The Fake News That Spooked a Construction Site
A sensationalized newspaper report of a lynching on a remote railroad line triggered a labor shortage that crippled local work.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The false report of the lynching of four Italians on the Monte Cristo railroad had the effect, for days after its publication, of preventing new workmen from going up the road, and thus there was no new supply to take the place of the waste caused by men leaving the camp. The contractors are paying their men $2 and $2.50 a day but are still short of men, yet there are hundreds of idle men on the streets of Puget Sound cities. P.H. Smith, of P.H. Smith & Bro., at whose camp the lynching was said to have occurred, writes to the Post-Intelligencer concerning the story printed in the paper on June 29: 'Judging from the sensational and Jack-the-Ripper style story, I do not see why it did not kill a hundred. It would take just as much effort to write a readable and reliable account as a fictitious and sensational one. Of course, it is contingent on the statement or denial of the contractors; they are not asked, and then it spoils much of the sensational news. If some of the telegraph staff was as careful as the contractors, it would save much annoyance and anxiety.'
“It would take just as much effort to write a readable and reliable account as a fictitious and sensational one.”
This 1892 account highlights how sensational journalism can distort real-world labor markets, a precursor to modern concerns about how viral misinformation affects local economies and community stability.
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