DATE OF LAST CONTACT: 11th July 1950
MISSING FROM: Prospect, Jackson County, Oregon
DATE OF BIRTH: 3rd December 1933
AGE AT DISAPPEARANCE: 16
HEIGHT: 5’9
WEIGHT: 165 lbs
DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS: White male. Brown hair. Brown Eyes. Thomas wears glasses. His nickname is Tommy. It is not known what he was wearing when he disappeared.
INVESTIGATING AGENCY: Jackson County Sheriff’s Office
BASIC CASE FACTS
- On Tuesday 11th July 1950 Thomas Richey went fishing near his home on the Rogue River. He used a cable car to cross the river as he had done many times before. He never returned and was never seen again.
- Later that day the cable car was found braked in the mid-point of the river with some of Thomas’ possessions inside but he was nowhere to be found.
- Extensive searches conducted over the next week found his footprints, but he was never located.
- Thomas was not officially reported missing at the time. He was only officially reported in 2018.
- Over the years it has been assumed that Tommy fell from the cable car into the river below – there is no evidence that this was the case and actually it is highly improbable that this happened.
I have to thank Matt and the team at Locks of Reunification who requested the case file and made it available to me. Please visit the Locks of Reunification Facebook page and show your support by following them. They do amazing advocacy work and assist with cases both old and new.
One of the reasons this case fascinated me was because of the unusual feature of it involving a cable car. Thomas was not reported missing until 2018 by which time memories had faded and, as a result, information may not have been 100% accurate in the missing person report – indeed the family member who made the report was relying on sixty-eight year old memories and rumours, and the landscape where this happened has changed dramatically over the years with key pieces of the story gone forever. I know she has tried to fill in some of the blanks over the years. One of these rumours has developed an almost legendary quality – the cable car. No matter what source you read you will hear the same speculation: That Thomas fell from the cable car into the river while he was fishing from it and drowned. That almost certainly is not what happened! Not a single report from the time seriously considered this as a potential scenario and Tommy’s family deny he ever fished from the cable car.
My intention is that by writing about Thomas, my research into the cable car, and the events of his disappearance, I can try and set the record straight on what really may have happened to him.
Thomas went by the name Tommy and that is how I shall refer to him from hereon in.
TOMMY’S LIFE
Thomas William Richey was born on the 3rd December 1933 in Prospect, Oregon. The oldest child of Frances ‘Mim’ and Thomas Jefferson ‘Jeff’ Richey, the family lived a few miles outside the little town of Prospect, Oregon, in an area then known as Wildwood and Mim’s family were some of the first homesteaders in the area. Tommy’s mother had been married previously to William Sherwood and by that marriage had two children, Billy and Aileen, who were Tommy’s half siblings. Tragically, in events that would echo Tommy’s own disappearance, Mim’s first husband and her six year old son had both drowned while fishing in the Rogue River in 1930, leaving her alone with a very young daughter to manage an 80 acre plot of land. The circumstances of this drowning were deemed strange at the time because William and Billy Sherwood had supposedly been fishing, and yet their boat and their bodies were found in the Power Canal near the town of Trail – a stretch of water known to have no fish in it. Mim didn’t know it, but mysterious disappearances while fishing would become a theme throughout her life.
In 1932 the widowed Mim married Jeff Richey and a year later Tommy was born. Two years later a younger brother, David, came along. The family lived on the rugged forested slopes of the Skookum Gorge, along the Rogue River, a few miles outside Prospect at 1771 Mill Creek Road, which was the main road in the area at that time. The family were well-known and well-liked in the area and many people in Prospect have fond memories of Mim over the years. The Richeys ran the local store, called the Wildwood Store, as well as running an Auto Camp (a camp site specifically for those traveling in vehicles) and locals remember Tommy’s mom running back and forth between the store and their home to collect the fresh bread that she baked daily. The area was a wonderful place for a young man to grow up. It was a tight-knit town of only five hundred residents and everyone knew each other and neighbours helped each other out. The river and the forests provided ample places for adventure and fun and there was barely any crime. Mim would later have a book published about her memories and recollections of the area over the many years of her life there, and specifically the river which had claimed a husband and two of her children.
