City Hall Says Yes to the Dove: Seattle Licenses a Notorious Dive
The council overrode Mayor Ronald's veto to license a saloon the Post-Intelligencer called one of the city's worst dives—then argued over a dance house and the police chief's word.
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.
All the members of the house of delegates were present at the meeting of that body last night, and the most important matter acted upon was the framing of a license to the Dove saloon, one of the most disreputable dives in the city, over the veto of Mayor Ronald. The ordinance was returned by the mayor with his reasons for vetoing the same, and on motion it was again placed on its final passage. Mr. Brace said that Chief Jackson had informed him that the saloon was one of the most orderly and respectable in that part of the city. Dr. Crichton wanted to know if there was not a dance house connected with it, to which Mr. Drew replied that there was not, but on the contrary it was one of the most reputable places in the vicinity. Dr. Crichton replied that he had received positive information that there was not only a Black dance house attached to the saloon, but a very low one. Mr. Drew then crawfished, and said he had received his information from Chief Jackson.
The bill was finally passed, Coryell and Crichton being the only ones voting against it.
If Chief Jackson is responsible for the information that he was given credit for in this matter, he either willfully misstated the facts or else he and his patrolmen are too modest to enter such places as the Dove saloon for the purpose of becoming acquainted with what is going on. The Post-Intelligencer has positive proof that the place has a dance house connected with it, where a large number of Black women gather every night to dance, and, when they are not afraid of "spotters" being around, they pass in and out of the barroom, drinking and mingling with the characters the paper described as the vilest in the city.
“Mr. Drew then crawfished, and said he had received his information from Chief Jackson.”
The Dove fight was about more than one saloon license: it exposed how City Hall balanced neighborhood complaints, police testimony, and the revenues of nightlife. The paper's alarm at a Black dance house also reminds us that vice enforcement in 1890s Seattle was racially selective—and that the people dancing were building community in spaces the city loved to condemn.
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