The copper country evening news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 18??-1907, 1897-07-13
A BOSS ADVERTISER.
HE NEVER MISSED A CHANCE TO BOOM
GOODS HE SOLD.

He Was In the Firearms Business In Texas
and Made His RevoIvers Talk For Them
selves-His Last Gard" Written on q
Stone With His Own Blood.
ITO me" remarked man of more or
less brokerly appearance In manner and
cut OF clothes, "the advertising methods
resorted TO by business men all over the
country are astonishing In their intelli-
gence, stupidity, ingenuity and common
placeness. / mean by that that while
some of them seem to be satisfied with tho
money returns of the Oldest chestnuts In
the newspapers, there are others who are
advertising Columbuses, never satisfied
unless discovering something new In the
promotion of the publicity of the wares
they have to SELL
Which reminds me, said man who
looked like a New England Yankee once
removed, THAT have been interested In
advertising for many years, and that I
have circumnavigated the United States
several times, advertising various things,
from baking powder to steam engines. In
these trips / have observed some things
quite well worth the remem bering. but
certainly the most unusual bit of adver-
tice during trip made through north
western Texas.
"In trip made there some three years
previously l had met a local character
whom they called Colt Thompson, and
after a talk with him at the hotel supper
table, for he boarded at the best hotel In
the town, found that he had come from
my native town in Massachusetts, and
mt had oah OIL how
there, 40 years before, when neither of us
was more than 10 years old. Though
Thompson was pretty hard citizen and
had record only a few eastern men would
be proud of, he was q good worker, and as
the agent of an arms manufacturing COM
pany in the east, with territory COM
prising several counties, he managed to
live well and wear good clothes. OF
course he gambled between times and did
odd jobs of various kinds, but the profits
in those lines were simply used for spend
ing money. He had shot several men and
was accustomed to remark that he had to
do 1t now and then in his business to show
the merits of the goods he handled, and he
always said that he would rather be horse
whipped than shoot man with any other
gun than that made by his firm, loyalty
was first class advertisement for his
weapons
(Which reminds me that Thompson was
the most enthusiastic advertiser ever saw,
and he never let an opportunity escape
that he could use for this purpose. l saw
him shoot runaway horse one afternoon
on the main street, and when the owner
complained Thompson paid for the ami
koI hale arti cla In al
the newspapers on his guns as runaway
preventives. Another time about mid
night he discovered fire In store on a
side street, and, instead Of turning In an
alarm by the usual shouting, he began to
shoot his gun as fast as he could. The
noise soon had the crowd out, and the pa
pers next day told all about Thompson
guns as the best fire alarms in use. On
another occasion be offered the preacher
| who was going to preach a shot mans
| funeral $50 to help out the salary fund II
| he would say that the deceased had surely
| gone to heaven because he bad been shot
| with one Of Thompson's guns.
"But am DEPRESSING His greatest ad
vertising idea was his last one, to which
am slowly but surely coming. When
found I was going to be In Thompson
neighborhood again, ! was pleased, for
had found him interesting, and he had in
J sisted when We parted that If ever CAM
that way again must be sure and Civ
| him chance to make 1t pleasant Tor me
| had not heard from him In the mean
time, and when / got to his town AM
asked at his old stopping place where d
was was greatly panied, but not greatl
surprised, to learn that he had died 81
months previously. 1t was not necessar
for me to ask if he had died suddenly, an
I did not ask the question in that form
but did ask what the row was about
and rs the result of my inquiries l foun
that my friend Thompson had been Gale
upon to act as a deputy sheriff in the al
rest of a couple of very bad men from I'll
mountains who had been shooting u
town up.
"They were customers Of Thompson
but he did not give guarantees against I'll
order with his goods, and he was as GA
TO arrest these men as he would have pee
to do any other hazardous serVic
, ! Thompson became separated from u
sheriff and posse about noon, ana no mo
was seen of him until about O'Clock
the afternoon, when he was discovered !
9 the sheriff lying dead beside a big VIM
Z | bOWlder and not on lCeU away, sUICVNi''
Fat on their backs, were the two 'tough'
ouite as dead as Thompson. In the han'
i of each of the three were revolyers ana
D was plain that the men had died gam
J.. though apparently the end was more su
den for tho others than for Thompso
This was proved by tho fact that Ju
, above him on the white surface OF
T, stone he had scrawled in as big letters
u he could reach, and with his finger dipp
y in his own blood, the words: What 81
[, could have happened when all three d
Tbompsonsp Cali on my successor befo
purchasing elsewhere.
N "That evening after supper went
~ the town cemetery to visit the grave OF
3. schoolmate, and on a plain white stone
Re his head was this brief inscription, plac
,e there by his friends:
"CoLT THOMPSON.
He Was Good Man.
Massachusetts Sent Him to Texas,
r and
n Texas Sent Him to Glory.