The River's Grimmer Secrets
A gruesome discovery near the Coyote pumping station finally provides a clue to a year-old riverside mystery.
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.
Discovery of a human jawbone in a drift a short way below the Coyote pumping station by Sam Allard of Allard furnished a mystery story this week until it was remembered that the body taken from the river a short distance below during the high water last summer had the lower jaw missing. Dental work consisting of a gold bridge similar to two gold bridges in the upper jaw of the body made the identification as of one person. The remains, nude and in advanced stage of decomposition, were never identified.
“Discovery of a human jawbone... furnished a mystery story this week until it was remembered that the body taken from the river a short distance below... had the lower jaw missing.”
The Columbia River has historically served as both an economic lifeline for White Bluffs and a site of profound loss. This discovery highlights the river's role as a silent witness to unrecorded deaths, a reality that persists in contemporary regional history.
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