Police Smash the Gaming Dens
Seattle authorities conduct a sweep of the city's gambling parlors, seizing tables and furniture in a public show of force.
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.
Gambling, which has been openly carried on in Seattle for the last ten days, was temporarily checked last night by a raid on games in the People's theater building and Butler block, and by the capture of tools and gambling paraphernalia in the Kigen block and a lot of furniture in the rooms where the Horseshoe gambling-house was formerly run. The patrol wagon gathered up the gambling tools from all four houses. Though the Horseshoe games have not been running for two months, the police broke in the doors and seized the furniture. Finding that they could not get the tables out through the doorway, they broke the jambs of one of the windows to make an exit.
“Finding that they could not get the tables out through the doorway, they broke the jambs of one of the windows to make an exit.”
Public morality campaigns were a staple of Seattle's rapid growth, often serving as a tool for the city to signal respectability despite the persistence of 'vice' industries in the downtown core.
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