The College Men Who Rode the Rails to Spokane
Two Washington State College students recount their harrowing, freezing, and impromptu journey atop a freight train to Spokane in search of adventure.
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.
Two college men from the State College of Washington (now WSU) decided on a Friday night in March to ride the local freight train to Spokane, a journey of some ninety miles. Embarking on a whim, the two students—'Ralph,' a husky two-hundred-pounder, and his smaller companion—faced the biting cold of early spring. Upon arriving at the depot, they found no empty cars and resorted to climbing atop the frost-covered freight cars. Throughout the night, they faced freezing temperatures, the threat of being discovered by a 'shack' (brakeman), and the constant mental agony of riding atop a car of shifting logs. After negotiating a fare of a dollar and fifteen cents with the brakeman, the duo survived the ordeal, finally arriving in Spokane at dawn, numb and exhausted, having experienced firsthand the 'goddess of Adventure' they had so long sought.
“That night so impressed itself upon me that I can live it over at this moment, the fire of the furnace flaring forth at times to pierce the clouds of steam ever above the engine.”
Freight train hopping was a common, if dangerous, rite of passage for many in the early 20th-century Northwest, reflecting a mobility that often contrasted with the rigid societal expectations of the time. While the 'hobo' lifestyle is largely romanticized in this account, it mirrors contemporary discussions about youth travel culture and the persistent, if precarious, freedom of movement in the American West.
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