‘Has he ever been here?’: Tucker Carlson’s description of Springfield doesn’t mesh with reality, residents and officials say
Updated Feb 26, 2021;
Posted Feb 26, 2021
Fox News host Tucker Carlson referred to Springfield, Massachusetts, as a place famous for burned-out buildings and murders during his Thursday night broadcast. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)Getty Images
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Fox News’ Tucker Carlson whose on-air statements a court determined shouldn’t be viewed as facts opened Thursday night’s show smearing Springfield in a story about cultural friction at Smith College in Northampton.
“One place is famous for burned-out buildings and murders,” Carlson said, according to a transcript of the show. “The other has wrought-iron gates and a nationally known art museum on campus.
Guy McLain's worked as librarian for the Springfield City Library’s Rare Book and Special Collections overseeing the preservation and maintenance of more than 15,000 rare books dating from circa 1475 to the 20th century.
print kicker: Sangamon Link
A drunken shootout in a Springfield saloon in 1905 left three men dead and two brothers charged with murder.
The cause was a previous fistfight, followed by a series of telephoned challenges.
Those killed were all from the Berlin area: horse trader Samuel Douglas, farmer John Lawrence, and Charles Casson, a farmhand. James and William Hinman, livestock dealers from Springfield, were found not guilty of killing Casson, after which charges were dropped in connection with the other two deaths.
The dead men were among eight to 10 Berlin men who came to Springfield to confront the Hinmans over the fistfight.
State Journal-Register
When Elise Morrow critiqued Springfield for the Saturday Evening Post in 1947, local leaders reacted with wounded pride, insults and pompous denial.
Among their many complaints was Morrow’s passing reference to the city’s tolerance for gambling and prostitution.
“Springfield’s vice may be no worse than that of many American cities, but it is more obvious,” she wrote. “Gambling and prostitution blossom like the rose in Springfield. Within the city limits and lining the periphery of the town and county there is what one of the first citizens describes, with inverse pride, as probably the largest collection of taverns, joints, and low dives functioning in any city of less than 100,000 population in the country.”