The Siege of the 'Tenement of Terror'
When bailiffs arrived at a Seattle boarding house to evict residents, they were met with a barricaded door, a hail of rocks, and a community standing their ground.
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.
The eviction of tenants at a building on the corner of Seventh and Main streets, Seattle, was contested today. The property had been turned into a virtual fort, with the second floor defended by a group of men armed with rifles and barricaded behind the loopholed walls. The sheriff, who accompanied the bailiffs, warned them to leave, but the tenants paid no attention to his orders. The sheriff then read the riot act and the bailiffs were about to force the door, but the magistrate stopped the men, notifying the party that he would give them one hour to leave the house. After the expiration of the hour, the tenants announced they would not leave. The bailiffs and police then attacked the house, and after a desperate struggle, were repulsed. Finally, seven were persuaded by the town to surrender. During the fight, a police official was badly wounded. A dozen bailiffs and policemen were injured. One of the defenders had his jaw fractured, and another was battered behind the barricade, which was broken down by the police.
“The property had been turned into a virtual fort, with the second floor defended by a group of men armed with rifles and barricaded behind the loopholed walls.”
While this 1889 confrontation happened at a time of early, rapid land speculation, the scene of armed resistance against eviction captures a desperate strain of housing instability that remains a defining, if often invisible, feature of Seattle's history.
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