The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1899-06-24
SHOT TOWER RAID
Place That Might Have Graced
the Rue MOrgue
Where Degraded Characters
Live In Filth.
A DINGY BAR ROOM.
Liquor Was Dispensed When
Customers Could Be Found.
Patrol Wagon Filled With Fix
lures Taken to the Station.

Sergeant Belts led a little squad Of
blue coats Friday night which raided
the shot tower on Fourteenth and
Quincy streets and took Lena Wallace
and A. L. Gray to the police station on
the charge of selling liquor.
The old shot tower never was a shot
tower but has been a foundation for
more than one we'll woven story. The
building was built about 40 years ago
by man by the name of Jackson to
be used as a hotel and for a time it was
overland travellers. The tower at the
south end of the two story, rough
stone building was built about % feet
higher than the rest of the building but
wind storm carried it away and since
then the building has been turned over
to colored people and has gone to rack
and ruin.
It was about $50 when Sergeant
Belts and his squad of officers sur
rounded the building. officer Smith
was watching door on the east. Off
Ger Matthews was guarding a stairway
at the south, Officer Lucas was cover
ing a door and stairway on the wes-,
Officer Mcmillan looked after a couple
of windows the north. Sergeant
Belts showed a rickety door open.
Whose dar?" came as challenge
from the inside.
AN officer was the reply.
''Er WHAT"
But by that time the sergeant was in
side and was reading a warrant to a
woman.
My name amt Wallace she said,
as she heard the warrant call for Lena
Wallace and A. L. Gray.
where's Gray?" asked the sergeant.
81 Dunno
The search warrant was read and the
search commenced. The woman fol-
lowed the sergeant up a rickety flight
of stairs by the Pickering light of
smoky coal oil lamp with a chimney
so black that the light could hardly
twinkle through
As the third person stepped on the
stairs they creaked and bent in a
threatening manner.
t'TwO'S de limit on des stairs" said
the woman as she stepped over hole
where step used to be. The third per-
son waited.
At the head of the stairs the sergeant
stopped and looked around. Dirty, din
gy and i'll smelling Railways seemed to
radiate in every direction like the tun-
nels of a prairie dog town.
F'Where is Lena Wallace?" asked the
sergeant of the woman.
Il dunno"
Where is Gray?"
81 dunno"
The sergeant stepped into a room
where most of the plastering had fallen
off and the floor was six inches lower
in the center than on the outside. A
tumbled bed stood in one corner and in
another corner on pile of bed quilts
a man and a child were asleep. The
officer called him and he looked up.
rs your name Gray?"
Eyes sir
where is Lena Wallace?'
There" pointing to the woman who
followed the sergeant.
Il have a warrant for both of you
and must search the house for liquor.
Get up and come down."
The two denied that there was any
liquor in the place and when. the Of
fcers found a paddock on one of the
tel hP
did not have the key.
A couple of strokes from a large two
by four. little prying and the rickety
door fell from its hinges. Up the treach-
erOuS stairs went two of the officers and
in a low ceilinged room with numerous
doors and boarded up windows the Of
ficers found rickety bar, delapidated
ice chest, a key of beer, glasses, pumps
and all.
The bar was about four feet long
and made of fence boards and every
building would do for some of the
spooky places told about by Poe in his
stories of the Rue Morgue.
Rickety tables with well braced and
patched uD legs, old packs of cards
and dice boxes with rickety chairs
standing around the tables gave evil
dence of convivial spirits who, perhaps,
planned all sorts of depredations while
sitting there. Not train robberies for
the people who frequent the place have
not the nerve to do more than petty
thieving.
The beer key, pump and the rest Of
the paraphernalia were taken down and
the patrol wagon sent for. When the
wagon came the prisoners were not
anxious to go.
Use got sick chilluns,' said the wo-
man. 81 KANT leave en-"
Take them with you," replied the
sergeant who was not to be worked by
any tearstained wall about croupy
babies.
BY the time the beer, prisoners. 'sick
chillun'' and officers had clambered into
the patrol wagon it was full. The child
rem seemed to enjoy the ride, but the
two older prisoners were not pleased at
the sight of the Jail although it is ten
times cleaner than the cold shot tower