Drunken Brawl at Yesler's Wharf
Two opportunists and their intoxicated victim end up in jail after a chaotic street struggle.
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.
Two individuals, whose names are unknown, undertook to run things in the vicinity of Yesler's wharf yesterday evening. They began their operations by relieving a passerby of a basket of eggs, and slashing them one by one. This gentle amusement over, they assessed a tax of fifty cents on the owner of the broken eggs, and looked around for a new victim. He soon appeared in the shape of a man considerably more than half full. Elated at this luck, the bold marauders dragged their drunken prey around the corner of the warehouse, and were presumably about to go through his pockets, when Chief Woolery and Officer McGowan appeared upon the scene, and took a hand in the little game. The slugging gentlemen fought hard, however, and strange to say were aided in their resistance by their late victim, who was just a little too drunk to see on which side he ought to do his fighting. As a consequence the whole three were locked up after a severe struggle, and will face the terrors of the law this morning.
“The slugging gentlemen fought hard, however, and strange to say were aided in their resistance by their late victim, who was just a little too drunk to see on which side he ought to do his fighting.”
Yesler's Wharf was the beating heart of early Seattle's waterfront commerce. Today, that same area sits near Pioneer Square, a district that continues to grapple with the tension between its industrial history and the modern realities of public safety and substance use.
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