The Discovery in the Post-Hole
While digging for a fence on the Puyallup Reservation, an unexpected find pulls a prehistoric giant from the earth.
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.
A few days ago, several Indians on the Puyallup Reservation, across the bay, were digging post holes after the manner of white men when they struck something hard. Their imagination became excited and they dug furiously, only to be disappointed to find a bone. Dr. Carter, the reservation physician, heard of the incident and procured the bone. It was quite a find. Dr. Carter pronounced the bone, upon investigation, to be the tusk of a mastodon. The tusk is partly hollow and about three feet long. Its abrupt termination indicates that it was much longer, probably between five and six feet. The tusk is about five inches through in its thickest part and is discolored with age.
“The primitive imagination became excited and the Indians dug furiously. They were disappointed to find imbedded in the virgin earth only a bone.”
Long before Seattle became a sprawling metropolis, the Puyallup Valley served as a graveyard for the megafauna of the Pleistocene. Today, the rapid pace of residential and industrial development in the region continues to unearth such historical—and prehistoric—remnants, reminding us that we build our present directly atop deep, ancient layers of geological history.
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