The Coulee City Clean-Up
A judge orders a local man to be forcibly scrubbed after being declared a public nuisance.
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.
The dirtiest man in the state of Washington lives in Coulee City. Last week a complaint against him as a nuisance was made to Justice Rice. A hearing was given him and an order issued by the court that the nuisance must be abated inside of forty-eight hours, and in failure of his complying, the officer was to take and strip him, scrub with soap and water, cut his hair and shave him, burn his clothes and dress him in a suit furnished by the citizens. The order was carried out last Saturday by taking the individual to the lake south of the railroad track and giving him a good scrubbing, shave and hair cut, dressing him in a new suit and burning the old ones.
“The dirtiest man in the state of Washington lives in Coulee City... the officer was to take and strip him, scrub with soap and water.”
This strange civic episode reflects the 19th-century obsession with 'sanitary' order and the power local justices claimed over the bodies of the unhoused or destitute. While the 'nuisance' of today's hygiene standards is handled with social services, here it was handled with a public, forced intervention that would certainly trigger civil rights challenges today.
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