A Desperate Corral Rescue
A husband is gored by a bull near his home, leading to a harrowing, multi-generational effort to save his life.
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.
F. X. La Bounty was gored and tossed in the air by an enraged bull in a corral near his home at 1228 Ivy Street last evening. His wife, who is 65 years of age, rushed to his assistance and made heroic efforts to save her husband. Noah, their 14-year-old son, attacked the bull with a pitchfork and was compelled to climb the corral fence to save his own life. It has been the usual custom of Mr. La Bounty to carry a pitchfork into the bull pen with him for protection whenever he had occasion to go near the ferocious beast. He fed the animal each night at 6 o'clock and was just about to perform that act when attacked yesterday. Instead of carrying the fork, as was his usual rule, he took a heavy club with him last evening. The fork had been mislaid, and he did not take the trouble to hunt it up. As soon as he entered the corral, the bull charged. He was able to beat the animal off for a few minutes, but finally the bull gained mastery and threw La Bounty about 15 feet in the air. After tossing his victim once, the bull stamped on and bit at him on the ground. Mrs. La Bounty heard her husband's cries and rushed to his assistance, followed by their 14-year-old son, who was armed with a pitchfork. She grasped the bull by the horns and, whether on account of some unnatural strength or because the bull was taken by surprise, she pushed the animal back from the body of her husband. At the same time, the boy attacked the bull with the pitchfork, driving the prongs deep into his side. Enraged by the sudden attack from a new quarter, the animal turned and started after his new foe. The boy was agile and managed to divert the bull's attention long enough to allow his parents to escape from the corral. Mrs. La Bounty dragged her husband's body outside, and then the boy began fighting for time to get over the fence. Finally, when the bull backed to the far side of the corral to make a new rush, the boy climbed to the top of the fence and dropped, panting, on the other side just as the bellowing animal crashed into the fence with a force that nearly broke it down. Mr. La Bounty was taken to the house, where it was found that three of his ribs had been broken close to his backbone. He also sustained serious internal injuries. Physicians give no hope for his recovery.
“She grasped the bull by the horns and, whether on account of some unnatural strength or because the bull was taken by surprise, she pushed the animal back.”
This event took place in the residential neighborhoods of early 20th-century Tacoma, where small-scale urban farming and keeping livestock in backyard corrals were once a common, if dangerous, reality. Today, the area near Ivy Street is fully urbanized, rendering such encounters a bizarre relic of a city that was still transitioning from frontier life to a modern metropolis.
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