LAKEWOOD, Wash. — In the middle of a Lakewood strip mall, a marker that highlights the death place of a Nisqually Chief Leschi was damaged earlier this week.
Chief Leschi was a chief of the Nisqually Indian Tribe of southern Puget Sound.
Due to his participation in the 1855 Yakima Wars, he was charged with the killings of two Washington Territorial Volunteers, and was hanged on February 19, 1858, just 300 yards from where the marker rests, erected by the Pierce County Pioneer and Historical Society in 1963.
Danny Williams has been running the Crossfit 253 gym where the marker has been for the past ten years, and has seen the connection people have to it.
“I do see people come here often,” Williams said. “There’s like five or ten people a week who’ll come by and be out here, and they’ll either be paying their respects, or they’re actually praying.”
But earlier this week, the marker was removed from its foundation, and now sits damaged on its side.
Hweqwidi Hanford McCloud, a member of the Nisqually Tribe and government liaison, hopes that it will be set right soon.
“If you’ve been there long enough, you understand that this is a marker, it’s an historical marker,” McCloud said. “It’s a place marker for the state of Washington, and they need to have a little bit more pride in making sure that these things are taken care of, and not just turning to the Tribe and going, 'Hey are y’all gonna do something about this?'”
Williams also suggested that this could be an opportunity to remember some of the more uplifting aspects of Leschi’s life.
“This is a marking of the Chief being hanged, so to me personally, I don’t know if that’s the best thing to mark,” he said. “Is there something more positive that could be marked? And of course having the tribe involved, that would be something I think would be more positive.”
The City of Lakewood says since the marker is not city-owned, it’s not Lakewood’s responsibility to fix it. That responsibility would fall on the owner of the strip mall where the marker is located.