The Con Man Who Sold the Seattle Circus
A clever swindler fleeced the city's elite by selling them on imaginary contracts for a Ringling Brothers circus that was never coming to town.
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.
A man calling himself Seamans drifted into Seattle six weeks ago. Wearing an impressive shirt front and a scheme calculated to put Wall Street out of business, he managed to net roughly $10,000. He registered at the Palace Hotel as an advance agent for the Ringling Brothers Circus. He then went to prominent wholesale meat establishments, offering them contracts to supply 2,000 pounds of meat, provided they signed an affidavit inflating the price and paid him the difference upfront. He repeated the 'graft' with grocery suppliers, restaurant owners, and even landowners, whom he conned into paying him for the 'privilege' of hosting the circus on their property. Victims were so eager to participate in the scheme to 'fleece' the circus that they did not dare report him, only to realize weeks later that they were the ones who had been slaughtered. He moved on to Spokane, reportedly making another $15,000, before fleeing to the uncut timber country once a merchant grew suspicious and wired the real circus management.
“They entered into his game, heart and soul for the purpose of fleecing the other fellow, only to wake up six weeks later and find that they themselves had been the willing lambs that had been led to the slaughter.”
This 1903 account of a 'bunco artist' perfectly captures the booster-era gullibility that often led to early Seattle's most audacious financial frauds. It serves as a reminder that the 'get-rich-quick' impulse, once paired with the status of a major brand like Ringling Brothers, can make even the savviest local business owners lose their critical faculties.
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