Eighty-six years ago, the first staff news photographer to die in the line of duty on U. S. soil, Theodore Giard “Shorty” Randolph of Hearst International Newsreel’s Seattle bureau, met his fate near Stella, Washington on April 22, 1927. He, his brother Frank Randolph, Kinogram’s stringer Arthur Bassett and Paramount News photog George Lancaster were heading for Astoria to film a news story about the lighthouse there and happened to make a detour to Stella to film the dynamiting of Bunker Hill for the construction of the Ocean Beach Highway.

Harry Kirwin, then a still photographer with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, wrote about the accident some years later. Kirwin almost was on that sandbar with Shorty that day, but fate had it that Kinogram’s stringer Arthur Bassett went with Shorty Randolph and his brother instead.

“I remember very vividly, as well a lot of Seattle newsmen and photographers, the time Shorty Randolph went to Astoria – almost. There had been a lot of stormy weather on the Columbia Bar and the Astoria lighthouse was isolated and nearly out of food. A line had been rigged up previously and provisions were going to be run out in a basket.

Shorty Randolph was a dedicated newsreel cameraman and, like most of the breed, a daredevil with a fine sense of the spectacular. He wanted to ride the basket and get some newsworthy shots. He packed his cameras and gear, and with his young brother, headed south from Seattle in his car.

Below Longview a crew of men were working on the highway, cutting a new right of way near the river, and Shorty saw they were getting ready to blast off a huge hunk of cliff. He got out of his car and went way out on a sandpit to photograph this operation. He was warned that when all that dirt hit the river, the wave would engulf him. But he said he was used to taking chances.

The blast went off and ended Shorty Randolph’s brilliant career. Untold tons of dirt fell into the river and a great wall of mud and water completely buried him. Not for hours did workmen find his body and camera. His brother and a bell boy in a Longview hotel died with him. The twist here is that Shorty was going to take me to Astoria to ride the cable. At the last minute he decided to take the bell boy who was a small man and an ardent movie fan. When the camera was recovered only the lens was missing. The film was in good shape and was shown in Longview for the benefit of the bell boy’s relatives. It indicated Shorty had cranked the camera right up to the last second.”

Paramount News newsreel photographer George Lancaster was also there and witnessed the death of his three colleagues. He recalled the accident a couple years later as well:

“Shorty, his brother and I were all set to get an early start from Seattle for Longview, where we were to get the pictures. The weather was beautiful, typical of the Puget Sound country. The window in the breakfast nook had been opened to let in the fragrant air. At the breakfast table we received our first warning of impending tragedy.

The birds were chanting their melodious songs when all of a sudden a frighten sparrow flew through the open window directly at Shorty, perching on a light fixture on the wall. Shorty looked startled and then turned pale. In answer to my look of surprise Shorty remarked: “That’s a sure sign of death.”

Giving the matter no further thought we proceed to Longview. At that point the highway construction crew was blasting a ledge into the side of the mountain high above the Columbia River on the Washington side in order to run the highway along the river instead of winding miles around the country. The cameras were to catch the movement and dislodgement of the mountain.

About three hundred feet from the shore a large rock about fifteen feet high stood to one side from where the blast was to take place. It was an ideal set-up to shoot from, so Shorty and his brother selected it while I went up the river to get a side-angle. Kinograms was represented by a freelance in a skiff anchored in midstream directly in front of the blast.

At two minutes to two warning was given and cameras began to click. The earth shook. The mountainside lifted and slid into the river. Tons upon tons of rock went down, causing a huge wave. Shorty, his brother and the Kinograms man were caught in the deluge. Their bodies were not found until five days later. Then I remembered the sparrow and Shorty’s remark.

The cameras were salvaged. The exposed film in the perfectly airtight and lightproof magazines, which proved to be watertight also, was developed, and the audiences that witnessed the picture marveled at the shots with no knowledge of the attendant tragic circumstances.”

Shorty Randolph was previously a commercial still photographer for Webster & Stevens from 1910 to 1917 and then a newsreel cameraman in the Pacific Northwest for primarily Hearst from 1917 until his death. Shorty and his brother are buried at Evergreen Washelli in Seattle. Arthur Bassett was laid to rest at Cowlitz View in Keslo, Washington.