A $23.25 Haul and a Very Patient Safe-Cracker
Burglars peeled a window, drilled the door and chiseled the combination at A. C. Fry's produce store on the Seattle waterfront.
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.
Thursday night burglars cracked the safe of A. C. Fry Co., dealers in fruit and produce, at 923 West Street, and secured $23.25. Entrance to the store was effected by removing a pane of glass from a back window. The knob of the safe was broken off, a hole drilled through the outer plate of the door, and the shield guarding the combination inside was shattered by means of a chisel. This forced the tumblers into place and made the opening of the door an easy matter. The inside lock also yielded to the drill. The burglars left the building through the rear door. It is not known at what hour the burglary was committed. H. S. Phinney, who went home at 8:30 p.m., was the last employee in the store.
“The knob of the safe was broken off, a hole drilled through the outer plate of the door, and the shield guarding the combination inside was shattered by means of a chisel.”
The A. C. Fry burglary was a small-time waterfront crime, but the detail—drilling a safe in a produce store—captures a city of small merchants and unsecured cash. The same corner is a reminder that Seattle's waterfront economy has always had a shadow economy of break-ins and stolen goods.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.