The Great Rabbit Drive: Blood, Snow, and the Hunt for Sport in Yakima
Hundreds of men, boys, and ladies converged on a four-mile line to corral hundreds of jackrabbits into a killing field, resulting in more broken bones than dead rabbits.
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.
North Yakima, Jan. 28.
Last Tuesday everybody, with his rifles, canes and ants, turned out foot, horseback and by carriage to the great 'rabbit drive.' The festive jack-rabbit was enclosed within four mile lines of abating men, yeasty boys and cheering ladies, and by the convergent lines, forced into the large prepared pits on the hills west of the town. A great multitude of 'jacks' were corralled. The boys and men rushed into the prison with sticks and clubs. Strokes were made thick and fast, but the agile rabbit was equal to the emergency, so that there were more barked shins, broken feet and bloody noses than slow victims on the ground as evidence of the prowess of rabbit hunters.
Meanwhile, Hewlett, Eshelman and Whitson are about erecting a three-story brick on the corner of Second street and Yakima avenue, the lower portion for stores, the second for offices, and the third story to be elaborately decorated and furnished for the Yakima Club, a social club, containing a number of our best and most energetic men, organized here on the plan and after the model of social clubs in other cities. As soon as completed, we will have fitting rooms to entertain the representatives of the press on their welcome visit to North Yakima.
Thursday evening our citizens held a large mass meeting in the city hall, and, somewhat provoked at the delays of congress, passed resolutions calling on Gov. Sample to issue a proclamation calling a constitutional convention May 2. The citizens of North Yakima, in view of the convention being held east of the mountains, offered the many advantages and conveniences of this city for such purpose. Of course they do not wish to detract or draw any privileges or rights from Olympia but as many ask that such convention be held east of the mountains, the citizens of this place, knowing that no place would be as acceptable and convenient to the territory at-large, freely offer the many facilities and advantages of North Yakima for such purpose.
The telephone company will soon be prepared to stretch their wires over the city. Transfers of city and outside lands are being made every day. Our land-holders are adopting a good policy, as special rates and privileges are given the actual incoming settler. Speculators we do not desire, but intelligent farmers of good bone and muscle to help build up and open out Central Washington.
This account captures the rough-and-tumble spirit of early Yakima, where civic life was defined by both brutal sporting traditions like rabbit drives and serious political maneuvering for statehood. The juxtaposition of bloody recreational violence with the polite formation of a 'Yakima Club' mirrors the dual nature of frontier towns: simultaneously rugged and striving for genteel respectability.
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