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The Crackdown on G Street

Local law enforcement targets a house of ill fame in an effort to scrub the city of undesirable characters.

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.

William Thurman (known as Thug Thurman) and May Thurman (formerly Mrs. Robt. Kohler) were arrested by Marshal Pearson on Monday, charged with conducting a house of ill fame in the building just south of the hose house on G Street. They had their trial before Police Judge White on Monday afternoon, who sentenced them to pay a fine of $25 each, or in default, thirty days in the city bastile on a diet of bread and water. Marshal Pearson intends to make life so much of a burden in Aberdeen for such undesirable characters that he expects the city will soon be rid of them.

“Marshal Pearson intends to make life so much of a burden in Aberdeen for such undesirable characters that he expects the city will soon be rid of them.”

— Printed in Aberdeen Herald (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1893
Then · 1893133 years apartNow · 2026

This reflects the early civic efforts of Aberdeen officials to control moral geography through targeted policing and public shaming, a precursor to modern 'nuisance' ordinances used to displace populations deemed undesirable.

The original page

Aberdeen Herald (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1893-09-21. Library of Congress, Chronicling America.

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About this story

From
Aberdeen Herald (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, SEP 21, 1893, Page 3
Rights
Public domain
Place
46.97636, -123.81474 · placed automatically
The paper in the Library of Congress catalog ↗