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Prisoners Stage Great Escape Attempt

Seven inmates caught tunneling out of North Yakima city jail and sent packing by local authorities.

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.

Last Sunday night, the seven prisoners confined in the city jail attempted to break out. They had removed the bricks to the outer layer, from a space large enough to admit the passage of a body, when Policeman Stout tumbled to the racket and anchored them with ball and chain. The next morning, under the advice of the mayor and justice, they were conveyed by Marshal Cock to the city limits and informed that if their ugly mugs were again seen around North Yakima they would be vagged and given sixty days each at hard labor. They accepted the terms and decamped.

“They were conveyed by Marshal Cock to the city limits and informed that if their ugly mugs were again seen around North Yakima they would be vagged.”

— Printed in The Yakima Herald (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1889
Then · 1889137 years apartNow · 2026

Public safety and jail management remain central civic issues in modern Yakima, though the 1889 solution of simply deporting one's 'lawless element' to the next county would certainly raise some eyebrows among current city council members.

The original page

The Yakima Herald (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1889-11-28. Library of Congress, Chronicling America.

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About this story

From
The Yakima Herald (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, NOV 28, 1889, Page 3
Rights
Public domain
Place
46.60156, -120.51084 · placed automatically
The paper in the Library of Congress catalog ↗