An event 75 years ago — April 17, 1949 — had Pullman making national news. It became known as the Pullman Easter Massacre.
I first heard about it when I was a Washington State University student. I was told of a gunman who had shot several people and then shot himself in the head three times with a bolt action rifle. It was listed by authorities as a suicide.
There is a great write-up about it in the Bunchgrass Historian by Karl Heuterman who has done amazing research about this case. There is a two-hour audio interview with Heuterman if you want to hear more in-depth information from an expert (thepes.com/2006/04/easter-massacre.html).
The Pullman Easter Massacre started in the afternoon on Easter Sunday in 1949. It might be best to say the massacre ended on that Sunday but the events that led to the massacre, arguably, started much before then. A young man named George McIntyre took his family on a trip to Moscow Mountain. After returning they stopped for fuel at a gas station that sat on the corner of Paradise and Main streets where Beasley Reality sits today.
While filling up the car, Pullman Police Officer Ross Claar saw McIntyre and planned to arrest him. Earlier in the day the sheriff and some of his deputies were in Pullman looking for McIntyre. There was a warrant for his arrest from a previous incident where McIntyre was accused of pointing a gun at others.
Officer Claar told McIntyre he was going to be arrested. McIntyre grabbed a gun and shot Officer Claar, who died of his injuries.
McIntyre tried to get his wife, who was holding onto their baby, back into the car. She refused and he left. He drove to his home which would have been across a two-lane Grand Avenue near the location where Cougar Country sits. He grabbed some more guns and binoculars. He went across Grand Avenue toward College Hill and went up the hillside.
The sheriff and his deputies were notified of the shooting and returned to Pullman. They drove toward the McIntyre residence. They saw McIntyre’s vehicle in the driveway along with a man who looked similar to McIntyre along with McIntyre’s wife and child. It turned out the man was McIntyre’s business partner who had given McIntyre’s wife and child a ride home from the gas station.
This mistaken identity cost Sheriff Pete Parnell and Deputy Gilbert Gallagher their lives. They took positions that they believed would have given them the advantage to arrest McIntyre. However, McIntyre was behind them up the hillside. Deputy Gallagher was just down the hill from McIntyre’s position. He was shot and killed.
McIntyre was in the military around the time of World War II and was a sharpshooter. He undoubtedly used his sharpshooting skills to shoot and kill Sheriff Parnell from a long distance. There was a deputy in the vehicle with Parnell who was injured during this shooting.
Shortly thereafter, McIntyre shot and killed Ernest Buck, a taxi driver. He also shot and injured another Pullman resident. By this time more people were coming to the area as well as more law enforcement. McIntyre was getting surrounded and was being flushed down the hillside.
Finally, McIntyre shot and killed himself. It was not exactly as I had been told so many years earlier. Instead, he shot himself in the chest. Three times. With a bolt-action rifle. It was a suicide. If you’re dubious, so was I.
Many years ago, I looked up one of the people who was listed in the autopsy report. It was a doctor who was present. He told me that it was indeed a suicide. McIntyre’s skills with the gun and the fact that as long as there was some oxygen in his brain, he was able to function and kept functioning until the oxygen was used up.
This was a 50,000-foot view of the event on its 75th anniversary. Read Heuterman’s article in the Bunchgrass Historian and listen to the radio interview for many more details about this bloody day in Pullman’s history.
Anderson is a former co-host and producer of a conservative talk radio show. He has a degree in philosophy and enjoys photography, woodworking, and sports. When not computer programming, he volunteers in the community. He welcomes feedback at crier@cityofpullman.com.
