Main Street Shootout in Walla Walla
A Saturday afternoon dispute between two men leaves one with a shattered arm and the city looking for a new dueling ground.
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 shooting-match came off on Main street on Saturday last between Beatty and David Alderson, both of the Boise Basin. The first shot, fired by Beatty, took effect in Alderson's arm, near the elbow, badly shattering the bone, and inflicting a very dangerous wound. The other shots—some five or six in all—flew around loose and one of them took effect in the side of an ax which stood attached to a wagon in the street. The cause that led to the shooting, in legal language, we are 'not supposed to know anything about.' Beatty gave himself up to the authorities, and upon examination before Judge Horton was held to bail in the sum of $2,000, to appear before the district court and answer any charge that may be brought against him. If men in opposition to all laws, human and Divine, will persist in making our city a dueling ground, we would mildly suggest to them that we, in common with our neighbors, don't want to get shot, and would be much obliged to them if they would hereafter 'choose their ground' at some point more remote from our portion of the town.
“If men in opposition to all laws, human and Divine, will persist in making our city a dueling ground, we would mildly suggest to them that we, in common with our neighbors, don't want to get shot.”
Public safety and 'dueling grounds' were a concern in 1864, just as modern Walla Walla continues to debate the regulation of public behavior in its historic downtown core. This story highlights the transition from lawless frontier justice to an established civic order, a process still reflected in contemporary urban planning debates.
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