The Great Yakima Duck Caper
A wild northern bird is lassoed in the middle of town by electric light, leading to a spectacle at the local hotel.
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.
Cougars and bears have been lassoed in the Yakima country, but it remained for J. Lovell Smith and E. M. Reed to lariat a wild duck on Yakima Avenue, which was done Wednesday night by electric light. The duck is of a species foreign to this country, and Marshal McMurtry pronounces it one of the great northern divers, of the Hudson Bay country. It is a beauty, and is now on exhibition at the Hotel Yakima, where it is visited daily by many people who admire its handsome plumage and delicate marking. It is not known how the bird got to Yakima, but the concensus of opinion is that it heard of this fertile country and our wonderful productions, and was looking around for a suitable business lot on which to start a duck factory.
“It heard of this fertile country and our wonderful productions, and was looking around for a suitable business lot on which to start a duck factory.”
The absurdity of lassoing a migratory bird under newly installed electric streetlights serves as a charming snapshot of a frontier town transitioning into a modern, bustling municipality. It captures the unique, small-town booster spirit of early Yakima.
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