A Night in the Cooler
A local burglary investigation unfolds after a city marshal's late-night visit from an agitated victim.
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.
About 9:30 p.m. Saturday night, John Petrovitch, who lives in the Bethune building on Wishkah street, poured into City Marshal Pearson's ear an excited tale of woe about the loss of a gold ring, a chain, and a twenty-dollar gold piece, which latter was a keepsake and a watch charm. Also on Saturday night, Albert Johnson and a chum of his were mixing carmine paints for the city. When they had got well warmed up to the work, Nightwatchman Anstie ran them into the cooler. Petrovitch was satisfied that one of the two men in the cooler had done the job for him, so in the afternoon Sunday, Marshal Pearson searched Johnson for concealed weapons. Nothing more deadly than a large gold ring was found upon his person, which Petrovitch identified as the ring he was after. This was too much for Johnson, so he confessed that he was a burglar and had hidden the rest of his plunder in a woodshed on Wishkah street, where it was found. On Monday afternoon he was taken before Judge Arnold for preliminary examination, and in default of bail, was sent to the county jail in Montesano to await trial for grand larceny.
“Petrovitch was satisfied that one of the two men in the cooler had done the job for him.”
Petty crime and the struggle for justice in small-town jails remain a staple of Grays Harbor reporting. The Bethune building on Wishkah Street serves as a reminder of the era's compact, dense downtown life that Aberdeen is still working to revitalize today.
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