Midnight Gunfight at the Warehouse
A watchman defends a local business in a late-night shootout with burglars.
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.
Some persons having recently broke into Mayer Co’s warehouse and stolen a lot of goods therefrom, a man was set to watching the establishment, and on Sunday night last the burglars—two in number—came again. One of them, while attempting to open the window, was greeted by a pistol shot from the hands of the man on the inside. He drew back and fired also; the ball from his pistol passing through the hat of the man on the inside. After this the thieves started to run, and being followed by the watchman, a running fight was kept up for a few minutes, in which from six to a dozen shots were exchanged, and one of the thieves, it is believed by the watchman, received a ball in his body. The thieves had a wagon with them, from which fact it is supposed they belong some distance from the city.
“The ball from his pistol passing through the hat of the man on the inside.”
Early Walla Walla was a lawless frontier outpost where property protection often fell to private watchmen. The exchange of fire suggests the high stakes and lack of regular police presence in 1864.
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