The Shadowy Assailant of Main Street
A prominent local real estate man is jumped by a stranger in a crowd of harvest hands, leaving the city wondering who turned to violence in the night.
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.
John Baxter, of the real estate firm of Baxter & Leonard, is nursing a badly damaged eye by reason of it coming in contact with a fist, but the strange part of the affair is that he can find no one to lay the blame on. Last evening as Mr. Baxter was hurrying along Main street to catch a friend near Second street, he accidentally bumped into a stranger who was walking in the opposite direction. Some words followed and the stranger attempted to rush Mr. Baxter to the sidewalk, but after warding off several blows, the incident passed. A short time afterward, Mr. Baxter was standing in Main street talking to friends when someone rushed out of a nearby crowd of harvest hands lounging in the street and landed a hard blow on his eye. The assault was so sudden that he had no time to catch a good glimpse of his assailant. Officer Davis arrested a harvester who was creating a disturbance, and it is believed he is the one who assaulted Mr. Baxter.
“The assault was so sudden that he had no time to catch a good glimpse of his assailant before he had dodged into the crowd again.”
Main Street in Walla Walla remains the civic heart of the city, though the crowds of seasonal 'harvest hands' have long since been replaced by modern tourists and professionals. Street violence remains a constant, but the anonymity of the attacker in a crowd of laborers mirrors modern concerns about transit safety and public social friction in growing urban centers.
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