The 'Dead Line' at the San Francisco Store
Before it became a retail hub, the basement of the San Francisco store in Seattle served as a federal jail where prisoners waited for trial while playing cards and bartering for tobacco.
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.
Yesterday afternoon, a reporter of the Post-Intelligencer visited the basement of the San Francisco store, where the United States prisoners, fourteen in number, are confined, awaiting trial at the next term of court. The men are confined in one of the center basements of the building, which is heated by a large coal stove and lighted by gas. The ventilation is not good, but the prisoners do not seem to care. A rope, stretched across the room two and a half feet from the floor, serves as a partition, and is called by the prisoners a 'dead line,' as the guards notified them that anyone crossing that line must leave hope behind. When the reporter called, all of the men were playing 'euchre' for tobacco and seemed perfectly contented with their quarters. 'Who is that young fellow walking about the room in his shirt sleeves, with a red, white and blue jockey cap on?' asked the reporter of Bishop Rogers, who has charge of the prisoners. 'That,' he replied, 'is the young man who was arrested in Seattle some months ago on a charge of smuggling. He claims to be part Japanese, and is as smart as a whip. He has employed a fine lawyer to defend him, and has every confidence that he will get out.'
“A rope, stretched across the room two and a half feet from the floor, serves as a partition, and is called by the prisoners a 'dead line,' as the guards notified them that anyone crossing that line must leave hope behind.”
In 1887, Pioneer Square was the heart of Seattle's civic and carceral life, with 'The San Francisco Store' at the corner of Commercial and Washington streets housing federal detainees. Today, this location is in the historic Pioneer Square district; the building that once functioned as a makeshift jail is a reminder of how the city's commercial core historically blurred the lines between retail, law enforcement, and municipal power.
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