A Nameless End in the Horse Heaven Hills
A stranger is found in a deserted sheep-camp shack, leaving behind no clues, no name, and no family to claim him.
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.
No clue has yet been found to establish the identity of the stranger who was found a week ago Sunday hanging to the rafter of a deserted sheep-camp shack in Horse Heaven. The body, which was found by Mr. Shockley, of the Shockley Sheep company, was brought to this city and buried by I. N. Mueller. There was absolutely nothing on the body to identify it. Mr. Mueller estimates that the man had been dead more than a week when the body was found. It is evident that he had committed suicide, having hung himself with a half-inch rope which he found in the shack.
“There was absolutely nothing on the body to identify it.”
This bleak report from the remote Horse Heaven Hills serves as a reminder of the isolation faced by itinerant workers during the early 20th century. It highlights the vast, sometimes unforgiving landscape of the Columbia Basin that often swallowed the histories of those traveling through.
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