This check was promised to any Milwaukeean who captured the elusive Mr. and Mrs. Checkers.
In 1905, the Milwaukee Journal launched a promotional contest designed to boost sales and get the entire city buzzing. The idea was simple. They were going to send their readers on a manhunt.
The contest was announced on August 17. Two people—a couple identified only as “Mr. and Mrs. Checkers”—would arrive in the city in two days. The Journal would provide a bare bones description of the two, along with slivers of their photographs. Each day, a description of their plans would be printed: where they planned to shop, where they would have lunch, and which streets or parks they might be leisurely strolling along.
Both people would carry with them a certified check for fifty dollars (Over $1,350 in today’s money). The first person (with a copy of that day’s Journal in their hand) to stop them and say “You are the mysterious [Mr. or Mrs.] Checkers described by the Milwaukee Journal which goes to over half of Milwaukee’s English-Speaking Families!” would win the prize. The rules also stated that only boys or men could “capture” Mr. Checkers and only girls or women could catch Mrs. Checkers. The day before their arrival, letters from both Checkers appeared in the paper, teasing the city about how long they planned to remain on the loose. They even encouraged the Milwaukee Police Department’s best detectives to get in on the game.
On the 19th, Mr. Checkers arrived via train and Mrs. Checkers arrived on the Christopher Columbus whaleback steamer from Chicago. That morning’s Journal carried a picture of Missus’s eyes and a segment of Mister’s ear. The couple planned to tour the city, including City Hall, the Boston Store and Wisconsin Ave., before retiring at 9 p.m. The next morning, it was announced that they had passed through Milwaukee entirely undetected. The contest would continue.
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To believe the Journal, the Checkers contest created a sensation in the city. Bills were posted in Downtown shops reading “CHASE CHECKERS, CAPTURE CHECKS.” Stores offered additional prizes to readers should they apprehend one of the Checkers in their place of business. Newsboys sang out details about the Checkers’ latest movements while the streets buzzed with suspicions about where the mysterious couple might be headed next.
Each day, in addition to the clues about the Checkers, the Journal printed incredibly detailed narratives from the fugitives themselves. Thousands of words describing their movements from the day before: the people who stared at them inquisitively, the conversations they overheard about the contest or the kids who accused every passerby of being one of the Checkers.
As the contest dragged on, they went from needling Milwaukee (“Well, here were have been in your city for three days and apparently none of you need the money, for we remain uncaptured.”) to issuing statements that sounded similar to a serial killer taunting police (“We have brushed by you on the street, eaten at the same table with you, in fact, we have been in the midst of you all the time… we have had your detectives pointed out to us. We passed them, stood next to them, doing nothing.”)
The couple had a close call on the contest’s fifth day. Both were correctly identified, but neither was met with the proper phrase in order to claim the prize. As the contest neared a week old, people wrote to the Journal accusing Mr. Checkers of dressing in women’s clothes to avoid capture. Reports came from Downtown of a man matching his description in a dress and bonnet. Other said the pair was purposely denying their identities in order to drag out the game.
Finally, on August 25, Milwaukee resident Harry Reitman caught Mr. Checkers in West Allis. He had tracked Checkers to a tavern and followed him into the street. Matching his face to a bundle of newspaper clippings in his pocket, he approached him from behind near the Allis-Chalmers works, grabbed him by the shoulder, and rattled off the phrase. “I guess I’m caught,” Mr. Checkers replied.
Mr. Checkers was, in actuality, D. B. Riley, a Milwaukee man hired by the Journal for the stunt. His capture made a front page headline the next day, complete with photos of all the principals involved in the capture.
Mrs. Checkers would remain at large for 18 days. As the contest wore on, it seemed that fatigue had set in. Coverage of the chase dwindled as the paper became desperate for someone to nab the poor woman they had hired to play Mrs. Checkers. Margaret Roberts, a Denver native in Milwaukee to find work, finally captured her on September 4. Roberts caught up to Mrs. Checkers from behind on E. Water St., near the Iron Block Building, threw her arms around her and shouted the now-abridged slogan, “You are the mysterious Mrs. Checkers of the Milwaukee Journal, which everybody reads!”
In a coincidence that leads one to suspect the capture of Mrs. Checkers might have been orchestrated, Mr. Checkers himself appeared from around the corner of a building at the capture of his “wife,” and led her and Roberts into a waiting car that rushed them to the Journal office. Nonetheless, the end of the contest was trumpeted in the next day’s paper was the remarkable conclusion of one of the greatest events in city history. No matter what the circumstances of the stunt, it remains a Milwaukee manhunt (and womanhunt) without parallel.
