The Great Port Angeles Store Heist
Under the cover of night, a cooperative colony's assets were stripped by creditors just before a court could intervene.
Last night was one of hustling and scrambling in Port Angeles over the stock of merchandise in the 'Colony store,' in which Fischer & Macdonald succeeded in getting away with almost the entire stock before restrained by an injunction issued by Judge McClinton. One week ago, plaintiffs brought suit asking for a receiver because of the mismanagement of the Puget Sound Co-operative colony. While the matter was pending, at midnight the steamer Garland came to the dock without blowing a whistle. A dray wagon unloaded boxes and goods from the store—only 600 feet away—and loaded them onto the steamer. Despite the later issuance of an injunction, the perpetrators loaded their team and dray aboard the steamer, cut loose from the dock and left for Seattle, leaving the colony’s future in total disarray.
“At midnight the steamer Garland came up to the dock without blowing a whistle, when a dray wagon and a team of horses were put off, and boxes... were loaded into the dray and taken on the wharf to the boat.”
This event captures the volatile early days of utopian experiments in Washington, where high-minded communal ideals often collided with the harsh realities of debt, litigation, and opportunistic liquidation.
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