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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

A trio of farmers captured 39 live rattlesnakes and killed 14 others in a place called Rattlesnake Den, in a rocky bluff in Coulee Canyon, 15 miles west of Spokane.

The farmers made some iron tongs especially for rattlesnake-grabbing. They said the rattlers were “quite inactive” in this season, which is why there were trying to clear out the nest. They said they “have become quite accustomed to handling the big fellows” and even “pulled out a few fangs for amusement.”

They said there was another rattlesnake colony nearby which they also planned to raid.

From the family tragedy file: Mrs. Sara S. Leonard was so despondent, and so filled with melancholia, that she went to the drugstore and bought strychnine and chloroform. She had been “more than usually depressed,” friends said, because she believed she was suffering from heart failure and did not want to leave her four children, ages 5 to 11, without a mother.  

She used the chloroform to kill all four children while they slept. Then she swallowed the strychnine. A neighbor found all five dead in their Spokane home. 

Her husband was in Usk, waiting for the family to join him at a farm that he owned. He was “near prostration” with grief when he received the news, and his friends stayed the night with him and were watching him constantly.