The Opium Smuggler in the Beer Hall
A steamship engineer is arrested in a Seattle saloon, highlighting the city's early, tense relationship with the maritime opium trade.
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.
Burns, third assistant engineer of the steamship Dakota, whom we mentioned as having been arrested for smuggling on Tuesday evening, was taken before Justice Snyder, who bound him over to appear before the next Grand Jury. Some ten pounds of opium was found in his possession when captured by Chief Minnick in a beer saloon on Main Street.
“Some ten pounds of opium was found in his possession when captured by Chief Minnick, in a beer saloon on Main street.”
This 1878 account of a steamship worker caught with contraband in a Main Street saloon mirrors the persistent struggle between Seattle’s identity as a bustling international port and the policing of its underground supply chains. While the substances have changed, the tension between legitimate trade and illicit cargo remains a cornerstone of the city's historical narrative.
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