Tragedy at the Grand Central Hotel
A stranger is found dead in his room after a suicide note is discovered on a photograph.
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 stranger registered at the Grand Central hotel last night as Herman Armstrong. Failing to get up today, suspicion was aroused and the porter broke into the room, where he found Armstrong lying upon his back dead, with a bullet hole through his heart. He left a note written upon the back of a photograph of a woman, saying she was the cause of his death.
“He left a note written upon the back of a photograph of a woman, saying she was the cause of his death.”
Such reports were common in the late 19th-century press, often romanticizing or sensationalizing suicide by framing the victim as a 'stranger' with a mysterious past. The Grand Central Hotel was a fixture of early Seattle nightlife and transit, long since lost to redevelopment.
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