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The contest, week three
The Bend Bulletin · December 6, 1911
In the story: 1. A city of two thousand, to 1912.
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The third of four printings, in the middle of the run, with nothing altered.
Two weeks in, the company had not changed a word — not the prize amounts, not the bank, not the question, not the thousand people the question starts from. Whatever the campaign was doing, it was not being tuned.
It is worth noticing what the advertisement never says. It gives no closing date. A reader of this page alone could not know the contest shut on March 1, or that entries had to carry twenty-five words of argument to be judged at all. Both terms are in the news story printed beside the first week and nowhere else in the run.
So the advertisement is the offer and the news story is the rules, and the paper only ever printed them together once.
From the source
$150 Cash Prizes
What Will Be the Population of Bend, Oregon, July 1, 1912?
The Hill and Harriman lines have spent $25,000,000 to reach Bend, the Spokane of Oregon. The first train over both roads ran in on November 1, 1911. The population then was 1,000. In eight months' time what will it be?
We offer you a chance, without cost to yourself, to participate in the following prizes:
$100 CASH, 1st Prize · $35 CASH, 2nd Prize · $15 CASH, 3rd Prize
This money has been deposited in the Scandinavian-American Bank of Seattle for this purpose.. For prize blanks, write BEND PARK COMPANY, 860-861 Empire Building, Seattle, Washington, or H. J. OVERTURF, Bend Park Co. Representative, Bend.