The Hunt for the Oakland School Fugitive
Bloodhounds track a murder suspect through the outskirts of Tacoma, leading to a tense, ongoing cat-and-mouse game with local law enforcement.
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.
Murderer Smith, who has been hiding in the vicinity of the Oakland school for the past week, was evidently driven out of the district by the presence of bloodhounds. The fugitive undoubtedly lay in the brush and listened to the baying of the hounds as they coursed through the brush in search of the trail. The last appearance Smith is believed to have made was at the home of Harry Ball, a large mansion on the terraced hillside across the gulch from the Oakland school, where he robbed a refrigerator of eatables. Hounds traced him for five miles along dim cattle trails but became confused in a pasture near the old powerhouse. The search was abandoned temporarily, but officers expect to find him next along the beach between Point Defiance and Steilacoom.
“The fugitive undoubtedly lay in the brush and listened to the baying of the hounds as they coursed through the brush in search of the trail.”
The 'waiting game' played by Tacoma police in 1903 reflects a style of frontier-adjacent law enforcement that focused on containment and public anxiety. Today, the area near Oakland/South Tacoma has long since been integrated into the city, leaving little trace of the 'trackless woods' once used for such manhunts.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.