Adrift and Lost: Four Young People Missing for Two Days on Puget Sound
A weekend trip on the launch 'Babe' ends with a 48-hour ordeal, a grounding at Point Robinson, and a tense search by parents and deputies.
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.
While relatives and friends, aided by Deputy Sheriffs Doten and Warren, were yesterday searching every imaginable place on Puget Sound for Miss Lillian La Victory, Miss Norma Smith, William Stevens, and Joseph DeLangevin, the four young people, who had been missing from their homes since Friday night, were at Stone's Landing quietly enjoying themselves, after having spent nearly 48 hours adrift on the bay and in tramping through the woods. The party went to the bay Friday evening for a trip in the launch 'Babe,' owned by Mr. Stevens. After reaching a point near the St. Paul mill dock, the engine broke down. The boat was carried by the tide from the St. Paul dock to Dash Point, and from there the wind drove the craft across the Sound to Point Robinson, where it went aground. They had been in the boat 10 hours without food or water and were famished. They began walking toward Stone's Landing, which was about seven miles away. Arriving at the Landing, they went to a hotel and secured accommodations. While the fathers of the two girls had been out on the Sound searching, the group was found sitting on the wharf at Stone's Landing, contentedly fishing. They returned to the city with the search party.
“Upon reaching the Landing, however, they found the lost ones sitting on the wharf, contentedly fishing.”
The precarious nature of Puget Sound boating remains a constant in Tacoma life. While modern GPS and cell phones prevent 48-hour disappearances for weekend joyriders, the geography of the Sound—where a sudden engine failure can still land a boat on the far shore—remains as unforgiving as it was in 1904.
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