The Roslyn Wedding Brawl
A double wedding in the Hungarian quarter of Roslyn devolved into a chaotic riot involving knives and heavy drinking.
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 Hungarian portion of the city was the scene of a wild orgy Monday, the occasion being a double wedding among the denizens. Beer and liquor flowed freely, and a general fight ensued in which knives were used and several of the crowd badly cut. One of the bridegrooms and several of the alleged merrymakers were locked up overnight in the city jail and will be given a hearing in the police court.
“Beer and liquor flowed freely, and a general fight ensued in which knives were used.”
Roslyn, a historic mining town, was known for its culturally distinct immigrant communities. This report reflects the typical, often alarmist, tone 19th-century newspapers used to describe the lives and social frictions of immigrant workers, a common struggle for visibility and nuance in the early days of Washington state labor history.
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