The Crackdown on Seattle’s Red Light District
Chief Butterfield continues his campaign against 'houses of ill-fame,' arresting operators and patrons as the city forces illicit businesses to vanish from the streets.
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.
Chief Butterfield continued his raid on houses of prostitution last night and placed under arrest four women and two men. The raid was not general, as many of the houses in the prohibited districts had closed their doors and others were showing a disposition to do so. At 11 o'clock the chief, accompanied by Captain Kinley, called at Lou Graham's house, on Jackson street, near Sixth, which was lighted up the same as ever. Lou Graham and two girls, Amy Conway and Lizzie Murdoch, and a steamboatman named F. J. Johnson, were arrested and taken to headquarters. Chief Butterfield, accompanied by Captain Jones and Officer Jackson, then started out to look up other houses that were running. A French woman named Mary La Blanche and a man named T. H. Black were found in a crib on Washington street above Sixth and were sent to headquarters in custody of Officer Jackson. Apparently the raid has had a good effect, for several houses of ill-fame have already left the residence portions of the city and those that remain have taken the red curtains from their windows. They will be given only a short time to move, as it has been decided that they must and shall not remain in their present quarters. It is a noteworthy fact that since the raid the gambling games, which were running at full blast, have been closed.
“They will be given only a short time to move, as it has been decided that they must and shall not remain in their present quarters.”
This reporting captures the moral policing that defined the era's civic management. While the city's approach to the red-light district changed significantly in the following century, the tension between municipal authorities and the 'prohibited districts' remains a foundational element of Seattle's evolving urban identity.
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