The Mysterious Port Gamble Heist
A bold robbery at Port Gamble sparks a frantic search for suspects believed to have fled toward Seattle.
It was current in Seattle last evening that a robbery of eight or nine hundred dollars had been committed at Port Gamble, presumably by some who had vanished and made off for Seattle. The authorities of that port are on the alert over the affair, and will spare no trouble or expense to hunt down the authors of the crime. Chief Woolery received a dispatch last evening in regard to the case.
“The authorities of that port are on the alert over the affair, and will spare no trouble or expense to hunt down the authors of the crime.”
Port Gamble was a company-owned lumber town on the Kitsap Peninsula, long isolated from Seattle; the anxiety of the 1884 era reflects the desperation of a frontier economy where cash was scarce and security for remote payrolls was minimal.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.