The Unluckiest Ranch Hand in White Bluffs
After surviving four freak accidents, one local worker finally decided his employer's ranch was cursed.
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.
Rolfe Anderson, who has been employed on a ranch out west of town for the past two or three months, nearly broke both legs last week when, according to his account, he attempted to start the gasoline engine on the place and it back-fired on him. Both feet slid out from under him at the same time and got tangled in some manner with the fly wheel of the engine, wrenching both legs badly. This is the fourth accident to happen to him since he went out there, and figuring the ranch was either a hoodoo to him or he to it, he handed in his resignation to the owners and left Monday for Seattle, where he expects to reside permanently.
“Figuring the ranch was either a hoodoo to him or he to it, he handed in his resignation.”
Gasoline engines and early farm machinery were notoriously dangerous, often turning manual labor into a gauntlet of life-altering hazards. While workplace safety regulations eventually curbed the worst of these risks, the 'jinxed' feeling of a laborer struggling against temperamental, unforgiving equipment remains a familiar narrative of the hard-scrabble industrial frontier.
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