The Ghost Farm on the Big Bend
A pioneer spends his life building a homestead for his family, only to lose them in a catastrophic train wreck on the day they were to join him.
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.
A covered wagon, drawn by two horses and guided by a solitary driver, pulled out and away from the city of Spokane toward the west. Day after day, he traveled until, in full view of the snow-clad Cascades, he drove his lariat stakes and settled on a claim he felt he might one day call his own. Back in Illinois, a wife prayed for her husband afar in the west. A week later, a small cabin appeared on the Big Bend prairie. By fall, the husband returned to Spokane to mail a hopeful letter: 'You may come in the spring, dear.' Winter passed, and the husband returned to Spokane, sending a wire: 'Come, dear ones, come.' He received the reply: 'Coming, dearest, coming.' The morning papers then carried the headline: 'West-bound express! Twenty lives lost! A list of the dead—yes—mother and child!' The husband staggered and fell. A few days later, his wagon and team were sold at auction. Out on the prairie, not many miles from Waterville, there is an unclaimed quarter section. A homestead was once filed upon it, but it still lies unoccupied and vacant, ready to be jumped without contest.
“A list of the dead—yes—no! Yes—mother and child!”
This heartbreaking dispatch from the Big Bend country reminds us that the narrative of Western settlement was often paid for in profound personal grief. Today, those same vast, quiet landscapes in Douglas County hold the forgotten history of thousands of individual dreams that were abruptly cut short by the perils of pioneer travel.
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