Safe Cracked in Kennewick Store
Burglars use a railroad crowbar to loot a local business, prompting a swift arrest.
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.
Sometime between Sunday evening and Monday morning, burglars entered the store of Johnson & Fullerton in Kennewick and blew open the safe. They succeeded in getting about $40 in change, besides notes and papers, and a package of valuable documents belonging to John Prentice. The robbers overlooked another package containing about $30. They gained entry by prying open a window on the east side of the building with a railroad crowbar and exited through the back door. There was about an eighth of an inch of snow on the ground, allowing authorities to trace footprints to the railroad tool house, though the trail went cold there. Special Deputy Sheriff A.Y. McReynolds has arrested Ray Fox, known as 'Dutch,' on suspicion of the crime.
“They gained an entrance by prying open a window on the east side of the building with a railroad crowbar.”
Small-town burglary reports were a staple of early 20th-century Washington newspapers, capturing the vulnerability of local commerce. While security technology has evolved from iron safes and railroad tools to digital monitoring, the community's reliance on local law enforcement to track suspects remains a central civic tension.
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