skatfall

The Goldendale Sentinel, Goldendale, WA., January 21, 1926, page 2

SKELETONS UNEARTHED AT FALLBRIDGE

Traces of a vanished people were recently unearthed at Fallbridge, when F.G. Bunn, digging a trench for water pipes, opened an Indian grave of unknown antiquity. A large number of interesting relics were discovered and preserved by Mr. Bunn.
Included among these were a large stone mortar, which was broken into several pieces, four pestles and two carved stone tools. One was a hatchet or tomahawk roughly shaped into the semblance of a horse, and the other a pestle with the head of a bird carved on the small end. A skillfully made sword, ground out of black basalt, resembles a Roman sword in size and shape. A flaked flint knife is an importation, as there is no native flint in the vicinity. The same is tue of three of these the pestles, which are of granite.
The relics and four skeletons were found in a grave formed by a shallow depression in the native of basalt, wherein the bodies were placed and covered with sand and a cairn of stone heaped over them. In all, parts of four skeletons were uncovered. In one grave there were two adults, and nearby lay a baby and parts of a larger child. All the bones and relics showed traces of fire, and the sand which covered them was mixed with cinders.
It is said that in the roadway a few feet from the present find a grave was opened containing one complete skeleton - a squaw - and a number of severed heads.
As to who the people were who left these mute witnesses to their primitive industry and commerce, there is not even a tradition. The oldest white inhabitants know only that in early days there was no Indian population in the vicinity, but that many tribes gathered at the falls of the Columbia to catch salmon. Many battles took place, and perhaps this grave contained the losers in some such contest. The local Indians know nothing of these older peoples.
It is was suggested that perhaps they belonged to that long vanished race of prehistoric artists whose picture-writing may still be seen inscribed on the cliffs along the Columbia around Fallbridge.
The name of Fallbridge is to be changed February 1 to Wishram, in honor of the mythical king of the sun worshipping Indians, and some of the citizens believe that this is the grave of the old King Wishram himself. - The Oregonian.