The Midnight Round-Up at the Central Police Station
A night of arrests in late 1870s Seattle lands a group of local characters in the city's lock-up, marking an ordinary, albeit unrecorded, night of territorial justice.
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.
The police court is not a place for the refinement of a gentleman’s character. The case of the evening session yesterday resulted in several fines. The following persons were marched to the Central Police Station and locked up for the night. They gave their names as Selucius Garfield, the proprietor, H. B. Kendig, H. Whittaker, T. G. Scott, C. O. Love, W. S. Jones, and the colored Winter.
“The police court is not a place for the refinement of a gentleman’s character.”
This brief account from 1879 offers a rare, ground-level glimpse into the transient, rough-and-tumble social fabric of pioneer Seattle. While the nature of their 'offense' remains obscured by the casual reportage of the day, the mention of the Central Police Station reminds us that the struggle to maintain order in a boomtown has been a constant in the city's history since the days of the first timber camps.
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