Tragedy in the Horse Heaven Hills
A wheat rancher dies after being thrown from his wagon on a rough stretch of road.
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.
John Dague, a well-known wheat rancher, was crushed to death under the wheels of a heavily loaded wagon last Saturday evening about 15 miles southwest of Kennewick in the Horse Heaven hills. The rancher’s body was found about 2 o'clock Sunday afternoon by William Lee, a well driller. The position of the body indicates that Dague was pitched from his seat when a front wheel dropped into a deep chuck hole. One wheel passed over his head and shoulder, and undertaker I. N. Mueller stated that death was likely instantaneous. Dague, who was hauling three tons of coal, had been thrown by the rough terrain, and the lines became entangled with the six-horse team, which remained on the spot until Lee discovered the scene twenty hours later. Funeral services were held by the I.O.O.F. lodge, and he was laid to rest in Walla Walla.
“The road at this point is steep and badly cut up and the fact that the wagon did not catapult down the hill after the driver was thrown was due to the deep dust and ruts.”
The Horse Heaven Hills remain a rugged, unforgiving landscape. While modern farming has introduced safer machinery and better roads, the isolation that made Dague’s accident so fatal—leaving him undiscovered for nearly a day—remains a reality for those working in the expansive, remote wheat fields of Benton County.
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