Harry Fraser Took a Bullet at the Northern Hotel—Then Seattle Defended His Name
A shooting in a hotel bar left one man wounded and another in jail, but the loudest fight the next day was over a rumor about the victim.
Harry Fraser, who was shot Tuesday evening at the Northern Hotel, passed a good day yesterday in view of the seriousness of his wound. He was rational, had a normal temperature, though his pulse was slightly accelerated. He asked to see visitors, but Dr. Kline, the attending physician, restricted him for the sake of his patient's strength. The pain that developed almost immediately after the shooting was present yesterday, not continuously, but often enough to show the extent of his injury.
Fraser is one of the most popular men in the city, and many who know him refuse to believe the story circulated about him. They say the Northern Hotel bar has borne a good name under his management. Fraser worked three years for a firm between Columbia and Marion, leaving of his own free will, and later kept a bar at another place until he took charge of the Northern Hotel bar. Friends insist that if Fraser had been anything but a gentleman it would have been found out.
F. M. Nixon, of Nixon & Co., said: "Fraser worked for the firm of which I am a member. When he left it was of his own free will. I have known him and know nothing against him. I look upon this story of Fraser having been concerned in such an affair as absurd. I don't believe Fraser is a party to such a thing, as of all places the bar room of the Northern Hotel is the most unfitted for such occurrences."
P. D. Pair, who did the shooting, was removed late yesterday afternoon to the county jail, where he is held temporarily on a warrant.
“I don't believe Fraser is a party to such a thing, as of all places the bar room of the Northern Hotel is the most unfitted for such occurrences.”
Barroom shootings and reputation battles still dominate local crime coverage, though today a rumor can travel far faster than a coroner's report. The story also shows how tightly Seattle's hotel saloons were woven into downtown life—and how quickly friends closed ranks.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.