The Great Opera House Escape
A suspected swindler slips his guard and vanishes from a Seattle building mid-construction.
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.
Charles Gause, a special agent from the territory of New Mexico, arrived in Seattle to secure the arrest of A. G. Garrison for grand larceny. Garrison, who had recently arrived in Seattle and was attempting to convert the local Opera House into a hotel, was apprehended by Sheriff McGraw. Despite strict instructions to keep the prisoner in sight, the guard, W. Parry Smith, allowed the corpulent 240-pound suspect to retreat to his room. When the Sheriff arrived later, he found the guard smoking on the sidewalk and the prisoner gone. Garrison, wanted for swindling creditors in New Mexico and Arizona, is believed to have fled the city.
“Sheriff McGraw was very much disgusted with the carelessness and criminal negligence of the officer entrusted with the care of the prisoner.”
The transition of historic buildings like the Opera House into lodging was a common pattern in early Seattle, a city defined by constant property redevelopment. The Sheriff's public frustration with a negligent guard echoes today's perennial civic debates over the failures of local law enforcement and the accountability of those tasked with managing the city's detainees.
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