More about Santa Rosa in the summer of 1925. See INTRO for overview and index.
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In the pages of old newspapers there are stories you will not expect, nor easily forget. Some stray into Believe-it-or-Not! territory; a 30 year-old laborer who died of drinking too much cold water (July 21 1922) or the Cotati couple that tied up a dinner guest with wire after he began acting crazy, yet didn’t take him to the police until the next day (Nov. 18, 1907 – LINK). The story found below isn’t as dramatic as those, but I found it an intriguing glimpse of attitudes here a century ago. Plus, the writing’s better than what usually appeared in the Press Democrat.
The story involved hoboes and Santa Rosa’s surprising tolerance for them in that era – a subject explored earlier in a piece about the situation in 1931. Like then, in July 1925 they mostly hung out at Depot Park in Railroad Square during the day rather than loafing around their hobo jungles. The reporter called them the “Vulture” gang for their practice of getting town visitors pass-out drunk and then robbing them. They preyed upon unsophisticated farmworkers who were easy to spot: “As soon as they come to Santa Rosa, they equip themselves with new blue shirts and overalls, and then go out to see the sights,” the PD article said. The hoboes would befriend the trusting soul – in this case, a guy here from Inverness – and get him ripped on denatured alcohol, Sterno or the like. A policeman saw what was going on and chased the hobos away, but was unable to convince the fellow that his new friends were up to no good. The story reads like a particularly unpleasant Aesop’s Fable. Why did the Santa Rosa policeman not arrest the hoboes? The article is clear their scam was well known and here they were, caught in the act. Mr. Inverness believed the cop’s warning yet returned to the company of the men he knew intended to rob him. Why would anyone do that? |
Police are aided in looking to the safety of the men who usually fall victims to the Vultures by their almost uniform habit of purchasing new clothing before they start out to see the city. As soon as they come to Santa Rosa, they equip themselves with new blue shirts and overalls, and then go out to see the sights.
Eventually their wanderings bring them somewhere in the vicinity of the railroad tracks, where the Vultures lay in wait. These are of the common hobo breed, who court the acquaintance of the wearers of new blue shirts. Conversation leads to companionship, companionship to drinks of illicit liquor; bad whisky, sour wine or even denatured alcohol, flavored with extract of peppermint or other essence to kill the sickening taste.
When the liquor does its work and the victim falls asleep, Vultures “lift his roll” and disappear. The victim awakens, dazed and sick; recovers, finds his money gone and returns to the hills to work and save again.
The operations of these false friends are known to police, and whenever they can the officers prevent the fleecing.
Patrolman Emil Biavaschi the other day saved a ranch hand the loss of $100 by his watchfulness as he saw a pair of hoboes gliding up to a man in a new blue shirt and overalls in the railroad park on Wilson street. Biavaschi watched while the Vultures opened a conversation with their intended victim, but when the worker began to doze the officer thought it time to act.
The vagrants ran as Biavaschi approached. The ranch hand, at first resisting the kind offices of the patrolman, finally softened and realized his position. He had in his pocket a $160 roll of greenbacks; on the advice of the officer he placed $100 of it in the care of a clerk at a lower Fourth street hotel. Then he went back to the “danger zone.”
Biavaschi saw the man, a worker from Inverness, the next day. The $60 he had retained was gone, and. with shamed face, he was taking the remaining $100 and returning to his work. (July 1)