Armed Posse Kills Store Robber at Palmer
A bold attempt to hold up a merchant in Palmer resulted in a violent confrontation where local citizens tracked and shot the masked intruders.
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 bold robbery and pursuit of the robbers with fatal results caused great excitement at Palmer last evening. John Peterson, a merchant, was held up in his own store by three masked men. When they threatened him and knocked him senseless, Peterson called for help. Sam Ritchie, the local hotel proprietor, organized a posse to track the men into the brush near the Green River. When ordered to surrender, the men attempted to flee. The posse captured two of the men, but the third was shot through the head while trying to escape and was killed instantly.
“The third was shot through the head, while trying to escape, and instantly killed.”
This reflects the 'frontier justice' ethos that persisted in small Washington logging and rail communities at the turn of the century, where law enforcement was absent or slow, and civilians took immediate, lethal action to defend their property.
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