The River's Grimmer Harvest
A railroad worker is discovered drowned in the Yakima River, leaving behind only five cents and a trail of labor records from across the West.
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.
Monday afternoon a Northern Pacific engineer, while running his train from Ellensburg to Yakima, discovered the body of a man in the Yakima river just below the first crossing. Coroner Clark was notified and summoning a jury composed of J. A. Haggard, C. W. Liggett, Alex. McLean, John Reed, N. W. Field and L. E. Sperry, made a visit to the scene and securing the body had it conveyed to the undertaking rooms of Lombard & Horsley. Very little evidence could be secured other than that presented by the body and an account book found on the clothes of the deceased, which indicated that the unfortunate man was H. L. Rice, of Mullan, Idaho. The memorandum book bore dates of work having been done from Pennsylvania to Prosser, the last entry having been made on September 26th. Only five cents in money was found upon the body. The jury's verdict was that the deceased came to his death by drowning on or about the 29th day of September, 1892.
“There were bruises on the face and chest which might have been made in falling or by contact with the rocks of the river bed.”
The discovery of a transient laborer’s body in the river is a stark reminder of the hidden human costs of the massive infrastructure and railroad expansion that built Yakima. In a modern context, the vulnerability of migrant and unhoused populations remains a persistent, often ignored, civic tragedy.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.