A Lost Child’s Desperate Run Across the West
After his family splintered, a 14-year-old boy arrived in Tacoma alone, setting off a chain of bicycle thefts as he tried to find a way home.
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.
Chester Hollands, a 14-year-old boy, was brought in from Puyallup yesterday by Marshal Milkens and confined in the county jail on a charge of stealing bicycles. He is reported to have stolen at least ten wheels around Puyallup, the last one belonging to Marshal Milkens. According to the boy’s story, his existence is an unfortunate one. His home, if he has one, is in Los Angeles, but his parents formerly lived in Tacoma, where they parted, two sisters and a brother going with their mother, while he was taken by his father. After enduring his stepmother, who was willing to get rid of him, he says, she told him his own mother lived in Puyallup, and he at once bought a ticket for Tacoma. Upon arriving in Puyallup, he found a stepmother who frowned upon him and would not permit him to stay there, so he resolved to steal bicycles and sell them until he could accumulate enough money to pay his way south again. Believing the boy's life is no round of pleasure, the prosecuting witnesses are willing to withdraw their complaint if the lad's father will forward the money to pay his fare home.
“Believing that the boy's life is no one continuous round of pleasure, the prosecuting witnesses are willing to withdraw their complaint.”
Youth homelessness remains a persistent crisis in Tacoma, where family separation often leaves minors in vulnerable positions. This 1904 account highlights the fragility of child welfare systems a century ago, when 'solving' the issue often meant simply sending the child away.
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