The Olympic Block Sting
An unsuspecting man loses his gold to a woman he met in a downtown hotel hallway.
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.
John Coleman, an honest countryman, has joined the large army of innocents, each of whom knows that a woman has made a fool of him, yet does not know the exact manner in which it was done. Coleman had his money in his trousers pocket when he met a dark-complexioned, medium-sized woman in the hall of the Olympic block, corner of Yesler avenue and Commercial street, about 8 o'clock Saturday evening. The woman and he talked and said nice things about each other until she agreed to meet him at the Occidental hotel at 9 o'clock. After they had been separated a few minutes, Coleman suddenly discovered that three $20 gold pieces were missing. So anxious was he about the money that he forgot his engagement and spent the time with Detectives Cudihee and Roberts trying to find his loving companion. Two women were arrested, but Coleman said neither was the party. The police wanted Coleman to identify another suspected woman last night, but he had apparently left the city.
“Coleman, an honest countryman, has joined the large army of innocents, each of whom knows that a woman has made a fool of him.”
Yesler Way and First Avenue (formerly Commercial Street) remains the historic heart of Pioneer Square. The narrative of a stranger being lured into a confidence game in a downtown hotel hallway is a classic trope of Seattle's early urban history, mirroring modern anxieties about safety and transient crime in the city's downtown core.
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