Midnight Intrusion at the County Jail
A night watchman thwarts a brazen break-in attempt at the Seattle jailhouse after a tense standoff.
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.
Mr. Lee Smith, who occupies lodgings in the county jail apartment over the jail, was awakened on Sunday night by the sound of foot steps in the hall. Whereupon he responded by calling out 'who is there,' when a gruff voice answered 'a friend,' and at the same time a man seized his door knob and requested an entrance to his room. This, of course, he denied, when the party commenced banging away at the door violently, and declared he'd let him know who he was. Mr. Smith raised his window and commenced crying 'police' at the top of his voice. At this the fellow made a retreat and, joining another party of burglars at the entrance, walked down to the sidewalk and stood eying the building, when Mr. Smith fastened his door and ran out and fastened the front entrance. When the fellows found that no one had responded to his calls, they came back and tried to unlock or open the hall door. In this they failed, however, and finally left. It is supposed they intended to burglarize the building and expected to find no one there. Our informant states that had he been armed with a good six-shooter he would have given them a warm reception. In case of a repetition, however, they may not count on getting off as luckily as in the first instance.
“A gruff voice answered 'a friend,' and at the same time a man seized his door knob and requested an entrance to his room.”
While Seattle’s 1877 jailhouse drama sounds like a scene from a frontier novel, the vulnerability of residential spaces near civic centers remains a point of tension in the city. The 'six-shooter' justice of the 1870s has evolved into modern security concerns, yet the underlying fear of home intrusion remains a constant urban anxiety.
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