Street Robbery Near Hanson’s Mill
A man walking home alone at night is ambushed by a gang on the beach road.
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.
Yesterday morning a rumor was going around that a man had been beaten and robbed on Tuesday night on his way from Hanson’s mill to the railroad wharf. The Ledger reporter, in trying to find out the particulars of the affair, ran across the man who had been robbed, Frank Goodrich, of Seattle. Goodrich stated: 'On Tuesday night about 8 o’clock I was coming from Hanson’s mill, along the beach road to the dock, and soon after passing over the bridge near the furnace, a man sprang out from the side of the path and began wrestling with me. I soon found that I could manage him, threw him down, and nearly choked the life out of him. As soon as he found out that I had the upper hand, he called for help, whereupon four men came running to the rescue. They all piled on me. One fellow hit me over the head with a stick, and another gave me a fearful kick in the stomach. After being knocked down, they dragged me to the edge of the path and pushed me down on to some logs. One of the men then jumped down and took about $62 or $63 out of my pockets. They then disappeared, leaving me lying on the logs pretty badly used up.' Goodrich was later assisted to Blackwell’s Hotel. He noted one of the assailants wore a fur cap.
“One fellow hit me over the head with a stick, and another gave me a fearful kick in the stomach.”
Street safety and the dangers of walking along unlit industrial waterfront paths remain an enduring concern in a rapidly growing Seattle. The area around Hanson's Mill, once a hub of manual labor, has long since been transformed into the city's urban core, yet the fear of being targeted while walking home late persists.
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