The Surveyor Who Walked Into the Nemah Woods and Vanished
Capt. G. C. Brophy left his survey crew to walk back to camp near South Bend and never arrived; searchers have found no trace.
South Bend, May 4.—Special.—Word was brought in this evening that Capt. G. C. Brophy was lost in the woods in the Nemah River country. Capt. Brophy is the government surveyor who arrived this week to make a special examination of the surveys in this county. At 11 o'clock yesterday morning he did not feel well. He told the crew to keep on work until evening, and started for camp, following the line with a compass he carried. When the crew returned to camp in the evening the captain was not there and there were no signs of his having been there. Search was made on the line and at a considerable distance to either side, but no trace of him was found. Search has been kept up for him since that time up to noon today, at which time our messenger left there. Great uneasiness is felt for his safety. Capt. Brophy's home is in Salt Lake City, Utah.
“Great uneasiness is felt for his safety.”
Brophy's disappearance is a reminder that Washington's late-19th-century settlement was mapped by men working alone in dense timber, far from help. Today, search-and-rescue teams still get called into the same river country when people vanish.
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