Four Drown at Wild Goose Bill Ferry
A ferry accident on the Columbia River leaves four men dead as their wives watch helplessly from the shore.
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.
Word was received here Wednesday of a terrible accident resulting in the drowning of four men that occurred Tuesday at the Wild Goose Bill ferry crossing on the Columbia River. Borland Rich Webber of Pine Creek had started out a few days before for the Big Bend to secure employment in the harvest fields, accompanied by their wives, an assistant, and a head of horses. Tuesday morning, the wives were first taken over, and then the two Webbers and the hired man returned for the horses. The ferry started back heavily loaded, but in the middle of the stream, the guy ropes broke, leaving the boat at the mercy of the swift and treacherous current. It floated down stream four or five miles and sank in the rapids, where all four men found a watery grave. The accident occurred before the eyes of the distracted wives, who had no means of lending assistance.
“It is another of those awful tragedies that have been altogether too common on the Columbia river in past years.”
The 'Wild Goose Bill' ferry was a vital, albeit dangerous, piece of infrastructure in the early 20th-century Okanogan. Today, the Columbia is heavily dammed in this region, turning the 'treacherous current' into a series of calm reservoirs, fundamentally altering the geography that once dictated life and death for travelers.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.