Burglars Clean Out the Kennewick Clothing Store
Thieves forced the back door of the Kennewick Clothing store with a crowbar and made off with suits, overcoats and shoes; a patrolman may have passed the store while they were still inside.
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.
Sometime in the early hours of last Saturday morning the Kennewick Clothing store was entered by burglars who carried off nearly $150 worth of suits, overcoats and shoes. The store was entered by the back door, which was forced with a crowbar. No trace of the robbers has been found.
The police are of the opinion that the robbery was committed about 1:30. Chief C. E. Copeland in the early part of the night tried the doors in the rear of the Hover block and found the clothing company’s screen unhooked and the back door locked. About 1:30 Patrolman J. B. Haydon tried the doors and found the clothing store screen fastened. He believes the robbers were in the store at that time.
“No trace of the robbers has been found.”
A century later, downtown Kennewick’s Hover Block is gone, but the story has the familiar shape of a small-town break-in: a forced back door, a narrow window of time, and a patrolman who may have been seconds away from interrupting it. It is a reminder that local crime reporting has long depended on the small details of a beat officer’s rounds.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.