Five Hundred Sheep, One Embankment, and a $2,000 Loss
A herd already sold at $3.40 a head was wiped out near Kiona when the animals piled atop one another in a freak accident.
W. H. PeatroM, the well-known and popular sheepman of the lower county, was a loser to the extent of perhaps $2,000 one day this week. In some unexplained manner 500 head of his sheep were smothered by falling upon one another over an embankment near Kiona, where they were being herded. The particularly unfortunate part of the affair lies in the fact that the sheep had just been sold—though not delivered—the price paid being $3.40 per head. Adding the value of the wool to this sum, the total loss easily approaches $2,000. — Yakima Republic.
“In some unexplained manner 500 head of his sheep were smothered by falling upon one another over an embankment near Kiona, where they were being herded.”
For a late-19th-century Yakima Valley sheepman, a single accident could erase a season’s work—and this one struck after the sale but before delivery. The story is a reminder that the region’s agricultural economy has always been a high-stakes gamble on animals, weather and markets, risks that still shape farming families today.
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