It was a glorious day across the Tri-Cities on May 18, 1958, and I remember it well because I was there.

Picnicking families in Kennewick’s Keewaydin Park clustered around the many outdoor tables. Sunbeams shimmered through the tree branches to decorate picnic tables.

Kennewick’s oldest and most popular park was busy that Sunday afternoon throughout its picnic and recreational areas.

Across the way, the town’s Pony League field was flush with teenage play, while the park’s merry-go-round, slides and swings were entertaining venues.

David Brown scampered cheerfully about near his family.

Then the 3-year-old, who was four months shy of his 4th birthday, slipped away and reached the manicured grassy knoll parallel to the Columbia Irrigation District (CID) canal flowing past the northern border of Keewaydin Park. 

He disappeared about 3:30 p.m.

Within hours the identity of that placid canal changed from an inviting waterway to the “Ditch of Death.” 

That nickname is now lost to time, but for that next week and beyond it was on the lips of anyone old enough to read a newspaper or carry on a conversation.

The Ditch of Death galvanized an entire community to bring a major safety feature to the canal within a week of David’s drowning.

A frantic search failed to find David and an extended search by Kennewick firefighters and volunteers was mobilized that included a chain of men holding hands and trudging through waist-to-chest-deep water in the canal. 

The little boy’s body was found about 7 p.m., several blocks from the park.

A call to arms

His death became a call to arms by citizens of Kennewick, angry that nothing had been done after any of the previous nine drownings.

Today, a 6-foot chain-link fence lines the entire length of Keewaydin Park’s northern border at the canal, just as it has since the week after David’s drowning 67 years ago. 

An army of private clubs, public entities, family businesses, determined parents and other concerned citizens had a fence up to separate the park from the canal within days of the tragedy.

Mobilization of forces began almost immediately after the drowning. 

The drowning of a 3-year-old boy in 1958 galvanized the city of Kennewick to erect a fence alongside the canal running through Keewaydin Park. 

| Courtesy East Benton County Historical Museum

The Kennewick Junior Women’s Club took the lead. Breakfast was barely off the table when members started making telephone calls urging anyone and everyone to attend the next night’s Kennewick City Council meeting.

When it convened two days after the drowning, the chambers were a standing room only gathering of determined mothers and fathers.

That meeting resulted in three groups:

• One would immediately pursue raising $3,500 to fence the length of Keewaydin Park.
• A second would meet with CID officials to discuss fencing.
• A third would write and print petitions seeking the state Legislature to enact laws requiring irrigation districts to make their ditches safer.

On the morning after the council meeting, the Junior Women’s Club acquired a map of Kennewick and separated it into 23 sections to canvas door to door on Thursday and Friday to raise money. 

Twenty-three captains were named, with five volunteers assigned under each captain. Maps outlined their specific area of responsibility. 

The Kennewick Fire Department sounded a fire alarm at 6 p.m. Thursday to announce the fund drive beginning. 

By Friday evening, just five days after David went into the Ditch of Death, the Canal Fence Fund goal of $3,500 had reached $4,117.94. More was expected from other fundraisers. 

Organizations joining the cause included the Kennewick PTA, the Ministerial Association, Kennewick Ship 174 of the Sea Scouts, and an organized group of mothers from the Nob Hill neighborhood of east Kennewick. Many of these moms witnessed the little boy being found by searchers and raised from the water just as the canal began its meandering bordering of their expansive Nob Hill neighborhood.

Forces sprang up from everywhere:

• Jim Boldt, president of the Kennewick Junior Chamber of Commerce, said chamber members volunteered to build the fence.
• The Pasco-Kennewick Labor Council met in special session and voted to donate $200 and offered its members to place the fence.
• CID officials said they could not afford the cost of the fence but donated the right of way.
• Harry Lee of the Wambam Concrete Co. volunteered two heavy trucks and a portable concrete mixer.
• One of David’s playmates donated $5.
• Local band leader M. M. O’Brien offered to organize a benefit show.
• The city of Kennewick agreed to maintain the fence.

A week after David’s drowning, the fence went up the length of the park. On the May 30, Memorial Day, it was dedicated.

A marker read in part: “This fence has been erected in the memory of our little ones who perished in the canal and for the preservation of present and future children who play here…Dedicated the 30th Day of May, 1958 A.D. by children-loving parents.”

Other young deaths

David’s drowning was the first since 26-month-old Michael Roy Nesary drowned in 1956.

The first ever was 4-year-old Herbert Higley on June 12, 1927. His family lived near the canal.

When David drowned, Herbert’s mother, identified by news outlets as Mrs. Glen Higley, then of Richland, donated to the fundraiser, sending a check and writing: “I can sympathize with the parents of the tiny victims.  ... May this project never stop until complete.”

Other children who drowned in the ditch were Ralph Ketcham, 2, in 1930, and Sherril Woolery, 2, Betty Joe Wisdom, 4, and Kip Dennison, 4, all in 1944. The ditch also claimed the life of 3-year-old Lawrence Berge in 1947; Velonda Cordell, 2, in 1950; and Ernie Leroy Austin, 1, in 1952. 

Gale Metcalf of Kennewick is a lifelong Tri-Citian, retired Tri-City Herald employee and volunteer for the East Benton County Historical Museum. He writes the monthly history column.