Identity elements
Reference code
Name and location of repository
Level of description
Item
Title
2700-60
Date(s)
- 1935-06-01 (Creation)
Extent
Name of creator
Content and structure elements
Scope and content
A smiling George Weyerhaeuser poses for the news cameras after his release by kidnappers on June 1, 1935. In what the most sensational crime in Tacoma's history, George was kidnapped on May 24, 1935 as he walked from Lowell School to Annie Wright Seminary to meet his sister and be motored home for lunch by the family chauffer. The ransom demand was for the astronomical sum of $200,000. After the ransom was paid by his father Phil Weyerhaeuser, the boy was released on Tiger Mountain Road in Issaquah. He made it to the home of Louis Bonifas and identified himself; the amazed Bonifas called Tacoma and began driving him home. Reporter John Dreher of the Seattle Times on a hunch started out on the road to Issaquah in a taxi, met Bonifas and convinced him to allow the reporter to deliver George to the Weyerhaeuser home. What resulted was an exclusive interview with the world's most famous kidnap victim. A shaken, but otherwise okay, George was delivered to his parents at around 8 a.m. on June 1, 1935. (TNT 6/1/35, pg. 1)
Kidnappings--Tacoma--1930-1940; Weyerhaeuser, George H.;