Three Groans, Then Dead at the Yokohama
A young Japanese cook takes two bowls of Chinese gin at a Washington Street restaurant and dies before he can be carried up the stairs of his hotel.
K. Okamoto, a Japanese cook, aged 27 years, died at the Yokohama house last night about 9 o'clock under circumstances which will require an autopsy to settle the cause of death.
Okamoto arrived in the city about two weeks ago, in company with S. Nakagama, from Port Blakeley. Okamoto took a room in the basement of the Phoenix hotel and then went with his partner to the Yokohama Chinese restaurant, on Washington street, for supper. While the two were waiting for the food they had two bowls of Chinese gin. They had one bowl for both of them. Okamoto was suddenly taken ill, and his partner carried him on his back to the Yokohama house. While being carried up stairs he groaned three times. Dr. J. H. Konns was called and found that he was dead. Deputy Coroner Toler and Detective Welsh investigated the case. The remains were taken to Butterworth's undertaking rooms. An autopsy will be held.
Okamoto worked as cook on a vessel at Port Blakeley loading for Australia.
“"While being carried up stairs he groaned three times. Dr. J. H. Konns was called and found that he was dead."”
A Japanese laborer dies in a Pioneer Square hotel and the paper records the name, the employer, and the drink but not the man's life. Seattle's waterfront then ran on exactly this kind of transient Asian and Scandinavian labor; today the same blocks hold the city's oldest Asian American institutions, and deaths like Okamoto's are the unmarked foundation of that history.
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