{
  "id": "bb-1911-11-22-guess",
  "title": "Guess Bend's Gain: prizes totalling $150 offered by real estate company",
  "publisher": "The Bend Bulletin",
  "sourceClass": "primary",
  "url": "https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn96088235/1911-11-22/ed-1/seq-8/",
  "accessedOn": "2026-09-14",
  "notes": "The news story beside the contest advertisement, carrying the terms the advertisement omits: the contest closed March 1, entrants gave their reasons in not more than 25 words, and \"The award will be based on the merits of the REASONS for Bend's growth\". So the company was paying for arguments that Bend would grow, not for accurate guesses.",
  "record": "https://bendemblem.com/archive/bb-1911-11-22-guess/",
  "evidence": null,
  "measurement": [],
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  "exhibit": {
    "id": "bb-1911-11-22-guess",
    "title": "Judged on the merits of the reasons",
    "intro": "The news story beside the advertisement gives the term the advertisement leaves out: the money went to the best argument, not the closest guess.",
    "body": [
      "Three sentences on page 8 turn the contest into something else. Entrants sent a number, and with it their reasons for the increase in not more than twenty-five words, and the award was decided on the reasons.",
      "So the Bend Park Company was not buying predictions. It was buying advocacy — a hundred dollars for the best twenty-five words on why this town would grow — and then, as the Bulletin says approvingly, it would have many people studying Bend's future whether they won or not.",
      "Fourteen months later, in the same town, the Emblem Club's founder told twenty men at a dinner that enough of them wearing a mark and saying a sentence \"would build a city of one hundred thousand\". The club's oath is that proposition sworn rather than entered. This project does not claim the contest caused it; it records that the company which drew the emblem had already run the argument as a competition, and that the emblem's copyright notice was printed eight months after the closing date.",
      "The Bulletin thought the method itself was the point: a novel way to attract attention to Bend."
    ],
    "quote": "GUESS BEND'S GAIN — Prizes Tota'ing $150 Offered By Real Estate Company\n\nThree prizes aggregating $150 for the best guess as to what the population of Bend will be July 1, 1912, have been offered by the Bend Park Co., as announced in their advertisement elsewhere in today's paper. The contest closes March 1. Contestants will submit with their figures their reasons for the increase, in not more than 25 words. The award will be based on the merits of the REASONS for Bend's growth.\n\nThis is a novel way to attract attention to Bend and should cause many people to study its future and possibilities.",
    "readingNote": "Read off the filed 144 dpi page render at native resolution. \"Tota'ing\" in the subhead is the page: the l failed to ink. REASONS is capitalised on the page. The year of the March 1 close is not printed; 1912 is the only reading the rest of the notice allows, and it is not asserted here. The OCR drops the headline entirely.",
    "related": [
      "bb-1911-11-22-prizes",
      "bb-1911-06-21",
      "book-1913"
    ],
    "date": "1911-11-22",
    "collection": "club-life",
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        "caption": "“The award will be based on the merits of the REASONS,” November 22, 1911.",
        "alt": "A short newspaper item headed GUESS BEND'S GAIN, reporting that the Bend Park Company has offered three prizes totalling $150 for the best guess at Bend's population on July 1, 1912, that the contest closes March 1, and that entrants must give their reasons in not more than 25 words.",
        "credit": "The Bend Bulletin · Historic Oregon Newspapers, University of Oregon Libraries",
        "sourceUrl": "https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn96088235/1911-11-22/ed-1/seq-8/",
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    "publication": "The Bend Bulletin",
    "locator": "p. 8, col. 4"
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      "title": "“The award will be based on the merits of the REASONS,” November 22, 1911.",
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