Smallpox Reaches the City
A Great Northern laborer turns himself in to authorities as fears grow over an outbreak in Snohomish.
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.
One new case of smallpox was discovered in the city yesterday. A man named J. Hernon walked up to a policeman at the corner of Railroad Avenue and Washington Street and gave himself up. The health officer was called and had him removed to the pesthouse at once. The man was a Great Northern laborer and came to the city about thirty days ago, and stopped for some time in the Wyoming lodging house on South Third Street. Another death from smallpox has occurred at Snohomish and has caused quite a scare at Everett. Smallpox is breaking out again. One patient died in the hospital today named Shay, who was editor of the Silverton Miner. Everett has quarantined the town and stopped river boats.
“Smallpox breaking out again stronger than ever.”
Pandemics and outbreaks have historically triggered swift and often fearful civic responses in Seattle, from 1892 to the present. The reliance on 'pesthouses' and immediate, aggressive quarantines illustrates how public health crises were handled before modern epidemiology.
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