The Shadowy Streets of 1870s Seattle
A wave of violent street crime hits the city as a mysterious gang terrorizes residents and burns down a derelict dance hall.
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.
Our little city now has the honor of being the headquarters of a gang of foot-pads and highway robbery is getting quite common. Two cases of this kind occurred on Saturday night, in one of which Mr. Jas. R. Robbins was the victim, and in the other Mr. Jud. Andrews, a young typo in the Intelligencer office. As Mr. Andrews was returning home about 12 o’clock at night, he was stopped on Third Street by two men, one of whom stood over him with a revolver and large knife, while the other one went through his pockets. Their search resulted in the discovery of a broken-bladed jack-knife and a printer’s rule, which they kindly allowed him to retain. The other robbery, that of Mr. Robbins, probably perpetrated by the same gang, was of a more serious character. On Mr. Robbins' way home, he was surrounded by three men who told him to throw up his hands. He refused to do this and commenced calling for help, when one of them struck him in the face with a slung-shot, cutting a severe gash. The miscreants then fled, leaving him in an almost insensible condition. About 12 o’clock last night, the old vacant building on the corner of Main and Third streets, known as the Collar and Elbow and formerly occupied by Tom Osgood's squaw dance house, took fire and burned to the ground. Suspicion is very generally entertained that it was of incendiary origin, and was started for the purpose of enabling the gang of thieves now working this town to make a raid on dwellings in the upper part of the city.
“Our little city now has the honor of being the headquarters of a gang of foot-pads and highway robbery is getting quite common.”
Today's Seattleites often grapple with the anxiety of rising street crime and the displacement of historical, sometimes controversial, spaces. The 1876 destruction of the 'Collar and Elbow'—a notorious dance hall—shows how the city has long used fire and development to purge its rowdy past, even while residents remain fearful of the lawless elements that thrive in the shadows of urban change.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.