The Lynching of a Teenager in Okanogan
A fifteen-year-old boy, accused of murder, was dragged from a jail cell by a masked mob and executed, igniting a cycle of violence in the Washington territory.
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.
Details of the lynching of the Indian who murdered Freighter Cole have just been received in Coulee City. L. I. Baldwin, of Ruby City, says: Stephen, a cousin of Captain John, who was killed by Deputy Sheriff Ives, came in and gave himself up to the authorities, with the understanding that they should try him for the killing of Teamster Cole by law, as he believed he could prove himself innocent. This was on the 5th of December. On the 7th he was examined, and his bonds were fixed at $1,000. While his relatives and friends were getting bonds, twenty-five masked men at 3 o'clock a.m. on the 8th went to the jail and demanded at the point of their guns the delivery of the prisoner. They took him a half mile below Ruby City, and hung him to a tree. He was not more than 15 years old. The body was sent down to Conconully, above Okanogan bridge, to his tribe for burial. The man who took the remains down had to be guarded on his way back, as the Indians seemed determined to kill him. They say they know some of the parties implicated and they swear vengeance against them.
“They took him a half mile below Ruby City, and hung him to a tree. He was not more than 15 years old.”
This 1891 report from the frontier captures the brutal intersection of vigilante 'justice' and racial conflict in early Washington. The mention of Ruby City and Conconully reminds us that the state's modern map was forged through volatile, often lawless conflicts over land and resources that still haunt the region's history.
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