The Missing Express Package
An express agent at Ainsworth finds himself in the middle of a $15,000 mystery after a package disappears under his watch.
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.
E. E. Johnson, the man arrested upon a dispatch from Ainsworth by Sheriff Thompson for embezzling over $15,000, was a local agent in that town for the Northern Pacific Express Company. Information gained by a reporter suggests a package containing $15,000 destined for Ainsworth was received and receipted for by Johnson. All trace of the package was then lost. Johnson claims it was stolen from him, but gives no explanation. Sheriff Gray of Franklin County arrived to take his prisoner home, but because of missing paperwork, the transfer was delayed.
“The officials claim that were they at liberty they could 'an interesting tale unfold.'”
Ainsworth, a town that existed at the confluence of the Snake and Columbia rivers, was a booming railroad hub in the 1880s before it faded into obscurity. The story reflects the vulnerability of the early transit infrastructure in the Washington Territory, where vast sums of money moved on trust and were often lost to embezzlement or theft.
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