A Woman, a Gate, and a Smoking Log Pile in the Huckleberry Mountains
Two prominent Stevens County farmers and a drifter called 'Tennessee Jack' are jailed after two hunters stumble on charred human bones nine miles east of Cedonia.
Hunters — Accused of the murder and cremation of a woman, James Logan and G. B. Hilton, prominent farmers near Cedonia, Wash., and 'Tennessee Jack,' have been arrested, following the discovery of the charred remains in a smoking log pile in a lonely spot in the Huckleberry mountains, nine miles east of Cedonia. While trudging through the woods, Ira and Chas. Gifford stumbled onto the remains of human bones scattered about the embers of a log fire.
Logan and the dead woman started from Logan's ranch to Blue Creek, ostensibly to close a real estate deal, and when near the spot where the body was burned, Logan left the rig to throw open a gate. After the woman had driven through she was shot. The body was then carried to the spot where it was burned.
“After the woman had driven through she was shot. The body was then carried to the spot where it was burned.”
In 1909 Stevens County was a scatter of ranches, logging camps and long rides between neighbours, and a woman could disappear on the road from a ranch to Blue Creek with no one to witness it. The case turned on pure accident — two hunters walking through the woods — a reminder of how rural crimes were solved then and how missing-person cases still hinge on someone happening to look in the right place. The Huckleberry Mountains east of Cedonia are national forest land today, and the lonely stretch of road the paper describes is still lonely.
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