Tragedy on the Log Booms
A young boy drowns in the slough near Weatherwax's logging works.
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.
Yesterday afternoon, while a number of boys were playing on the logs in Weatherwax's boom, Stanley Wiltsie, a boy about eight years old, and Bobby Cochran fell into the slough that comes into the bay at that point. Bobby Cochran was rescued by Henry Sagendorf, who held a stick out to him; but in the meantime, young Wiltsie sank, and his body was not recovered until it had been in the water more than a half-hour. All efforts at resuscitation proved fruitless. Young Wiltsie was the only child of his widowed mother, Mrs. Wiltsie, who is a sister of Mrs. Ed. Schofield. She was working at the boom up the Wishkah River and knew nothing of the dreadful accident until Mr. Schofield went up the river after her. The funeral will take place this afternoon at 4 o'clock.
“Young Wiltsie was the only child of his widowed mother... who knew nothing of the dreadful accident until Mr. Schofield went up the river after her.”
Log booms were the literal lifeblood of early Aberdeen, but they were also incredibly dangerous playgrounds for children. Today, the sloughs of the Chehalis and Wishkah rivers have been largely reclaimed or industrialized, but the memory of the town's industrial risks remains central to local history.
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