The Midnight Saloon Brawl That Shook Main Street
A political argument over a local election turned violent when a Deputy Sheriff pistol-whipped a veteran in front of a crowded 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.
A live little election brawl between Deputy Sheriff Kees and Jake Holbrook, a veteran packer in the Spanish-American War, occurred in a Main Street saloon after midnight Saturday night. The saloon in which the scrap occurred was filled with a crowd at the time. Holbrook, it is said, was standing at the bar somewhat intoxicated when he offered to bet $20 with Ike Walters that Jerry Brown would be elected. Bystanders say that Deputy Kees heard the remark and walked up to Holbrook and asked him why he favored Brown. Holbrook replied that Brown was his friend, when Kees is alleged to have remarked that Holbrook was a grafter and sore because he had never gotten anything out of the courthouse. The old veteran, highly insulted, it is said, called Kees a 'God damned liar,' whereupon the latter struck Holbrook a terrific blow in the eye, felling him to the floor. Stories vary somewhat as to the subsequent events which followed, but it is said that Kees jumped onto Holbrook, and while he kept the crowds at bay with a gun, he struck the prostrate man several times in the face. Senator Link Davis, who has been in Walla Walla for several days helping out the Ankeny machine, was in the saloon at the time and succeeded in wrenching the gun from Kees' hand. Holbrook was taken to his home by a couple of policemen in a badly bleeding condition. Friends of his say that besides a discolored optic, he was not seriously injured by the assault. The affair created intense excitement in Main Street, and it is said several fights were narrowly averted. Many prominent citizens, including a number of Elks with the Spokane ball team, witnessed the brawl.
“Kees is alleged to have remarked that Holbrook was a grafter and sore because he had never gotten anything out of the court house.”
Political violence in public spaces like saloons was a hallmark of turn-of-the-century civic life, often fueled by patronage machines. Today's digital vitriol feels like a sanitized evolution of this era's physical confrontations over local candidate endorsements.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.