A Young Girl Vanishes from a Spokane Variety Theater
A teenage girl is missing after being allegedly coerced into a variety theater, sparking a public outcry and exposing local police corruption.
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 supposed abduction of Lillie Wirt, a young girl of 15, has suddenly developed into the sensation of this city. She left Philadelphia for Wardner, Idaho, to join her aunt, Mrs. Taylor. The latter arrived there on the 4th inst., and has since been trying to untangle the mystery of her niece's disappearance. It is learned that the lady arrived here on the 2nd of January and was deluded into a variety theater with her niece by a man named Brooks and his wife. It is further learned that the girl was put out at Hotel Richelieu under close guard by Brooks, and was generally in a state of terror or violent weeping. It is said that Brooks and his wife left here last Saturday, taking the girl with them, and their whereabouts are unknown. The Ladies' Benevolent Society has taken the matter in hand and submitted a statement of the case to the city council today. Mrs. Taylor's experience with the police force has likewise been a revelation and has resulted in the temporary suspension from duty of Officer Blackheart and Jailer Gough. Mrs. Taylor declares that Blackheart charged her $10 for his services and then advised her to return to Wardner and let the girl go.
“The case is so appalling in all its aspects that we believe all the resources of our city and of the state of Washington should be called into action.”
This 1891 report of a missing minor and the subsequent suspicion of police complicity illustrates the era's reliance on 'variety theaters' as sites of social anxiety and moral panic. The intersection of vulnerable young women, 'variety' entertainment, and allegedly corrupt municipal policing remains a recurring theme in the history of urban Pacific Northwest labor and social control.
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