The Phantom of Tacoma Avenue
A man disguised in women's clothing assaulted two residents, sparking fear and a police search in a quiet neighborhood.
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.
While walking home Thursday evening, Mrs. Bertha Schmidt and Miss Laura Schmidt, her daughter, of 609 Tacoma Avenue, were assaulted by a man dressed in women's clothing near the corner of South Seventh and I streets. The women were unattended and thought nothing of a person approaching them from the opposite direction. When the person was close to them, he sprang forward, gave an aerial flirt of his skirts, and seized Mrs. Schmidt by the arm. The frightened woman screamed and almost instantly the man dropped her arm and sped down the sidewalk. Mrs. Schmidt claims that he pinched her arm severely. Although the women were badly frightened, they managed to run to their home two blocks away, and once there, sank to the floor from exhaustion. Both women say they could identify the man, and police officers have been detailed to the case in the hope that they may catch him.
“When the person was close to them, he sprang forward, gave an aerial flirt of his skirts, and seized Mrs. Schmidt by the arm.”
Public safety concerns involving suspicious figures on Tacoma streets are as old as the city itself, though this account highlights the mid-century tendency to pathologize gender nonconformity under the label of 'suspicious behavior.' Today, such an event would likely be viewed through a complex lens of mental health and public safety rather than the sensationalist tone of 1909.
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