Underground Gambling Ring Broken in Seattle
Police used sledgehammers to breach a hidden gaming den connected by a long tunnel.
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.
Lowering themselves by a rope down the elevator shaft, four policemen Saturday night broke into a Chinese gambling den in the basement of a building at Occidental Avenue and Main Street, Seattle, and arrested 17 men. After reaching the basement the policemen went through a long underground passage, at the end of which their way was blocked by a heavy door which they broke down with sledge hammers. The men in the room attempted to escape by other passages, but policemen on the outside stopped their way and all were captured. The gambling paraphernalia was destroyed by the policemen.
“The men in the room attempted to escape by other passages, but policemen on the outside stopped their way and all were captured.”
This event highlights the era's targeted policing of Chinese immigrant spaces, often framed as 'vice' control while ignoring the broader context of systemic exclusion and the reality of marginalized labor communities in early Seattle.
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