The Disappearance of Harry Lombard
A sober and industrious logger vanishes into the dense woods near Enumclaw with a fortune in his pocket, sparking a community-wide hunt for a murderer.
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.
Enumclaw, Wash., July 7.—Harry Lombard, an employee of the White River Lumber Company, has mysteriously disappeared on the evening of July 1, about three miles from Enumclaw, and has not been seen since. He had over $400 on his person, a fact generally known among his associates, and it is believed at Enumclaw that he has been killed and robbed. Men going to work met Lombard early in the evening on the way to this place. He was then about three miles out on the road which leads through the woods on his way to town. There are several places in the dense woods between that spot and Enumclaw where Lombard might have met foul play. Lombard had worked for the White River Lumber Company's logging camp for about 18 months. He was sober and industrious and of a saving disposition. Most of the employees at the company had gone to Tacoma to celebrate the Fourth, and Lombard was left in charge of the camp. The suspicion that he might have left the vicinity of his own volition is dismissed as unworthy of belief, for he could not have reached the railroad without being seen, and had no inclination to leave here.
“The suspicion that he might have left the vicinity of his own volition is dismissed as unworthy of belief.”
This 1899 account reflects the vulnerability of itinerant laborers in the logging camps that built Washington's economy. The fear of being 'killed for one's money' in isolated work camps remains a dark undercurrent in the history of labor, reminding us that for many in early Washington, the high cost of living and the accumulation of meager savings made them targets in the wild.
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