The Strange Case of the Stripped Launch
A stolen gasoline launch turns up downstream, stripped of its parts by 'water joy riders.'
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.
R. L. Banta’s gasoline launch “Gail” which disappeared from its moorings about three weeks ago, has been located and will be returned to the owner by steamer J.N. Teal on her next trip up. The launch was found floating on the Columbia and was brought to land by a man living on Switzler’s Island, about 25 miles down the river. The boat had been stripped of all its fittings and was probably set adrift by the water joy riders who took it from the Banta home.
“The boat had been stripped of all its fittings and was probably set adrift by the water joy riders.”
Recreational theft along the Columbia River has been a local concern for over a century. The use of the term 'water joy riders' captures an early 20th-century anxiety about motorized leisure gone wrong.
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