The Mail Must Go Through
When the routes to White Bluffs were severed, the isolated town pooled their resources to retrieve the mail.
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.
Cut off from the outside by the principal route of travel, the great White Bluffs country stood the strain until Sunday, and then in unison called for mail. In a little while $25 was contributed to defray the expense of a trip to Kennewick early Monday morning. Max Priebe and Barber Graham started on their 100-mile round-trip journey. Five hours out of town they met Manager Vibber of the steamboat company bringing in the mail. The special messengers continued on their way, returning Wednesday afternoon.
“In a little while $25 was contributed to defray the expense of a trip to Kennewick early Monday morning.”
Isolation remains a recurring theme for the former White Bluffs townsite, which was ultimately erased by the Hanford nuclear project. In the 1920s, a $25 crowdfunded rescue mission for the mail highlights the sheer physical precariousness of rural life before regional infrastructure was fully stabilized.
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