The Haunted Bones of the Wishkah
A local discovery of 'giant' skeletons stirs rumors of an ancient, accursed race in the Aberdeen river valley.
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.
Long years ago, so the legend runs, there dwelt upon the banks of the Wishkah river a race of giants who stalked through the forests. One day, a mighty bird carried a monster fish to the source of the stream, and there left its rotting carcass to pollute the water, causing an epidemic that annihilated the giants. From that time the river was called Wishkah, meaning 'stinking waters.' Recently, Mr. J. C. Fairfield, while digging on his claim at the forks of the river, discovered the skeletons of two of these giants about a foot below the surface. They were nearly complete, with head bones a foot and a half long and teeth set edgewise into the jawbone. Mr. W. M. Ravenfield, a large man who inspected the remains, noted that the jawbone could easily fit over his own. Fairfield has refused to part with the relics, leaving their history an enduring mystery.
“There doubtless lie beneath the waters of the river, and under the mold upon the hills, the bones of many a mighty giant.”
This 1893 tall tale reflects the era's fascination with 'mound builder' myths and the settler-colonial tendency to project ancient, vanished races onto the landscape to replace Indigenous history. Today, the Wishkah remains a central artery of Aberdeen, though modern residents are more likely to find remnants of the timber industry than giants.
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