Safe-Crackers Raid Dayton Saloon
Thieves bypass the law and a saloon vault, walking away with silver and a taste for the house's best whiskey.
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, some burglars entered E. E. Harris' Homestead saloon on Main street in a manner not satisfactorily explained and blew open the safe, taking about $73 to $80, all in silver, the exact amount of which is unknown. Besides the money in the safe, a drawer below the bar and the cash register were also rifled of their contents. The thieves also had a taste for ardent spirits, for they also took a few bottles of the best whisky from the wall case. The tools with which the work was done were stolen from Mr. Fitzgerald's blacksmith shop next to the bridge, and among them was a heavy sledge hammer, the handle of which they sawed off half way up. The method of opening the safe door involved a broken bolt pushed through, which left a round hole through which the powder or other explosive was inserted.
“The thieves also had a taste for ardent spirits for they also took a few bottles of the best whisky from the wall case.”
Dayton remains a hub of the rural Inland Northwest, but the era of the 'safecracker' haunting the local tavern has long since faded into the tall tales of the town's history. Today, local concerns in Dayton center more on preserving its historic downtown architecture than preventing explosive breaches of tavern safes.
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