A Perilous Trip Near Lake Chelan
An advertising agent and his companions narrowly avoid a fatal plunge into a canyon while traveling through the mountains.
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.
Mr. Folsom, the advertising agent of the Great Northern road, and H. L. Peabody, the photographer, were on their trip to the Coast when they met an adventure which began with the grim possibility of tragedy. They were being driven in a double buggy from Lake Chelan to Chelan Falls by Mac Lean, a noted whip of that district, in company with Guy C. Phinney and Willis F. Hale. While climbing a steep hill, the road crept along the side of a canyon. Suddenly, they saw a wheelbarrow that loomed up large against the sky. Folsom stepped out to move it, but slipped and fell headlong over the side of the canyon. His companions gripped a bush, preventing the buggy from following him, though Folsom fell fifteen feet down the slope. After Folsom gathered himself up, the party discovered the owner of the wheelbarrow—a kind man who had been carting lettuce—and their anger dissolved into relief, and they continued on their journey.
“All the curses died upon the lips of the men, and the wrathful expressions of their faces gave place to one of wonder.”
This story captures the precarious nature of travel in Washington's rugged frontier before the advent of modern infrastructure. It also reflects a common trope of the time—using the landscape's danger to add color to the boosters' accounts of expansion.
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