gave the place a thorough sweeping. He then turned the hose on and flooded the jail and scrubbed it out. A barrel of lime was obtained and the cells were whitewashed. New locks will be put on the cell doors and new bedding provided. The expense will be about $135, but it is in a worthy cause. The old bedding, dirt, and other articles were shoveled into a wagon and carted away. Some of the articles have more or less history attached to them. A policeman who was watching the process of loading the dray made comments as there went past the shirt of the man who took such on life. There is one of the remnants of the notorious 'Sarah McTannah,' etc.
“He seems to care less to say what he is going to do, but rather to let his acts tell for themselves.”
Long before modern conversations about jail conditions and human rights, local administrators were already battling the physical decay of Seattle's carceral infrastructure. The 1888 effort to 'scrub out' the jail mirrors a perennial city struggle: the persistent, uneasy tension between punishing the incarcerated and the basic obligation to maintain a sanitary, humane environment.
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