A Gridiron Grudge Match
In a tense Thanksgiving football clash, White Bluffs breaks a long-standing tie with Hanford in the final minutes.
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.
In the Thanksgiving game, the 'Fat' Barge put the pep into a fast-tiring White Bluffs team. Hanford consented to his entering the game for the last fifteen minutes of the half. Within six minutes, he kicked a goal and broke the tie that had heretofore existed between the two teams. Hanford was unable to score, the final score being: White Bluffs, 1; Hanford, 0. The first half was even, but the second half saw Hanford playing a more scientific game, though they failed to score when in range. This was the third meeting between the two, with the previous two games resulting in 0-0 ties.
“The closeness of the score held the interest of the crowd to the end.”
This rivalry between the neighboring communities of White Bluffs and Hanford captures a vanished world; both towns were eventually evacuated and dismantled for the Manhattan Project during WWII. The 'scientific game' played in 1916 is a faint echo of the intense community spirit that existed in the valley before the landscape was transformed by the nuclear reservation.
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