The Lynching of an Innocent Youth in Conconully
An Okanogan boy was snatched from legal custody and murdered by a mob, despite having been granted bail by a court commissioner.
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.
The Ruby Miner of January 6th contains particulars of the arrest of Stephen, the Indian boy who was an accessory to the killing of Freighter Cole, and who was lynched Friday night at Conconully. Justice Price was notified that Stephen was at Omak Lake, on the reservation, and wanted to give himself up. Justice Price found the boy in the church at the lake, surrounded by forty or fifty of his tilicums, and a pow-wow began. It was finally agreed that the boy should be surrendered, and after a preliminary examination, was to be released on bail. The boy was brought in and turned over to the sheriff, who in turn brought him before Justice Fifield at Conconully for a preliminary examination. The court refused to admit the prisoner to bail, and he was returned to the county jail. A habeas corpus writ was immediately sworn out, returnable before Court Commissioner Hurley, who decided that the prisoner was entitled to bail, fixing the amount at $1,000. It seems that the bonds were not furnished. Stephen, who was a slouchy and inoffensive youth, was accompanied to Conconully by old Chief Simitkin, Puka Mika, Omak Charlie and Captain John, his uncle.
“Stephen, who was a slouchy and inoffensive youth, was accompanied to Conconully by old Chief Simitkin, Puka Mika, Omak Charlie and Captain John, his uncle.”
This 1891 account of vigilante violence in Okanogan County highlights the long history of frontier lawlessness and systemic failure to provide due process to Indigenous people in Washington State. It serves as a stark reminder of how state power and mob violence often conspired to deny justice, a dynamic that continues to be examined in modern investigations of historic crimes.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.