(FD-350) 'Phones ringing off the hook at Ariel', Seattle Times

FD-350 (Rev. 12-5-78)

(Indicate page, name of newspaper, city and state.) p. B1 Seattle Times Seattle, Wa. Date: 2/13/80 Edition: Final

Title: NORJAK

Character: or Classification: 164-81 Submitting Office: Seattle

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Phones 'ringing off the hook' at Ariel

by Richard Zahler Times staff reporter

ARIEL, Cowlitz County — Not much happens in Ariel, a small logging community 11 miles east of Woodland.

Until a hijacker vanished mysteriously over Southwest Washington more than eight years ago, probably nothing happened in Ariel.

But D.B. Cooper put the town on the map, and yesterday and last night the telephones at the Ariel Store & Tavern were "ringing off the hook" said Dave Fisher, the owner.

Ariel happens to be near Lake Merwin, and a number of theorists suggested that Cooper might have gone into the reservoir behind the Ariel dam.

Since 1976 the Ariel Tavern has hosted an annual D.B. Cooper party on November 24, the anniversary of the hijacking in 1971. Every year 200 to 300 people have shown up to eat buffalo stew and see whether Cooper would answer the standing invitation to join the party.

He never has, of course.

Fisher bought the tavern and the tradition 15 months ago, and until 3:30 yesterday afternoon, "I wasn't expecting a thing tonight. It's pretty dead in winter."

But then the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced in Seattle and Portland that part of $200,000 given to the hijacker had been found along the banks of the Columbia River near Vancouver.

The moldering money, about $4,000, was found by a family picnicking along the river north of Portland. A young boy digging in the sandy riverbanks with a stick uncovered the loot.

After that, Fisher said, "It was just like the D.B. Cooper party."

Fisher said he had been on the run answering telephone calls from television-network reporters in New York and newspapers and radio stations all over the West Coast.

Only about 20 or 30 patrons were in the Ariel Tavern last night, and most were paying as much attention to playing pool as to the Cooper talk. A weekly Tuesday-night pool match with the Riverside Tavern in Woodland had been moved to Ariel last night at the request of a Portland television station interested in filming reaction to the discovery of the money.

Fisher and others said they were mystified as to how the money arrived on the banks of the Columbia River, but they still would have to be persuaded that the hijacker didn't survive after he bailed out of the Boeing 727.

"I still think he's alive, until they find some bones," Fisher said.

He said the finding could lead to other developments, pointing out that the discovery by the boy was a strange first trace of Cooper after so many years.

Then the telephone rang in the next room, Fisher raced to answer it, laughed and announced, "San Jose calling."

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[stamp] 14-91-[illegible] S[illegible]...........INDEXES. SERIALIZED.........FILED........ FEB 15 1980 FBI - SEATTLE

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SUBS: B,E,G,M,

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FOI/DOJ DB Cooper-27875 b6 b7C