A One-Woman War on Coyotes
When her livestock was threatened, a Richland woman stood her ground against a predatory intruder with nothing but a club and an ax.
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Richland has had quite a lull from coyote excitement for some time past, but now comes Mrs. S. P. McDaniels of the Fruitvale district with one of the most hair-raising tales of the entire bunch. Monday, all the men folks on the McDaniels ranch were absent, and Mrs. McDaniels was alone. On looking out the window during the afternoon, she spied a coyote among her flock of chickens and immediately took after it. The beast decided to fight, driving the lady back into the house, where she armed herself with a club and an ax. She found him doing deadly damage to her prize geese. Mrs. McDaniels drove him through a wire fence into a ten-acre field with no exit. There, she ran him into a corner and, throwing the club with all her force, struck him such a blow that he fell stunned. She missed with her first ax swing and fell, but even from the ground, she managed to dispatch the brute. Her husband arrived home just in time to assist her, as the brave woman finally gave way to a well-earned spell of nerves.
“Throwing the club with all her force (men folks to the contrary notwithstanding) hit the coyote such a blow that he fell over stunned.”
Conflicts between agricultural interests and local predators remain a recurring theme in the semi-rural outskirts of the Tri-Cities. While today's residents might call Animal Control, the story highlights the era's reliance on self-reliance and the harsh realities of keeping livestock in the expanding Columbia Basin.
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