Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

As regular readers of this blog know, every now and then I use “Newspaper Clipping” day to showcase what I call “mini-mysteries”--interesting disappearances or murders where not enough information is available for a regular blog post.  This week, we look at a “Missing 411”-style vanishing in the Montana wilderness.  The “Red Lodge Picket-Journal,” June 4, 1940:

What was the fate of Walter Orndorff? Almost four years ago to the day the then 16-year-old Laurel youth vanished as completely as if he had been swallowed by one of the majestic East Rosebud mountains in which he was lost while on a fishing trip.  The disappearance was so absolute--not a single trace was found of Walter or any of his fishing equipment or lunch box--that the mystery remains one of the oddest in the annals of Carbon County sheriff’s records.

That he is dead, no one who took part in the summer’s search doubts for a moment.  The then virtually inaccessible rocky crags and steep canyons were no country a comparatively inexperienced youth could live in for long.

Add the facts he was lightly and that snows blanketed the area the night of the day he was lost and it is readily understood why hope of finding him alive faded. 

His disappearance was as casual as it was abrupt.  He was fishing at Slough Lake, about 35 miles west of here, with an uncle, Earl Hayden of Greenfield Mo., and with several youthful Laurel friends on Sunday, May 31, 1936.

Walter wasn’t having much luck. Quietly he remarked he was trying his luck at Shadow Lake, and he crossed a foot bridge going west. 

He was about 50 feet away when his uncle looked up at his departure.  It was the last time he was reported seen by human eye.  He simply vanished.

Considering that he was sought for three months by trained woodsmen, that experienced ranchers, forest rangers, and sheriff officials applied every bit of knowledge at their disposal without a trace of the youth, the mystery naturally deepens. 

If he had drowned, the waters would have given him up; if he had fallen exhausted, some trace would have been found by those who canvassed every foot of the Slough creek basin. 

True, the country was wild, but from two to 100 men were in constant search for a summer. Every cranny was explored. No trace. 

It would seem uncanny, but Undersheriff Bill Moore of Carbon county has a theory that explains all that--a hitherto unprinted theory that in Bill’s mind is rapidly taking on the stature of fact.

Bill explains the mystery this way:

“We didn’t hear about the disappearance until Monday. Then Dave Branger of the Branger ranch at East Rosebud phoned Sheriff McFate. Branger said the boy’s relatives were still searching and wanted help.

“McFate appointed me to investigate, and I was fortunate in securing the services of Deputy Game Warden Carl Benson and Forest Ranger Warren Akers, both then, as now, stationed at Red Lodge.

“At East Rosebud we rented a pack-horse and Carl and I started the long tortuous trail on foot to Slough Lake.  Warren remained to corral more help.

That Monday night Carl and myself reached the lake and decided to camp for an early start next morning. It had snowed all day. There wasn't a dry place to pitch our tent, and it was bitter cold.  Needless to say we didn’t get much sleep.   All night we kept up a huge fire, partly to keep warm, but mostly as a signal to the lost boy.

“At 3 a.m. we got ready to go. Carl fired a couple of shots, thinking the lad might hear. Soon I heard a deafening, thundering noise, the loudest ever heard and I knew what it was.

“It was a tremendous rock slide. The rocks, loosened by the spring moisture, were started rolling by the step of an animal or human.

“Today I rather think it might have been the boy scrambling for shelter. Whatever was at the base of that mountain range from Slough Creek to Phantom and Shadow lakes was buried in the deluge.

“That’s my theory, and I think it’s true that the boy was buried in the avalanche of dirt and rocks, every trace of him being buried with him.

“It’s not a pretty supposition, but it’s the only possible explanation left.”

A $100 reward was raised for the lad’s recovery, dead or alive. Though a crew of trail makers for the federal forest service were located in the area all that summer, though they spent every spare moment searching, nothing was discovered. 

Sheriff McFate highly praises those who aided in the hunt without pay. The Branger brothers, George Wright of the Mackay ranch, forest rangers, and many others spent their time and money in the futile search.

Whether Moore’s theory is true or not, the mystery remains one of the most incredible in Montana’s history.

As far as I’ve been able to tell, Orndorff’s body has yet to be found.