One thing we know about Tommy is that he liked to fish. With his father and younger brother David, Tommy would go fishing almost everyday. They had a favourite fishing spot which was across the river from Tommy’s home and to get there the boys would use a cable car that was strung over the gorge close to their home.
DISAPPEARANCE
It was a Tuesday afternoon during summer break when, on the 11th July, Tommy decided to go fishing. It was a beautiful clear, hot day with highs of 88F (31C), no wind and no rain. For whatever reason, Tommy’s father and brother didn’t accompany him on this trip. He walked the short distance from his home to where a cable car crossed the gorge with the Rogue River running below. Despite what is commonly reported about Tommy liking to brake the cable car in the middle of the river crossing and fish directly from the suspended car, his brother David has confirmed that this was simply not true – “(We) didn’t actually fish from the cable car itself, but used it to cross the river to seek out better fishing areas”.
The exact location of the cable car is unknown but newspapers at the time mention that it was below his parent’s store which was situated at the top of the deep Skookum Gorge.
He had on his spectacles and was carrying his fishing pole and a creel (a wicker basket in which to hold the fish he caught) and used the cable car to cross over to the other side. We can be certain that Tommy successfully traversed the river in the cable car and spent his time fishing somewhere on the opposite bank due to the fact that fish were found in his creel and his footprints were found on the riverbank. Tommy never returned from his fishing expedition and in fact he was never seen again.
Tommy’s family began to panic when he hadn’t returned by the evening and a search party was organised – but before getting to the efforts to find him, I want to discuss the cable car and dispel some of the myths that have grown around it.
THE CABLE CAR
Cable cars probably bring to mind images of large enclosed cars attached to thick cables used in tourist destinations or ski resorts – this wasn’t that. Nor was it the small, rickety one person boxes common in Canada. This particular cable car had been constructed by the Army Corp of Engineers in the 1930s while they were scouting locations for the construction of a dam and, as such, was of a pretty solid construction. The dam was not built until the 1970s and therefore, when Tommy disappeared, the river was still in its natural state: less wide but faster flowing and with nothing downstream to stop the flow.
There are no photos of the cable car in existence and no data for the exact location but based on reports from the time stating that it was located below the store that Tommy’s parents owned and that it crossed the river at the point where the South Fork of the Rogue River met the main channel, we can be pretty certain it was somewhere in this general area:
Tommy’s younger brother David, who well remembers the cable car he used to use with his brother, has provided dimensions for it. He says it measured 7 feet in length, 5 feet wide and 5 feet high and was constructed of lumber with metal strappings – it sounds quite substantial and well-made.
So with this in mind, I wish to dispel the common assumption that Tommy fell into the river and was swept away while suspended from the cable car which he was fishing from:
BROTHER’S STATEMENT
The most important thing that casts doubt on this idea is that Tommy’s brother says it is not something they had ever done before. He specifically denies that they ever fished directly from the cable car.
IMPOSSIBLE HEIGHT
The cable car was strung over a steep and rugged gorge where it was suspended above the river. The cable would necessarily have been quite high above the water level in order to join both sides of the gorge. The below images show the elevation contours of the gorge and a 3D side angle showing how high and steep the gorge is. The lowest height at which the cable car could have successfully crossed over the river and joined up both sides was several hundred to a thousand feet above the water level. It is therefore impossible for Tommy to have been fishing from the cable car – quite simply, his fishing line wasn’t long enough to reach!
