The Jailbreak That Failed at Lake Union
A failed escape attempt by three young prisoners leaves a jailer with a gun, a missing saw, and a mystery about who was smuggling tools to the jailbirds.
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.
Port Johnston, a county jail prisoner, was caught while trying to saw his way to liberty yesterday morning. Jailer Pat Farraher took a shot at him, and, though not hit, the jailer captured the saw with which he was cutting the iron bars. At 10 o'clock in the morning, Night Jailer Monroe went home and Day Jailer Farraher went downstairs to let the prisoners out into the corridors. In the east corridor is confined Johnston, sentenced to six months' imprisonment for attempting to commit a robbery. His companions are Eugene Cullity and Kelton, the boy burglars, under sentence for robbing the house of C. W. Carr at Lake Union. When Johnston, Kelton and Cullity were unlocked from their cells, Farraher noticed they looked more than usually bright and cheerful. Farraher kept his eye open and made a memorandum in his head of their surroundings. About 11 o'clock, the jailer slipped into the auditor's office, on the east side of the building, and opened a window. He could hear the voices of the three toughs in the corridor. 'You give me a boost, the window is too high,' whispered Johnston. Johnston was helped to a seat on the high window ledge. After a moment's hesitation, Johnston picked out a rusted bar and commenced sawing. The jailer reached for the revolver in his hip pocket and discharged it right in the face of the astonished prisoner. The bullet lodged in the window sill, while his face was seared with the fiery powder. Johnston rolled backwards into the arms of his two young confederates. In his fright he left the saw in the bar, and the jailer had no difficulty in pulling it out. How the prisoners get the saws is a question which the jailer would thank some person to answer for him.
“How do the prisoners get the saws is a question which the jailer would thank some person to answer for him; or who gives the saws to them is what he would prefer to know.”
In 1891, the King County jail faced recurring security lapses due to 'trusty' systems and outside smuggling, a reminder that the challenges of maintaining secure detention facilities in Seattle have been a persistent administrative headache for over a century.
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