The Expensive Cipher Mistake That Rocked Colfax
A bungled telegram message causes a small-town grain buyer to accidentally trigger a massive payout to local farmers.
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.
An error made in telegraphing a cipher dispatch caused 60,000 bushels of wheat to change hands in Colfax last Saturday at a considerable loss to J. M. Russell & Co., the grain merchants of Portland. The agent, J. H. Larson, received a coded message to purchase wheat at a specific price, but due to a transcription error, he understood the instructions as being 2.4 cents higher per bushel than intended. Larson, eager to secure the grain, offered the higher price to local farmers, who were initially hesitant to sell. When the price jump was announced, the wheat moved 'like a charm.' He bought 60,000 bushels before realizing the error. He was not jubilant when he boarded the train to Portland to chase down the mistake that cost the company $1,650 more than they had authorized.
“The wheat moved toward him like a charm, as it were. He bought right and left, and in a short time had 60,000 bushels on his hands.”
This reflects the fragility of market information before reliable digital telecommunications. The story captures the intense local stakes of grain prices for farmers versus the detached corporate control of large Portland-based merchant firms.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.