IMPOSSIBLE TO FALL
Finally, the cable car itself made it almost impossible to fall from. Tommy’s brother has insisted that “the cable car was not something you could easily fall out of”, and he is right. Given the dimensions of the car compared to Tommy’s height it would have been virtually impossible for him to fall over the sides unless he climbed up and leaned far enough over, and even that would have been extremely difficult to accomplish since Tommy was only 9 inches taller than the sides of the car (ie – only his head would have been above the sides). It would have been virtually impossible to either fish from, or fall out of, the cable car. The below scale diagram shows the dimensions of the cable car with a figure of Tommy’s height standing beside. On the right can be seen that only Tommy’s head would be above the sides of the cable car – making fishing impossible and an accidental fall only possible if Tommy somehow managed to climb up onto the high sides and lean all the way out with half his body hanging from the car – and why would he do that? His glasses would have fallen off his face!
There is one discrepancy in reports about the cable car. Tommy’s brother says that it used a manual winch and pulley system in order to start, stop and brake while an article in the 12th July 1950 Medford Mail Tribune claims that the cable car would automatically return to the other side of the river. I am not sure on the mechanics at all, but it doesn’t make sense to me that it would automatically return as this would strand travelers on the other side of the river, so perhaps it automatically returned if the brake had not been applied.
With these facts I hope I have managed to dispel the myth that Tommy fell from the cable car while fishing from it. It was neither a likely nor a possible scenario and having dismissed its relevance, allows us to look at other scenarios of what really may have happened to him that beautiful summer’s day.
SEARCH
When Tommy hadn’t returned from his fishing expedition by 7.30pm that evening his family began to worry and went looking for him. His dad and brother knew exactly where he had gone and they drove straight to where the cable car was located. When they arrived they found that it was suspended over the middle of the river. Tommy’s brother David says that he had to shimmy hand-over-fist along the cable to reach the car and when he climbed inside he found Tommy’s fishing pole, his creel and several fish that he had caught. It is unknown why the car was stopped in the middle of the cable and there is no report of it having any faults but this is probably the reason why so many people have assumed that he was fishing from it and fell out.
The next morning searchers began to comb the river and those working as forest look-outs began to pass on the message via radio, which was the main form of communication in this rugged and isolated landscape, that searchers should congregate in the area of the cable car at 2pm.
Parties combed the river in boats as well as walking through the woods to search for Tommy. The search parties consisted of over a dozen state police, sheriff’s deputies and members of local lumber companies.
By the 13th there were more than fifty men searching along the river, which newspapers called ‘treacherous’ and boats were now dragging it with grappling hooks. This part of the river supposedly has a number of deep holes on the bottom and rescuers were afraid that Tommy may have been dragged under – if so, they were looking for his body. The local Ross Lumber Company had also shut down its operations and told its workers to join the search. Searchers continued for several days with no luck.
By Friday the 14th hope was beginning to fade of finding Tommy alive. It was revealed in newspapers that two of Tommy’s footprints had been found on the bank of the river below the cable car crossing but no other trace of him and the article went on to say that “veteran woodsmen and rivermen have all but abandoned the possibility that the youngster may yet be alive”. State troopers brought a bloodhound to try and track Tommy and it immediately led its handlers to the river bank, where another footprint was discovered. It did not find any other tracks or scent to follow.
On Tuesday 18th, a week after Tommy disappeared, the search was officially ended with not a trace of him found. Residents of the area were asked to keep an eye out for his body, but nothing was ever found.
WHAT HAPPENED TO TOMMY?
Tommy was not fishing from the cable and he did not fall from it. The fact that searchers found his footprints on the opposite bank of the river and a bloodhound tracked his scent proves that he was there and had successfully gotten across. The fact that several fish that he had caught were in the cable car proves that he had indeed had a successful fishing trip at his favourite spot along the river – so what went wrong?
Right from the beginning it was speculated that Tommy had loaded his gear and the fish he’d caught into the cable car for the return journey but somehow he had lost the cable car; it returning without him. This is possible, if Tommy had released the brake before he got on board it may have set off without him inside. Because there was no one on board to operate the winch and pulley, that might explain why it stopped its movement in the middle of the river. Tommy was now stranded on the opposite side of the river to his home and had two options.
