A Frozen Narrow Escape on the Columbia
A young man breaks through the ice while crossing the river.
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.
Virgil Bickle had a narrow escape from drowning Sunday when he broke through the ice on the Columbia River opposite the Boag place. Floyd Walker grabbed the young man by the hair of his head as he was disappearing under the ice water and pulled him to safety. Aside from a severe cold, Virgil suffered little from his severe bath.
“Floyd Walker grabbed the young man by the hair of his head as he was disappearing under the ice water and pulled him to safety.”
The Columbia River was a central artery for the White Bluffs community, yet its winters remained perilous for those who traversed its frozen surface. Today, the river's character has been fundamentally altered by the Hanford reach and dam systems, making the sight of a frozen, walkable Columbia a relic of a vanished, more rugged landscape.
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