The 'Street Arabs' Terrorizing Pioneer Seattle
A wave of juvenile vandalism strikes Front Street, leaving local merchants and the South School House in ruins.
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.
The crowd of hoodlum boys who infest this city, and run about the streets unrestrained, have become particularly annoying. First they are loitering along the streets and leaving them on the sidewalks to trip up unwary pedestrians. Again we find them girdling trees, and we might go through the whole catalogue of their disreputable acts. They have of late, it seems, taken a mania for breaking glass, and have been smashing it out generally, until the nuisance has become quite intolerable. A few nights ago a party of them sent a shower of rocks through the front windows of Mr. S. Baxter & Co.'s store on Front Street, and in many other buildings they have broken out glass in the same way—more especially at the South School House. This building appears to have become a special target for their mischief and not a window has escaped. Many of the large lights of glass are filled with holes made from small stones; others are broken out entire, and the whole building presents a sadly dilapidated appearance. A few nights ago, they broke into the building, cut up the benches and blackboard shamefully, broke the clock and did other damage. Is there no way to put a stop to the outrages perpetrated by these street Arabs, whose parents should be held responsible for their acts?
“Is there no way to put a stop to the outrages perpetrated by these street Arabs, whose parents should be held responsible for their acts?”
This 1877 report captures a perennial anxiety in Seattle’s history: the tension between public order and the unsupervised youth of a rapidly growing, frontier-era city. While the rhetoric of 'street Arabs' and parental blame is a relic of Victorian discipline, the frustration over damaged public property and storefronts mirrors the ongoing civic debates regarding downtown maintenance and the policing of public spaces in modern Seattle.
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