His first option would have been to walk either north towards Prospect or South to where a small footbridge crossed the river and then make his way back to his home. Both directions would have consisted of an approximately 8 mile walk through extremely rugged forested terrain with no footpaths, no roads and no homes. Tommy may not have been too familiar with the route and balked at an 8 mile walk when he had no provisions, nevertheless searchers at the time did consider this a possibility and searched throughout the dense woods; fearing he may have gotten lost or had an accident. No trace of him was ever found however and his scent didn’t lead into the woods.
Tommy’s second option, and the one I think is most likely, is that he decided to cross the river and then attempt to climb the steep wooded cliff back to his home. The river at this point was about 50 metres wide and may have seemed to Tommy to be swimmable. It was July and the waters probably weren’t running as swiftly, however this stretch of the river is consistently referred to in newspapers of the time as treacherous and wild and there is also mention of deep holes under the water. I believe that the fact that Tommy’s footprints were found at the edge of the river and that the bloodhound didn’t track him any further confirms the idea that he tried to swim to the opposite bank.
This leaves two options as to Tommy’s fate: He may have drowned in the violent waters of the Rogue River. Tommy may have underestimated the force of the water, slipped on rocks or perhaps it was deeper than he anticipated and he couldn’t swim. If he was swept away and drowned then his body would have initially sunk to the bottom – perhaps into one of the deep holes – only to surface days to weeks later as it began to decompose. Tommy’s body may have washed up somewhere downstream where searchers never looked; on the wild, unoccupied east side of the river where people rarely stepped foot. The second possibility is that Tommy did indeed successfully swim across the river and something happened to him when he began his ascent of the rugged and wooded cliffs. He may have slipped and fallen or suffered an accident somewhere in this dangerous terrain on the slopes below his home as he attempted to make his way up. As far as I can tell, searchers never thought to look on this side of the river and the landscape is so wild that he may never have been noticed even if they had. Is it possible that Tommy’s body lies mere feet from his home, hidden in the dense woods where human feet have never trodden?
2018 REOPENING OF CASE
Despite law enforcement being involved in the search for Tommy, he was never actually reported as a missing person – instead being presumed a victim of an accident. This changed in 2018. Tommy’s Great-Niece, Heather, had heard the stories of her uncle and wished to have his brother’s DNA entered into the CODIS database before he passed away in case Tommy’s remains had been, or were in the future, found. Heather had also found a potential unidentified body that she felt could be a match. She approached the Jackson County Medical Examiner and Sheriff and had them open a missing person case for Tommy – sixty-eight years after he disappeared. Tommy’s brother died early in 2025, but his DNA is now entered into databases so that should Tommy ever be found, he can be identified.
On an interesting note, Heather added that over the years, since not a single trace of Tommy had ever been found, his family had increasingly begun to question whether Tommy had faked his disappearance and left of his volition or if the scene had been faked by someone else and foul play was involved. I don’t believe there was any foul play in this case. But I would like to think that if Tommy did simply decide to walk away then he led a wonderful life. Tommy would be 92 years old today – but unfortunately I don’t think he lived beyond that beautiful summers day in July of 1950.
Tommy’s father passed away in 1957 but his mother lived to a hundred, passing away in 1997 after becoming somewhat of a local celebrity. She remained living on the river which had claimed a husband and two of her children and locals in Prospect today call the place where the two junctions of the River converge “Richey’s Hole” in memory of Mim Richey and the family members that the Rogue River took from her.
SOURCES
Missing Person’s Commentary – blog post about Tommy including comments from his great-niece
Medford Mail Tribune – 12th July 1950
Medford Mail Tribune – 13th July 1950
Medford Mail Tribune – 14th July 1950
Medford Mail Tribune – 18th July 1950
Army Corp of Engineers Historical Archive
Comments from family members
Tommy’s Case file from the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office
Never Seen Again 