The Nahcotta Bear Fighter
A meat market man from the coast fends off an angry mother bear using only his boot.
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.
Osborne Goulter, a meat market operator from Nahcotta, has become a local sensation after surviving an encounter with a mother bear. While traversing a dense thicket near Oysterville, Goulter stumbled upon a mother bear and her cubs. When the bear charged, the thick brush prevented him from running, forcing him to stand his ground. Goulter landed a kick squarely on the animal's snout with the toe of his shoe, causing the bear to retreat into the woods.
“Instead of renewing the fight, the bear turned and made a beeline for taller timber.”
This story captures the 'rugged frontier' mythos that defined Washington state journalism in the early 1900s, turning a terrifying wildlife encounter into a humorous tall tale for the local press.
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