The Midnight Parlor Shootout
A bank bookkeeper’s frantic, armed response to an 'imaginary burglar' leaves a piano shredded and a cat terrified in Colfax.
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.
A shooting scrape, which terrorized the residents of North Mill street in Colfax, occurred about midnight Thursday, when Herman Schmidt, a bank bookkeeper, fired a fusillade of shots at an imaginary burglar. Schmidt, a lodger at J. J. Miller's residence, was awakened by Mrs. Miller, who believed a burglar was in the house. Armed with a revolver and holding an unlit candle, Schmidt entered the dark parlor. His overcoat caught on a piece of furniture, and thinking he had been grabbed, he emptied his revolver into the living room, causing significant damage to the family piano. After fleeing upstairs and firing several more shots out the window, Schmidt called for the police. When officers arrived, they found no burglar, but rather a badly frightened cat clinging to the lace curtains.
“Let go of me or I'll shoot a hole through you.”
This story highlights the volatile, often lethal consequences of vigilantism fueled by fear. While the outcome was comedic—a ruined piano and a scared cat—it serves as a historical reminder of how quickly ordinary domestic disagreements or misunderstandings escalated when neighbors were armed and prone to 'shoot first' reactions.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.