The Waterfront 'Dead Animal' Grift
Seattle's city health authorities discover a morbid, recurring scam involving dead horses and the tides.
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.
A gang of industrious but dishonest fellows in this city have hit upon a singular method of 'raising the wind.' They hunt up dead animals and place them under the wharves in such a position that the tide will not carry them off. Then, the city health officers are hauled up and the task of removing the nuisance is secured for a consideration. A dead horse is a bonanza for the gang, as he can be utilized several times. The health authorities have found out the imposition, and it will be practiced no longer.
“A dead horse is a bonanza for the gang, as he can be utilized several times.”
This grift from the 1889 Seattle waterfront echoes the perennial tension between municipal public services and the opportunistic exploitation of decaying urban infrastructure. While today's city health departments are less likely to be tricked by reused animal corpses, the story highlights a period where the rapidly growing city struggled to manage the waste of a bustling, industrial port.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.