A Wife, an Ox Goad, and a Land Feud: Homer Strait Butchered on a Cowlitz County Road
A lawsuit over a piece of land ended in a roadside ambush near Kalama, with Strait's estranged wife wielding an ox goad while her son-in-law emptied a pistol into him.
KALAMA, April 5.—Special.—The coroner returned today from the northeastern part of the county, where he had been to investigate the killing of Homer Strait. The evidence before the coroner's jury showed the killing to be one of the most cold-blooded which has ever occurred in the county. It seems that Strait and his wife had been separated for some time, and she had been living with her son-in-law, Thomas Powell, in the same neighborhood. Powell and Strait had a lawsuit over a piece of land, in which Strait won.
On Monday morning about 7 o'clock Homer Strait and a neighbor named Piper were walking down the county road just east of Strait's house, when they were met by Thomas Powell and Strait's wife. The woman accosted Strait with the remark that she had a crow to pick with him and guessed it was a good time to do it. Then Powell commenced cursing Strait, and pulling a six-shooter fired, striking Strait just above the stomach, the bullet passing through his body. Strait had a small plow rod in his hand, and when Powell fired Strait closed in on him and tried to knock the pistol out of Powell's hands, but the latter succeeded in firing four more shots, none of which took effect. All this time Mrs. Strait had an ox goad about five feet long, with a spike in the end, and was pounding Strait over the head, tearing the scalp at every stroke.
After Powell emptied his pistol he clinched with Strait and both men fell, when Piper separated the men and Strait got up and started home in a dazed condition. After Strait had gone about thirty steps Powell picked up the ox goad and, running up to Strait, knocked him down and beat him into insensibility, and then left him to go and get some cartridges for his pistol. While Powell was gone Piper got Strait's brother and they carried the wounded man into his house, where he died shortly after midnight. Just before he died he regained consciousness and made a statement in accordance with the foregoing. Powell is in hiding. No arrests have yet been made, but the sheriff is on his way out there.
“The evidence before the coroner's jury showed the killing to be one of the most cold-blooded which has ever occurred in the county.”
The killing is a reminder that frontier land disputes were not abstract legal battles; they were settled with guns, grudges and neighbors as witnesses. In a region still arguing over property, water and boundaries, the story rhymes with modern fights over who owns the ground—though today the weapons are more often lawyers and permits than pistols and ox goads.
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