Actors' Trunks Looted on Train to Tacoma
A traveling theatrical troupe arrives in Tacoma only to find their costumes and jewelry stolen by 'tramps' riding the rails.
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While members of the 'Right of Way' theatrical company were reclining in easy chairs of the Pullman in which they rode from Portland to Tacoma Sunday morning, thieves were busily engaged in smashing open their trunks in the private baggage car attached to the train. They jumped from the platform of the car after stealing about $900 worth of personal effects and jewelry belonging to the actors. A Northern Pacific railway official today admitted that the door of the private baggage car had been left unlocked, and advanced the theory that tramps riding on the 'blind' had entered and stolen the missing goods. Several of the trunks had been burst open and badly shattered by strenuous applications of the emergency axe kept in the baggage car.
“Several of the trunks had been burst open and badly shattered by strenuous applications of the emergency axe kept in the baggage car.”
Travel security has evolved significantly, but the vulnerability of goods on transit routes remains a constant. This incident captures the precarious nature of both early 20th-century rail travel and the transient life of performing troupes visiting Tacoma.
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