The Rampage of the Mad Coyote
A rabid beast terrorizes local farms and breaks up a neighborhood baseball game before being put down.
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 mad coyote ran amuck at the John Hauser ranch Sunday, causing considerable alarm among the ranchers in that vicinity. The beast was very rabid and as Mr. Hauser had no gun in the house, he threw a large stone at it. The animal picked up the stone in its mouth and charged round the farm, breaking through chicken fences and snapping at the horses. It was finally driven away and made for the Blaker farm, incidentally breaking up a game of baseball among the boys of that neighborhood. The beast was finally shot by Joseph Lindskog. Whether or not any damage was done to stock before it was killed remains to be seen as it was one of the worst specimens of mad coyote encountered in the valley this winter.
“The animal picked up the stone in its mouth and charged round the farm, breaking through chicken fences and snapping at the horses.”
Rabies was a constant, terrifying threat to the rural lives of 1917 settlers, requiring local vigilance and prompt intervention. Today, while vaccine protocols have mitigated the terror, wildlife-human encounters remain a common point of friction in the rapidly expanding semi-rural landscape of the Tri-Cities.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.