The St. Charles Swindle: A Hotel Proprietor Vanishes Owing $2,500
A charming stranger leases a Second Street hotel, furnishes it on credit, then slips away to Tacoma—leaving creditors, rumors of a false wife, and a trail of attachment suits.
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.
Several months ago a tall, pleasant-appearing man, accompanied by a lady, made his advent into Seattle and registered at one of the city hotels as J. W. Wilson and wife. After looking about for a time, he secured a lease of the new hotel then building on Second Street from Mrs. N. Louis, afterward known as the St. Charles. On its completion he furnished it elaborately, and for some time the house was running. Last Friday Wilson, accompanied by his wife and a woman near her age whom he called his mother-in-law, left on the steamer for Tacoma, making some trifling excuse to his employees. The house ran along for a week, and he did not return. By that time people, especially his anxious creditors, began to realize that he had skipped out, and the rapidity with which attachments were slapped onto the contents of the house was a caution. Some sixteen attachment cases were instituted. The heaviest creditors are secured by a mortgage of $2,500. Various rumors are afloat regarding the cause which led to Mr. Wilson's exit. One is that the woman he lived with was another man's wife, and that man was on his way to Seattle. Another is that he had enemies here. One says he has known Wilson for a long time and that his career has been very checkered. This man says his proper name is Uittenboff, not Wilson, and that after leaving Ohio under a cloud he came to this city.
“By that time people, especially his anxious creditors, began to realize that he had skipped out, and the rapidity with which attachments were slapped onto the contents of the house was a caution.”
Seattle's booming 1880s hotel trade ran on credit and reputation; a smooth operator could outfit a new hotel on promises and disappear on the next steamer. Today's rental and hospitality scams still exploit the same gap between glossy fronts and unverified books.
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