The Great Anacortes Copper Heist
Lawless elements are discovered on a remote island burning off insulation from stolen trolley lines to sell the copper.
Two residents of Anacortes, while out hunting a few days ago, came across a man named M. C. Miller, on Allen Island, who was engaged in the occupation of melting one hundred pounds of large copper wire. Allen Island is a small, uninhabited piece of land west of Fidalgo, and has long been considered one of the hiding places of a lawless element which has made depredations upon this community. The wire is believed to have been the trolley wire of the Fidalgo & Anacortes electric railway, which was stolen some months ago and doubtless cached on Allen Island until a favorable opportunity presented itself for marketing the article.
“Allen Island is a small, uninhabited piece of land west of Fidalgo, and has long been considered one of the hiding places of a lawless element.”
Scrapping copper wire remains a common target for theft in the Pacific Northwest, showing how the illicit market for infrastructure materials has stayed consistent for over a century.
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