The daily sentinel., 1912-04-18
BOGUS TOWN
AND FAKE PAPER

A Garfield county wild cat scheme
that surpasses in badness anything
yet heard of in Colorado came to
light in the Denver district court
yesterday when j. A. Bassett swore
that he purchased a home in the
town of Chapman" in Garfield
county, and worked might and main
as an industrial agent to bring other
people TO the same town when as a
matter of fact no such town ever
existed. Basset also declares that a
part of the proof" was newspaper,
The Chapman Herald" which pur-
ported to be published at the seat of
operations.
The wall of an alleged wildcat
victim was heard in the district
court yesterday when j. A. Bassett
fled suit against Conrad Taylor for
departures in gold brick" methods
by which Bassett, to use his own
$4,000 damages alleging some new
language, was "fraudulently, know
ingly, wilfully and deceitfully' in
duced to part with cash and his time.
Bassett, in his complaint, tells the
court that, prior to Sept. 15, 1910,
Taylor falsely represented to him
that there was thriving new town
in Garfield county, Colorado, named
Chapman, founded by the Chapman
Town company. which owned 800
acres of land upon which the town
was situated; that the town had been
surveyed, blocked and plated into
streets and alleys, had a postoffice,
newspaper-"The Chapman Her.
ald''-and all other accessories of
cosmopolitan community.
Bassett says that he believed this
or So II.
of the Chapman Herald, in which
he saw divers advertisements of pros
porous mercantile and industrial
firms that were making business hum
in Chapman.
But what particularly impressed
Bassett with Conrad's earnestness,
says the complaint. was the statement
that 81 per cent of the stock of the
town company was owned by the
Meeker-R -Rangely Construction COM
pany, which had entered into a con-
tract with another corporation,
known as the Grand River. Meeker &
Salt Lake railroad company, by which
the construction company was to
build a railroad from point on the
Denver & Rio Grande railroad
through Chapman to Salt Lake city,
a distance of 300 miles, bonds for
which had already been issued and
eagerly subscribed.
Bassett asserts that he was Undue
ed through the representations to
subscribe $4,000 to the purchase of
stock of the Chapman Town compa-
ny and that he was to be the indus
trial agent for the town company
for two years at $3.50 per month as
further consideration for buying the
stock
Says He Paid Money to Get Job.
Bassett paid Conrad he declares,
$4,000 in cash and executed a prom
issory note for $4,000. He paid all
of the money due on the stock and
put in nine months at work as indus
trial agent irr an elaborate suite of
offices fitted up in Denver Then
he waited fer results which never
came. he claims
The offices, he says, were fitted
up as part of the plan to blk the
public. Bassett. upon mature inves-
tigation, after being nine months at
work as industrial agent, says in his
complaint that he discovered that
there was no such town as Chapman
except in Conrad Taylor's mind that
there We're no surveys made, nor was
Chapman laid out in streets and al
leys. and that the representations
made by Taylor were false and fraud
ulent in almost every respect.
The late Alfred Muller was one of
the incorporators of the Grand River,
Meeker & Salt Lake railroad COM