Race Riot Erupts in Opera Alley
A domestic dispute over smoke turns into a mob confrontation between a Black household and local Italian residents.
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.
A desperate race riot was waged in Opera alley about 6:30 last evening between a colored man named King and three colored women on one side, and about 100 Italians on the other. King, the only man in the scuffle who had a revolver, fired once, and pulled the trigger several other times, but the bullets refused to explode. No one was seriously hurt. The trouble started because the smoke from the stove of Mrs. Marshall, a colored woman, who lives next door to the Italians, was filling the apartments of her neighbors. King, who was visiting Mrs. Marshall, would not listen to the Italians' remonstrances. George Kasos and Nick Petros were the principal Italians in the trouble, and but for the quick action of Petros, it is said, King would have done considerable damage. King has not been found. The mob was dispelled by the police but no arrests were made.
“King, the only man in the scuffle who had a revolver, fired once, and pulled the trigger several other times, but the bullets refused to explode.”
This incident highlights the intense racial tensions and density of immigrant and Black communities in downtown Tacoma at the turn of the century. Opera Alley, once a bustling, diverse service corridor, remains a central part of Tacoma's historic district, though its social composition and character have transformed drastically over the last century.
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