Loss Would Have Been Criminal Jail Registers, Wanted Posters Tell Crimes Past

Every lunch hour in the Spokane sheriff’s fleet garage, Rick Dettwiler comes face to face with the criminals of the wild, wild West.

There’s George Webster, the last person publicly hanged outside the Spokane County Courthouse. The Cheney man was jailed May 6, 1897, convicted of shooting to kill, murder in the first-degree. He was hanged six months later.

Justice, or at least punishment, was swift.

In the company of such criminals, Dettwiler gets lost in the past. The fleet manager for the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office, he recently rescued a small mountain of old documents headed for the garbage. The materials now reside in the garage Dettwiler oversees.

The recovered items include large, leatherbound jail registries, newspaper clip files, wanted posters, a file labeled “high class crooks,” old tickets in their envelopes wrapped with ribbons, warrants, moonshine sales receipts, and wire correspondence between sheriffs’ offices.

The ribbon-tied tickets provide a peek at the language of the day, and how some crimes never change.

In 1917, Fred Prescott was ticketed for speeding. The ticket states, in part: “The defendant did willfully and unlawfully drive a motor vehicle, to wit, an automobile, on a public road, to wit, Monroe Street, Spokane County, at a rate of speed greater than one mile in two minutes.” He paid $15 plus costs.

Dettwiler and sheriff’s spokesman Cpl. Dave Reagan are slowly sifting through the items, which look like a year’s worth of reading to them.

The oldest jail registry is dated 1896. Most entries are written in beautiful penmanship. Details are spare and intriguing.

There’s Peter Darcy, jailed in 1902 for defrauding a lodging housekeeper.

That’s all there is. What low-life steals from a housekeeper? Did he steal her heart too?

Headings in the registries include vital statistics, sentence, discharge and remarks. Suspects are often described under the remarks heading and the jailers took pains to draw tattoos or distinguishing marks.

Dettwiler and Reagan have some general observations about the jail registries: The entries, of course, are not “politically correct.” Selling liquor to Indians was a common entry. Men were shorter then. Crime was just as bad then as now.

“What’s going on today was going on then,” Reagan said. “The methods may be different now, with computers and telephones. But the intent is the same - to deprive the unwary of their cash.”

Some crimes are right out of the wild West: highway robbery, cattle rustling and horse theft.

Other charges aren’t so straightforward. “Insanity” was a common listing that must have covered a lot of ground. (What remains the same: The mentally ill are still taken to Medical Lake.)

Juvenile court didn’t exist, of course, and children weren’t coddled.

For example, on Oct. 13, 1902, John Boyle was listed as a runaway. On Oct. 18, he was taken to reform school.

Anna B. Taylor. Her listed offense: Bad girl. Age 15. Taken to reform school.

Some entries make you wonder about the jailer: William Payne was jailed for cattle stealing in 1901. He was sentenced to one year in jail. Remarks: Brown hair, sandy mustache, blue eyes, well-shaped head and good figure.

Some punishments seem to far exceed the crime: Harry Smith was jailed for “steeling Spok. Review.” Sentence: paid one-day cost $5.80.

A 1901-02 jail registry has many, many references to freeholders. Charges such as malicious mischief to freeholders, malicious injury to freeholders, threats to freeholders etc.

Nancy Compau, historian and librarian of the Northwest Room at the Spokane Library, said she is unsure if freeholders simply refers to property owners or if it may somehow be a reference to the 15 freeholders who were appointed to draw up a new city charter for Spokane in 1890-91.

One of the really entertaining finds Dettwiler uncovered is the file of wanted posters. Criminals in the early 1900s look respectable, in suits and ties. Bad guys in the 1930s really look like gangsters.

Allen P. Hall’s wanted poster describes him in part as: inveterate cigar smoker, formerly heavy drinker, fond of women … very neat dresser and fluent talker. He was wanted for embezzlement.

Dettwiler, a history buff who has framed photos of old sheriff’s vehicles and motorcycles on the wall near his office, wants to get cabinets to hold the old documents.

Compau believes the items belong in the regional archive. Richard Hobbs, eastern regional state archivist, called the find exciting news and said he would definitely be taking a look at the materials. Any government records considered archival must be turned over, he said.

Meanwhile, Dettwiler and Reagan continue their tour through Spokane’s law and order history. There’s never a dull moment. In 1933, the city held a safety demonstration, Dettwiler said. Officials hurled a car over the side of the Monroe Street Bridge. It landed on the riverbank and exploded. It was then hauled back up to provide a lesson for citizens.

Drive safely. To wit, stay on the bridge.