The Raid on Occidental Avenue
Seattle police stage a dramatic basement breach to dismantle a gambling operation.
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.
Lowering themselves by a rope down an elevator shaft, four policemen Saturday night broke into a Chinese gambling den in the basement of a building at Occidental Avenue and Main Street, Seattle, and arrested 17 men. After reaching the basement, the policemen went through a long underground passage, at the end of which their way was blocked by a heavy door, which they broke down with sledge hammers. The men in the room attempted to escape by other passages, but policemen on the outside stopped their way and all were captured. The gambling paraphernalia was destroyed by the policemen.
“The men in the room attempted to escape by other passages, but policemen on the outside stopped their way and all were captured.”
This raid highlights the era's aggressive policing of Seattle's immigrant neighborhoods, framing gambling as an illicit threat. Occidental Avenue in Pioneer Square remains one of the city's oldest districts, still bearing the scars and transformations of a century of aggressive urban planning and gentrification.
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