The Tragedy of the Forgotten Pallet
Police discover the body of a man in a squalid Seattle boarding spot, highlighting the grim conditions faced by laborers in a rapidly growing, exclusionary 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.
That the white people hold up to execution the Chinese for their filthy habits, though the decencies of civilization were generally thought to have been retarded by them, was a false tendency as applied indiscriminately to the race. This is shown by the following: In one of these cabins, between Commercial and Maynard streets, the partially decomposed body of a Chinaman was discovered by the police on Saturday morning. It was lying on the floor on a miserable pallet of straw, with the face downwards, the head not being over two feet from a stove. It is thought this stove had been hot as it was being used by two Orientals, who apparently made the place their home for cooking purposes. The consequence was that the room was filled with a terrible, stifling stench, which is scarcely describable. On inquiry it was ascertained that the man had been dead for four days and that it was their intention to bury the body yesterday. The police visited the place last evening to see if this had been done and found the deceased still there, the other two having departed. It is probable that the man will have to be buried today at the expense of the county.
“It is probable that the man will have to be buried today at the expense of the county.”
This 1885 account of a lonely death in a squalid dwelling between Commercial and Maynard streets (now part of the International District) captures the dehumanizing conditions forced upon Asian laborers in late 19th-century Seattle. Today, the struggle for dignified, affordable housing remains a core tension in the same blocks, echoing the precariousness of those who built the city's early infrastructure.
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