Smallpox Panic in Tacoma Lodging Houses
Public health concerns arise as dozens are quarantined in local boarding houses.
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.
J. E. Decker, a laborer, was found to have smallpox at the head of Eighth Street. He had been stopping at the Halstead House, where the proprietor sent him out of doors when he started suffering from the disease. Dr. Yocum, Dr. Fox, and Dr. Armstrong, the city and county physician, confirmed Decker has smallpox, and he has been moved to the pest house. The Halstead House has been quarantined, and thirty-nine people are currently detained inside. Another laborer, John Coffee, was also found to have smallpox at the Ohio lodging house, resulting in another quarantine of thirty-nine people at that location. The inmates are crowded, but they are making the best of the situation.
“They made the best of their situation today, and pelted the officers on guard by lowering a dummy stuffed with straw.”
This mirrors the anxiety of the 2020 pandemic: how boarding houses and dense living situations create hotbeds for contagion, and the tension between public safety and the treatment of the sick.
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