Brutal Highway Robbery Outside Spokane
A Hungarian farmer is fighting for his life after being attacked and robbed by three men on his way home from town.
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.
John Lipstoe, a Hungarian farmer living nine miles west of Spokane, started home about 10 o'clock when three men attacked him. At 4 o'clock this morning, he was found lying by the roadside in the snow with a pool of blood around his head and another thirty feet away. There is one great gash upon his head and another across his throat. Stephen Benson was arrested tonight on suspicion and identified by Lipstoe as one of his assailants. Two other men were arrested later. No less than half a dozen farmers have been held up near the city recently while on the way home from town.
“At 4 o'clock this morning, he was found lying by the roadside in the snow with a pool of blood around his head.”
Violent robberies targeting vulnerable individuals on the outskirts of growing cities were frequent in the 1890s as the population swelled. This pattern of 'roadside' crime remains a concern for rural and peri-urban communities where law enforcement response times are longer.
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