The Daily Missoulian. [volume] (Missoula, Mont.) 1904-1961, 1917-04-01
DEAN stone REQ s
APRIL FoeIlbR|Es
Newspapers in q Days
Used to Spri Fake
Stories on a n |.
SOME IN MSSOULA
Local People Excited by
Mythical Nuggets and
Fish and Corpses.
ny Dean A. 1. Stons Of the School Of
Iaurnaliann of the State University

(Dy Dean A. L. Stons Of the School Of
journalism Of the State University
Newspaper making, In he early days
Of the Anaconda Standar1, was entire
~ serious proposition. but there was
q bit of levity now and then and some
of these bits, as | recall them, We're
associated with April /. Perhaps the
most successful Of anysv the hoaxes
that were attempted was al, April first
story in the Standard which dealt with
the famous mound spring at Warm
Springs. There had been a story go
ing the rounds of the newspapers, in
effect that the Yellowstone park gey
sers could be induced to work overtime
or to splurge off their schedule II a
box of laundry soap we're dropped
down the crater The mound at Warm
Springs is evidently the cone of an ex-
tinct geyser ana this suggested the
plan Of the story which fooled Ana
conda. Announcements was made in
Mussigbrod Of Warm Springs had
dumped lot of soap down the hole
in the mound and that the hot water,
after churning soap suds for a while
had spouted. The spring was reported
to have resumed it's prehistoric ac-
tivity; it was said to be spouting every
hour. The wagon road down the val
ley from Anaconda to Warm Springs
was black with vehicles that morning
There was no geyser but nobody was
hurt.
The Bum Hop Hoax.
Senator Charles H. L rgleston, now
chief editorial writer on the Standard,
was the originator Of most Of these
Anaconda hoaxes. He was successful
with another; this was during the days
when prizefighting, so-called, was ram
pant and rife and rotten in Montana;
every town had it's favorite pug or
group of pugs and rivalry was intense.
Senator Eggleston created a mysteri-
GUS Chinese prizefighter, whom he
named Bum Hop. He described his
manner Of training In detail and had
the Butte and Anaconda talent worked
mp to fever heat. It was tipped off
on the night of March 81 that Bum
Hop would take his morning work out
on the road east of Anaconda and
would run down Slaughter House gulch
to the valley road, after a stiff climb
In the hills. There was q great crowd
the next morning at the mouth of
Slaughter House gulch All the crowd
got that resembled prizefighting was
the smell from the institution which
gave the gulch it's name.
Missoula Jokers. ..
Missoula in old days used to make
a national holiday of April 1. There
was we'll organized gang of practical
3okers in the city, whose operations
continued the year around--they had
no closed season--but the activities OF
this cult usually found fitting climax
each year on the first of April. One
year. there was we'll constructed eff
figy suspended from a stringer of the
Northern Pacific's Bitter Root branch
bridge just west Of town. The an
nouncement of a suicide spread rapidly
through town and a gralt crowd col
lected to read an April fool placard
on the dummy which Swung in the
spring breeze. AT all
The most successful hoax even
pulled off in Missoula, believe. was