A Year's Savings Gone
A Buckley logger is robbed of his life savings after a night in the city's red-light district.
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.
Oscar Larson, a logger from Buckley, was robbed last night of his year's savings, amounting to $650, by a woman, who is said to be a resident of lower Commerce Street. Larson had just come to the city with the intention of leaving immediately for Alaska, and had all his money in a belt strapped about his waist. He met the woman on Fifteenth and Commerce, and accompanied her home. The couple became intoxicated from liquor which the woman supplied, and Larson returned to his room in the Berkeley Hotel with a befuddled brain. When he awoke this morning all his money was missing. Detective Fitzgerald this morning accompanied Larson to the place where he said the woman lived, but could find no one answering her description. It is believed that the woman has left town, and the officers of other Pacific coast towns have been notified of the theft.
“Larson returned to his room in the Berkeley hotel with a befuddled brain. When he awoke this morning all his money was missing.”
Commerce Street, once the heart of Tacoma's vice district, has been transformed over the decades into a corridor of history and modern urban development. Larson's story of being lured into a vulnerable position remains a timeless cautionary tale regarding the precarity of laborers seeking work and the dangers of a city's fringes.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.