The Mystery of the Beverly Bridge
A young, well-dressed man is found dead on the Columbia River crossing, leaving behind only a grocery list and haunting questions of foul play.
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.
The body of the unidentified man found on the Beverly bridge has been taken in charge by the coroner at Ellensburg. In a letter to the Spokesman, Mrs. Grace Sinclair, postmaster at Beverly, says: 'There was absolutely nothing left on the body in the way of money or papers and it looks as if he might have met with foul play in the yards at Beverly and the body thrown from a train crossing the bridge, in the hope that it would fall into the Columbia river. There was a freight train out that evening carrying at least three tramps. However, the body just missed going into the river and the half of one hand was cut off. Otherwise the body was not mutilated. The man wore a good, fairly new, leather jacket, soldier trousers underneath overalls, a light hat, good high boots or packs, was light-complected, Swedish type, weighed about 180 pounds and was between 24 and 28 years old. He did not have the appearance of being 'broke,' in fact, he looked like some well-to-do rancher’s boy. He was playing pool in Bornfield’s in the early evening, so I am told, so he must have had money then. He had put on an old reddish 'mack' over his jacket to ride in and there were mittens in his pockets; also a grocery list bearing the name 'Mrs. Roberts' and that was absolutely all there was left in his pockets. There are several Roberts near White Bluffs and Wahluke and I thought you might help in locating him.'
“There was absolutely nothing left on the body in the way of money or papers and it looks as if he might have met with foul play.”
The Beverly Bridge, once a vital artery for the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railroad, is now a desolate remnant of a bygone era of regional transit. This cold-case account captures the era's transient anxieties, where a person could disappear between towns, leaving behind nothing but a name on a scrap of paper.
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