A Violent Altercation at Taggard's Saloon
A dispute over a gambling debt nearly turns fatal when a patron draws a knife.
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.
George Williams, a big black man, went into Taggard’s saloon the other day and loudly claimed he was the boldest sledge player in seven counties. He finally managed to get into a game, having a white man named P. J. Smith for his partner. When several games had been played and Smith and Williams had been defeated, the latter discovered he had no money to pay the score. He seemed to take this as a personal cause of grievance, and when Smith had settled his own bill and started to leave, Williams drew a long knife and made for him, evidently intending to stab him in the back. A man named Turner, who claims to be a detective, threw his overcoat around the man’s arm, covering the knife, and managed to take the weapon away. Williams was arrested and committed to jail in default of $300 bail.
“The evidence against the prisoner was nearly as dark as his face.”
This report uses the common, dehumanizing language of the 1890s to describe a Black man. While the paper frames this as a simple criminal matter, the report illustrates the tensions and racial dynamics present in late 19th-century Yakima saloons.
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