Jasper County Democrat, Volume 14, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 April 1911 — GENE VISITS HAMMOND. [ARTICLE]

GENE VISITS HAMMOND.

Railroad Promotor Offers “Company’s” Notes to Stockholders Who Lost In Bubble.

Hammond Times, April 18: Eugene Purtelle, spectacular financier and promotor, whose northern Indiana traction bubble was picked last fall when he was thrown into the hands of the receiver, was in Hammond today making a number of calls on persons with whom he had business relations in the past.

Apparently Purtelle believes the nest eggs which he had in the shape of a traction line on paper and the concomitant free publicity has not been spoiled by age, despite the fact it lay on the ash 4ieap where the heat of indignation and the chill of public disinterest touched it alternately. While in Hammond today Mr. Purtelle said he would give the company’s notes to the stockholders who lost their money because he went into bankruptcy.

Because of the fact that the public cannot connect the idea of Mr. Purtelle and a successful northern Indiana line, the news that the stockholders Who are holding the bag are to get" the company’s notes instead of „dividends, is not causing any wild excitement in the Hammond stock market. -, When Purtelle and his dreamlike first hit the bumps last fall several Lake county citizens held a number of conferences, at which the question of making the line a reality was taken up. Some of the interested citizens were stockholders, and they did not care to venture any more. The whole project died a natural death.