The citizen-Republican. (Scotland, Bon Homme County, S.D.) 1???-19??, 1904-11-24
FORMER MITCHELL
MAN IN TROUBLE
George Letcher, Wealthy, Ar
rested in California for
lncendiarism.
A SOUTH DAKOTA RECORD
Letcher Was Believed to Have Burned
Buildings at Mitchell for Insurance
General CRATER and Bad
Citizen He Became Rich.

Mitchell. S. D., Nov. 23.-The daily
papers a few days 6 contained notice
of the arrest of George Letcher of Cali
%fornia, reported to be worth a quarter
of d million dollars, who was charged
with belonging to a gang of frebugs in
Williams county, Ohio, M set a
building on fire in that county twenty
seven years ago.
George Letcher was a resident of
Mitchell, S. D., from 1882 until about
the year 1890. When he removed to
Minneapolis. His father, VIM. Letcher,
OF Ohio, who was an intimate friend of
James A. Garfield, and bore a very
good name. secured the appointment Of
register of the United States land Of
flee at Mitchell in the year 1881, when
this was still a territory, and came
here and took this public position with
hiram Barber as receiver of the LAND
Office. The year following the older
son. O. T. Letcher. followed the father
and secured a position as clerk in the
land office. 1t was Their reported that
this brother of George Letcher had Sc
cured q large sum of money by the
sale OF several carloads of dairy prod
ucts from a Williams county, Ohio,
factory, n then allowing himself to
be robbed of about $4,000 by some
pals, said by the knowing ones to be
his brother George and a man named
Grammar, both of whom came to Mitch
ell a few months larer than the son,
y. I. Letcher. They at once became
outside workers or grafters to cover up
government land by petitions. filings
and in every fraudulent way possible,
force the thousands of men who We're
then homesteading government land to
pay them tribute before they could Sc
cure titles to their homestead entries.
With Q. T.. Letcher operating in the
land office as a clerk, outside rustlers
or land locators through George Letch-
er and Crannon were able to bleed the
horneseeller to a finish and the register
and receiver, both being old men, were
to protect The settlers against
this fraudulent work of the young
n their friend Grammar.
In ~Defrauding Schemes.
George Letcher became an active
promoter in building business houses
ana residences, and each of them had
an sorts of schemes going here at a
lively pace for about four or five Years.
lctltlo'as mortgages We're given and
placed with bankers in this and other
as collateral to raise funds to
luflnef Lhelr big schemes; men were
blackmailed n bled in various WAYS
py George Letcher: a partner named
betts was ~defrauded out of a corner
lot and an interest in g hardware store
by TINS man George Letcher. Soon aft
er this happened, about the year 1886,
, IRE originated in the Letcher hard
ware store and at least half of one of
the main blocks in Mitchell was burned
out. Letcher's store was heavily IN
sured and it was then commonly talked
N Mitchell that the fire was started so
hat Letcher could get the insurance.
About this time George Letcher Sc
cured title in the name of his wife to
I large residence property in the city
cost about $4,000, and during the +!
hard times that followed in the early
3os, after he had removed to Mime
polls, he returned to Mitchell and
a few hours afterward this large
burned, and on an early train
George Letcher left for his home at
me Twin Cities. 1t soon developed
That this residence was also we'll in
sured, and the money paid to Letcher.
Feared by People.
This mar George Letcher was re-
sarded ~ nearly every citizen of
Mitchell in those days as being a very
dishonest man. who would do almost
my kind of a fraudulent act to secures
or valuable property, and when
the two brother We're through with
transactions in Mitchell and
DAWSON county every decent citizen
could sleep better at night.
The wife of George Letcher. when
ne resided in Mitchell, secured a di-
Vorce from him in Minneapolis some
ten or twelve years ago. She was gem
orally regarded by Mitchell citizens as
4 lady of refinement and education.
VINO as soon as possible after knowing
aer husbands crookedness separated
herself from him.
None of the old time citizens of this
city are surprised at the arrest of
Letcher, charged with the
crime of arson.
The gang of which Letcher is al
to have been a member back in
Oh1o has had a remarkable career.
It is said to have been responsible for
The burning of hundreds of thousands
Of dollars worth of property, and to
nave operated many years. In the end
It was disrupted INK over twenty of
is members are reported to have been
sent TO prisons.