The Hanford Coyote Scare
A bold coyote invades a residential fence line, bites local dogs, and sparks a small-town manhunt.
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.
Tuesday was a red-letter day in Hanford. Frank Goodell and John Loson were talking together over the Goodell fence when a coyote made its appearance, straying towards them. As the animal did not look mad, Mr. Goodell unchained his dog, but the coyote, after biting the dog, left for fresh pasture, coming around through the yard again before Mr. Loson could return from home, where he had gone to get his gun. The gun refused to work, anyway, so Mr. Coyote got away. Meantime, T. de Lacey Moffat looked out and saw a coyote on one side of the fence and his dog on the other, saw the dog get bitten through the lip, secured a gun and succeeded in wounding the coyote, which ran, pursued by Mr. Moffat, who finally killed it after its having bitten the Dereigo dog. We are now all afraid to appear on the streets.
“We are now all afraid to appear on the streets.”
While coyotes are still common in the shrub-steppe of the Hanford Reach, this 1917 account captures a specific era of frontier anxiety where predator control was a neighborly duty. The tone of the report highlights how a simple animal encounter could quickly become the talk of the town in a small, isolated community.
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