100 years ago in Spokane: Former justice of peace on trial for murder says he was trying to clean up lumberjack town

Charles A. Palmer, on trial for murder, said that the ill will that resulted in the shooting began back in the days when he was the justice of the peace in the little logging town of Milan, just north of Spokane.

He said that when he took the office, Milan “was a lumberjack town (and) the lumberjacks had always run it as they pleased and would continue to do so.”

He tried to clean the town up by enforcing the Sunday closure law and the laws against slot machines and other saloon nuisances. All he managed to do was rile up some of the rowdy elements in town.

A few days before the shooting, a woman accused him of spreading unsavory stories about her. Two of her relatives angrily confronted him. From that point on, Palmer began carrying a pistol.

On the night of the shooting, Palmer went out to check on a poolroom-barbershop in a building he rented to a third party. When he arrived, he found a teenager dead drunk on the floor. Rowdy, drunken teens and adults were present.

He said he expressed his disapproval. The drunken men acted threateningly. Palmer decided he should leave and when he got to the porch, some of the men grabbed him. One of them pinioned him to a post. Others kneed him and grabbed him around the throat.

One of the men, Nels Verbeck, said (according to Palmer), “We have waited years for a chance like this, now don’t let him get away.”

Palmer testified that he managed to squirm loose, get his hand in his pocket, grab his revolver and fire. Then he turned and left, not knowing who he had shot. As it turned out, he had shot and killed George Verbeck and wounded Nels Verbeck, who later died.

A witness later heard Palmer say, “It’s a damned shame I didn’t get the right ones.”