The Price of a Beer on Pacific Avenue
A visiting fisherman from Olympia reports being jumped and robbed by a gang in a downtown Tacoma saloon.
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.
Harry Gardson, a Norwegian fisherman who came over from Olympia on the steamer Elwood last night, says he was robbed in one of the saloons on upper Pacific avenue. Gardson came uptown to get a glass of beer, and on coming out of the door of the saloon someone, a tall person, struck his hand, knocking what small change he had received out of it. Then several others took a hand in the game. While part of the crowd held him, the others went through his pockets and took $50 in gold from him. That is one story he tells. To the police he said that the amount he lost was about $7. He was drunk at the time and cannot give a very clear account of himself.
“While part of the crowd held him, the others went through his pockets and took $50 in gold from him.”
Pacific Avenue remains the heart of downtown Tacoma, though the rowdy saloons have long since been replaced by businesses catering to a different crowd. The story captures the pre-prohibition vice culture where a night out could easily turn into a coordinated street crime, a reality for many port city transients in 1904.
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