Pacific County’s jail was no Alcatraz. Its solitary jail cell sometimes went a year between residents. And yet this book was remarkably satisfying. It showed the bad side of the good old days. Sydney Stevens was given access to a jailhouse book that recorded inmates in the coastal county from 1886 to 1919. The era was not overly dramatic nor was the region a hotbed of criminal activity, but speculation and stories of people caught doing bad things seem appropriate to a remote area in post-pioneering times.

There is little detail in the official records beyond the names and dates of incarcerations but Stevens manages to insert plenty of related history between the lines from newspaper clippings or old-timer reminiscences. In many cases inmates were briefly held in the jail then vanished from the historic record altogether. In others, the criminal or the court case lingered in community memories much longer than their sentenced time.

One crime involved the disappearance of a husband and wife. The murderers planted clues in an attempt to fool authorities that the unlucky couple had gone out on the bay and drowned after their boat capsized. The bodies were found buried on their own land, one in a pig pen. The murder of Oscar Bloom by Lum You led to a hanging in 1902, despite several months in which You was given ample opportunity to walk out of his intentionally unlocked jail cell and flee the county. He ran away during one opportunity but turned himself in, one version of the story goes, so he wouldn’t cause his jailers any trouble.

The county during this period was traversed by men from other states and countries looking for work in lumber camps or fishing boats. They gambled, tussled, and drank. The reasons for incarcerations varied. In addition to the murders, many of the men were locked up for assault, drunkenness, forgery, or theft. Women, too, spent time in the “jailplace,” often for vagrancy or lewdness — both euphemisms for prostitution — but also for assault and being “incorrigible.” Of the 590 inmates in the Pacific County jailbook, only about three dozen were women. Men and women, especially in the later years covered within this book, transferred to other institutions built to handle greater transgressions in Walla Walla or Steilacoom.

As the book’s tales of crime and punishment advanced, we got a glimpse of the changing economic and political face of the county. Included among the stories was the infamous 1893 raid in which men from South Bend paddled across the bay to Oysterville and forcibly confiscated the county records, thus taking the government itself after Oysterville lost the election for county seat.

Shelf Appeal: Readers interested in short stories of early law and order will enjoy this book. Fans of local history on Washington’s southwest coast will as well. It was a curious pleasure to read.

-- I wrote this review for the Books section of a Washington state website: http://www.WA-List.com