RECORD LEADER

July 22 1915

 

YELLOWSTONE TRAIL DRIVER NOT KILLED.

 

Story Circulated Was Fake - Started By Seattle Paper -

Was Accepted As The Truth.

 

            Here is a good example of a fake newspaper story, and probably explains how the word got out that the last driver on the Yellowstone Trail run from Chicago to Seattle, June 15 to 19, was killed; two men with him were seriously injured.

            A Seattle paper got hold of the bit of news and taking for granted that the man in the Ford car was the trail driver, proclaimed by banner headlines across the top of the front page that “Cross-Country Relay Race Ends in Tragedy at Redmond,” and “Auto in Ditch; Man is Killed;” then in a three line two-column heading, “Message Bearer in Chicago-Seattle Race Meets Death.”

            The paper’s first paragraph was set in large type, two columns wide, and was:

            “George E. Dickson of Ellensburg, former member of the legislature, and prominently mentioned for the speakership during the 1911 session, was killed instantly and John L. Gilmore of Ballard and John Keller, a real estate man of Ellensburg, were injured when a Ford automobile, in which the last lap of the 100-hour race against time from Chicago to Seattle, over the new Yellowstone Trail, was being run, skidding on a curve two and a half miles east of Redmond, and turned over in the ditch, at 8:50 Saturday morning.”

            Here was a metropolitan newspaper with an opportunity to herald a great run made more than half way across the continent, half faking that that run had ended in death to the last driver.  Surely every Seattle newspaper knew that this run would be made; knew who would carry the message into Seattle and what kind of a car would be driven.

            The driver’s name was not Dickson; it was E.F. Schultz who drove the car - a Studebaker and not a Ford - over the last lap of the relay, and S.H. Kreidell who carried the message. This is according to a report made by H.O. Cooley of Aberdeen, South Dakota.  Mr. Cooley is secretary of the Yellowstone Trail association.