The Landlady of Cherry Street
A Seattle lodging house keeper is hauled into court after an altercation with a troublesome tenant—a minor dispute that reveals the grit of a changing city.
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.
Mrs. Bandar, a French lodging-house keeper, appeared in Justice Lyon’s Court last evening to answer a charge of assault and battery.
The charge was made by a fellow she had thrown out of her house. After a hearing of the case, the judge discharged the defendant.
“A fellow whom she had thrown out of her house. After a hearing of the case, the judge discharged the defendant.”
Lodging house disputes were a staple of early Seattle’s court records as the city struggled to house a booming population of workers. Today’s headlines about evictions and tenant-landlord conflicts echo these 1885 legal battles, proving that the friction between property owners and those seeking shelter remains a constant in Seattle's history.
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