A Drunken Saloon Quarrel Ends in Gunfire at Wilkeson
John Rolog shot fellow miner Mike Metro in the neck at Sam Evans' saloon, then fled to the hills before a posse brought him back to a makeshift cell in a boxcar.
Wilkeson, April 15.—Special.—John Rolog shot Mike Metro about 5:15 o'clock tonight. Both had been quarreling in Sam Evans' saloon. Rolog was pretty well under the influence of liquor. Rolog went away and on his return told several whom he met that he was going to kill Mike Metro. He walked into the saloon, and without warning shot Metro in the right side of the neck, just below the base of the skull. Rolog ran for the hills, but was captured and brought back, and as there was no jail here he was placed in a box car and a strong guard placed around the car. Metro is still alive, but his recovery is very doubtful. He has not regained consciousness. Both are Poles and miners. Rolog was discharged a few days ago.
“He walked into the saloon, and without warning shot Metro in the right side of the neck, just below the base of the skull.”
Wilkeson was a coal town, and its saloons and company jobs were the setting for a very old American story: a grudge, a gun, and a jail improvised out of a boxcar. The detail that the wounded man was a fellow Polish miner and the accused had just been discharged links the violence to the precarious life of extractive-industry work that still shapes rural Washington.
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