The Ghost of a Tropical Colfax
Deep under an Eastern Washington farm, workers unearth the massive, prehistoric remains of a creature from a forgotten era.
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.
The bones of a huge creature were found Wednesday in a well being dug by Lew Whiting on his Union Flat farm south of Colfax, imbedded in a stratum of sand fifty feet below the surface. They were seemingly as fresh as if they had been there but a few years. Several bones were taken out, one of which, appearing to belong from the knee to foot, measured eight feet in length and was twenty-seven inches in circumference. Mr. Whiting followed up the discovery as far as permissible and the bones of a perfect animal had been traced when he left the well and came to town. He had the bones of one foot, greatly resembling an elephant's, and also a piece of the tusk. The bones of this skeleton, together with other similar bones unearthed throughout Eastern Washington, furnish evidence that the Palouse country was once inhabited by tropical animals of much larger size than any now extant, or else the skeletons were brought here by some remarkable flood or convulsion that took place several years further back than the oldest inhabitant can remember.
“The bones of this skeleton... furnish evidence that the Palouse country was once inhabited by tropical animals.”
Fossil discoveries like this were a frequent subject of wonder in the late 19th-century press, often fueling local speculation about Washington's geologic past. Today, the Palouse remains a site of significant paleontological interest, with its unique loess soil layers continuing to preserve the region's deep history.
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