People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 December 1896 — A PARTRIDGE KING. [ARTICLE]

A PARTRIDGE KING.

A Minnesota Man Whose Methods May Make the Birds Become Extinct. Special Agent Gray of the. general land department, who has returned from a trip to the Canadian boundary, reports running aoross an eocentrio character 20 miles north of Tower, Minn., who is known as the partridge king. His name is Stephen Gheen, and he is a trader. Gheen as a side,issue contracts to furnish partridges in enormous numbera He recently completed a contract of furnishing 5,000 birds, has practically filled another similar one, and is now at work on another for 8,000 birds which was taken by a would be rival, but who found that Gheen had organized all the Indians and half breeds in the region. The birds are sold ostensibly to Twin City parties, but it is believed that this b said merely to evade the state law which prohibits partridges from being shipped out of the state. It is suspected that Chicago houses are the real purchasers. The Indians employed by Gheen make it a practice to kill male birdß,' and as a result it is feared that one* or two seasons of the king’s reign will devastate the northern wilds of the favorite feathered game. On the Canadian boundary partridges are not much of a luxury. Dressed birds sell there for 6 cents eaoh.—Cleveland Plain Dealer.