The Smooth Talker of Tacoma
A persuasive con man leaves a trail of bamboozled businessmen and empty wallets.
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.
J. H. Erwin, who has been interesting Tacoma business men in a variety of plausible schemes, including a shoe factory, has disappeared suddenly, leaving over half a dozen victims from whom he secured amounts ranging from $10 to $40. Erwin was an able conversationalist on boot and shoe manufacturing and the lumber business. He told President A. N. Fitch, of the Trader’s Bank, that he represented the Bradley Metcalf Shoe and Boot Company, of Milwaukee. He talked shoe factory persistently for five days and was arranging for a site. Fitch wired to Milwaukee and learned that Erwin was a high-toned flim-flammer, with no authority to represent the Bradley Metcalf Company. At this juncture, Erwin came in quest of money when Fitch was out; he evidently surmised he was detected and fled.
“He could look his victims square in the eye and talk plausibly for hours.”
Tacoma has long grappled with the 'get-rich-quick' schemes that prey on the city's aspirations. From the 1890s boom-era swindlers to modern-day tech and real estate scams, the promise of easy wealth remains the city's most perennial vulnerability.
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