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| Road leading to the historic mining town of Tuscarora |
The year was 1884 and the place was the northern Nevada mining town of Tuscarora. In the offices of the Tuscarora Times-Review, editor John H. Dennis was searching for some kind of item to fill a hole in the copy on one of his paper’s pages.
As Dennis would later tell the story, his staff was pestering him to come up with some type of story to fill a vacant space in the local news column. In that moment of desperation, he said he “gave rein to [my] imagination and hurriedly dashed of a few ‘sticksful’ of fiction.”
The result was a short item that appeared the next day in his newspaper describing what he called “A Luminous Tree.” According to the one-paragraph story:
“A very remarkable tree grows in Nevada. It is called by the superstitious Indians the witch tree. It grows to a height of six or seven feet, and its trunk at the base is about three times the size of an ordinary man’s wrist. The wonderful characteristic of the tree is its luminosity, which is so great that on the darkest night in can be seen plainly at least a mile away. A person standing near could read the finest print by its light.”
Much to Dennis’ chagrin, the little item about the non-existent botanical wonder was reprinted in a number of other newspapers, including in the eastern U.S. and in Europe. Soon, his office was inundated with letters asking about the glowing tree.
Reflecting on it 20 years later, Dennis wrote, “letters began pouring in with a request for further information and specimens of this wonderous (sic) foliage from all points of the compass, with several inquiries from tourists as to facilities for transportation, hotel accommodations, etc. in the vicinity of this wonderous specimen of phosphorescent forestry.”
Annoyed by all the attention his fake news story had generated and feeling guilty about deceiving the public, Dennis, who typically was a straight arrow news editor, eventually decided to publish a follow-up item that claimed the local Native American people had destroyed the glowing bush and “all signs of its existence had been obliterated.”
Despite that, the story apparently lived on for many more years. Dennis noted that his experience should serve as a warning “to little boys and girls never to tell a fib, even in fun.”
None of this is to imply that the episode with the shining shrub was the high point of his life. Dennis, who was typically known as Major John Dennis (a title bestowed on him while serving as head of a volunteer militia), had a long and successful career in newspapers and as an elected and appointed politician in both Nevada and in California.
In addition to serving as editor of the Tuscarora newspaper, he also was editor of Austin’s Reese River Reveille in the 1870s and, later, served as editor of the Nevada State Journal in Reno. From 1882 to 1886, he was a Nevada State Senator representing Elko County.
For more information about the life of John H. Dennis and the fascinating story of the luminous tree, please pick up a copy of my book, “Frontier Fake News: Nevada’s Sagebrush Humorists and Hoaxsters,” published by the University of Nevada Press. It can be found in local bookstores and at https://unpress.nevada.edu/9781647790868/frontier-fake-news/.
