A Near-Fatal Ferry Disaster
A young couple headed to Pasco to get their marriage license survived a harrowing plunge into the Columbia River when their car went off the ferry dock.
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.
Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Ross and their daughter Elsie and Carol Harding of Richland had a narrow escape from drowning in the Columbia river on Saturday, when Mr. Ross drove his new Maxwell over the side of the Kennewick-Pasco ferry. Mr. Ross had had his car only a few weeks and in attempting to board the ferry at the Kennewick docks, he was unable to stop the machine and it turned turtle over the boat's side into ten feet of water. That some one of the party was not drowned was due to the presence of mind and heroic efforts of Lee Powell, ferry engineer. The car had hardly hit the water when Powell, who is an excellent swimmer, dove after it. By repeated diving and with the assistance of G. C. Clark and a rowboat, he not only rescued the occupants of the car but attached a rope to the rear axle of the car and prevented it floating down the river. The bedraggled party were taken to a nearby camp where they were provided with dry clothing before being brought into town. The party was en route to Pasco to secure a marriage license for Ina Ross and Mr. Harding, who were to have been married the following day.
“The car had hardly hit the water, when Powell, who is an excellent swimmer, dove after it.”
The Kennewick-Pasco ferry was once the critical link across the Columbia River before the construction of permanent bridges. Today, that crossing is handled by modern highway infrastructure, but the perilous nature of early 20th-century travel across the river remains a part of the region's pioneering folklore.
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