Despair and Isolation at the Hotel Shannon
A struggling laborer ends his life in a Walla Walla hotel room after being unable to find work or support.
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.
August A. Berglin, a member of the Salvation Army, hanged himself in his room at the Hotel Shannon, at the corner of Fifth Avenue South and Main Street, on Monday morning. He had been brooding over religious problems and was despondent due to a lack of funds. A week prior, he had telegraphed relatives in Colorado for money, but the relief arrived too late. An employee of the hotel discovered the body when delivering the registered letter containing the funds. Berglin had fashioned a scaffold using chairs and a bed rail, and utilized small rope to hang himself from the gas fixture. Letters found in his room indicate he had a brother, Victor, living in Olney, Colorado.
“At 10 o'clock, when the man with the registered letter opened the door of the room, the lifeless body hung from the gas fixtures in the middle of the room, with waxen face turned toward the ceiling.”
This tragedy highlights the stark reality of the 'boom' era, where the promise of the West often left vulnerable individuals without a safety net, echoing modern struggles with housing and mental health in the Walla Walla Valley.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.