A Burglar’s Failed Heist at the Cherry Valley Hotel
A hotel proprietor used a lamp and a revolver to fend off an armed intruder who demanded the contents of his safe.
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.
Kleber Crossman, proprietor of the Cherry Valley Hotel, had an experience with burglars about midnight on Friday which tried his nerves. Hearing a knock at the door, he went down and was confronted by a man who covered him with a revolver and demanded the contents of his safe. Crossman said he had to go to his bedroom to get the key and marched up stairs, lamp in hand, followed by the attacker. At the top of the stairs, he dashed into his room, slammed the door, threw down the lamp, seized his own revolver, and fired three shots through the door. The burglar fled, leaping through a window twenty feet to the ground. An accomplice outside fired wildly into the hotel for ten minutes, but the pair eventually made off without plunder.
“Just as he reached the top of the stairs he got a step ahead of his pursuer, dashed into his room and slammed the door in the other man's face.”
The 'Cherry Valley Hotel' story captures the rugged, often violent atmosphere of 1890s Washington, where frontier-style self-defense was frequently necessary. It highlights the vulnerability of local business owners before the professionalization of police forces became standard.
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