Kennewick Moves to Outlaw Itinerant Horse Traders
City council drafts a 'prohibitive' license ordinance to address a wave of petty thefts linked to transient trading camps.
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.
Since the council is in the business of drafting a new license ordinance, the city fathers propose to make it comprehensive enough to cover the occupation of professional horse trading. The new ordinance has passed its first and second readings but was tabled Tuesday evening to wait until the city attorney can write a horse trading clause into it. The city is frequently visited by itinerants who follow horse trading as a profession and petty thievery as a side line. Almost invariably their visits are followed by reports of petty thefts. Last year one of these outfits left town the same night a wagon disappeared from the yards of the Kjosness Mercantile company. A few days ago another camp was established in the city and no sooner had the traders left than the police received reports of harness and parts of harness missing from different barns in the city. It is the intention of the council to impose a license that will prove prohibitive to this kind of business.
“The city is frequently visited by itinerants who follow horse trading as a profession and petty thievery as a side line.”
Local governments have long used municipal codes to push out transient populations under the guise of public safety. This 1914 effort to regulate 'itinerant' traders mirrors contemporary debates over how Kennewick and other Tri-Cities regulate homelessness and nomadic labor camps today.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.