The Fifteen-Year-Old Hunter of Avondale
A teenage boy fells a massive black bear with two shots in the woods near Avondale.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Frank Seidel, connected with the local United States district court office, has at his home the skin of a large black bear. The brute was killed several days ago by Frank Seidel, Jr., aged 15, near Avondale. The boy was driving several horses to pasture when he was attracted by noises in a thicket not far away. He unslung his rifle and advanced. When about thirty paces away, he saw the cause of the disturbance to be a monstrous black bear. He coolly took aim and the brute fell, pierced through the heart by a lead bullet. He struggled to his feet, seemingly only stunned, and the boy fired another shot through the animal's head, killing him instantly. The boy then returned home and reported the event. It was all four men could do to get the carcass into a wagon.
“He coolly took aim and the brute fell, pierced through the heart by a lead bullet.”
Avondale was a rural area in what is now Redmond/Woodinville. While bear sightings still occur in the region, the transformation of this wilderness into a sprawling suburban corridor makes such an encounter near a home feel like a relic of a frontier past.
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