Searching for the Wenatchee Mines
An expedition returns to Olympia after failing to reach the mountains, but reports finding vast, promising new territory.
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.
Messrs. De Lacy, Blankenship, Longmire, and Packwood have returned from their expedition to discover a route to the Wenatchee mines and made a report to a meeting of our citizens on Wednesday evening. They reported that their provisions becoming low, they were compelled to return. They had succeeded in penetrating farther than before attempted by white men, and found as fine a section of country as is known upon the coast. The meeting adjourned to meet today (Saturday) at 1 o'clock, to take further steps in regard to opening a trail.
“They had succeeded in penetrating farther than before attempted by white men, and found as fine a section of country as is known upon the coast.”
Longmire and his companions were part of the early wave of prospectors and surveyors who paved the way for the development of Washington's interior. Today, their 'explorations' represent the beginning of the era of colonial extraction that defined the state's resource-based economy for over a century.
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