Thomas Richey, known as Tommy, was 16 when he vanished from Prospect, Oregon, on July 11, 1950. He had gone to his favorite fishing spot on the Rogue River, a cable car crossing about four miles outside town on Mill Creek Lane, and never returned. The cable car was found stopped over the middle of the river with Tommy’s fishing pole and several fish he had caught left behind.

Searchers reportedly used bloodhounds that traced his scent to the river’s edge, where two footprints were found, but no further trace of Tommy surfaced. The family had endured an earlier tragedy on the same river: in the summer of 1930 Tommy’s mother’s first husband and their young son drowned there. The Jackson County Sheriff’s Office currently lists Thomas Richey as a missing person, and the case remains unsolved.

The prevailing theory is an accidental fall from the cable car into the Rogue River, but with no witnesses or additional evidence that remains unproven. Does anyone who fished or lived around Mill Creek Lane in 1950 remember details that could shed light on Tommy’s disappearance?