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= Arthur Hunt =

Early Life
Arthur Hunt is a local legend in Chester.

He’s the great success story of the town, almost the inversion of Douglas Yale, the Ohio River Killer. Hunt rose from poverty and a life of debauchery to forge an electronics empire that has stood the test of time, surviving even after his unexpected death in 1952.

But at first, no one in town thought much of him. In fact, he was considered a local ne’er-do-well. He seemed more prone to theft, violence, and lying than any productive endeavour.

Hunt was born to an unwed mother, Emily Harris, on October 19, 1906. He was born in the McMurtry Rail Station, which would later become the Chester Train Station. Having been sent from Chicago to live with an elderly aunt in disgrace, Emily Harris arrived in the tiny bump in the road called Meigs County just minutes before her water broke. She named the child Arthur Hunt, after his absent, and never again to appear, father.

Margaret Harris, the aunt, lived in a farm near the Chester estate, four miles from what would become downtown Chester. She welcomed Emily and the baby into her house, but in 1909 Emily ran off, never to be seen again. Margaret raised the unruly youth as best she could, but Arthur was a violent, simple-minded child. He was a known troublemaker, ejected from the local school on more than one occasion for fights and theft. It was rumoured he couldn’t read and write properly.

By the end of the Great War, Arthur Hunt was 12, and had already taken to alcohol. He left school the following year, as the influenza epidemic swept the newly forged town. Hunt was unaffected, but his aunt fell ill. She remained bedridden from 1919 until her death in 1921. During this time, Hunt held several short-lived jobs. He was a counter-boy at the local five and dime, a street sweep, and an ice delivery man. No job lasted more than a few months. In his 15th year, his aunt died, leaving him a sizable estate, the house, and livestock.

The newly christened Hunt Farm fell into ruin over the next few years. Since 1920, Hunt had maintained his booze habit illegally, purchasing liquor from bootleggers. He began to associate with hoodlums in the county, including a Shawnee Indian named Saucy Jack, a drunken rumrunner who drove the backwoods in a souped-up Ford.

Jack and Hunt became partners of sorts, frequenting the often-ignored Chester Serpent Mounds to drink, play cards, and shoot birds. On May 3, 1922, police found Hunt at the mounds, drunk, carrying a pickaxe and shouting drunkenly about Shawnee gold. Hunt was incarcerated briefly, but he kept visiting the mounds. Soon after the arrest, Saucy Jack and Hunt had a falling out, and the Indian was not seen in the county again.

For nearly a year, Hunt rarely appeared in town.

The Change
On April 9, 1923, Hunt returned to town a changed man. He settled into the newly finished Chester Public Library and began to read. This first vigil lasted eight hours and soon drew spectators. Hunt read books on nearly every subject, and remained mute, refusing to engage with questioners and onlookers. As he read, he seemed to get faster. Soon he was reading each page with a glance of only a second or two.

When the library closed for the evening, Hunt left as easily as he had come, vanishing into the woods, reappearing at opening each morning. He ate and drank nothing during his reading, and kept up this cycle unceasingly for three weeks. Locals remained split on Hunt’s motives. Most thought it was a complex con. Others thought Hunt had finally seen the error of his ways. Rumours began to spread that Hunt had quietly educated himself during the previous years.

By week three, Hunt began speaking with the locals again, and it was if his entire personality had changed. His voice was a quiet monotone without any humour. His English was precise and ordered. His interactions were brief and to the point. Hunt ordered a list of over 200 items from the five and dime, including drafting tools, a table, various metals, torches, and workbenches, as well as various radios sets. He paid in gold, which was odd, but not unheard of.

Hunt disappeared to the Hunt Farm, which, over the next year and half, transformed into a clean and orderly place. Hunt meticulously replaced everything, down to the gate to the road—though, oddly, he sold all the livestock. The electric lights he had installed in 1924 were among the first along his stretch of road. Soon, every room in the house burned with an incandescent bulb.

Hunt hired a local farmhand named Allan Mestemacher to run errands for him in town, and Mestemacher became the local conduit for Hunt gossip. Hunt worked ten hours a day on drawings of complex electrical devices, and built bizarre electronic contraptions. This continued for several years, until it was assumed it would continue this way indefinitely. Then, as suddenly as he had first arrived at the library, Hunt arrived in town again and filed papers to incorporate Hunt Electrodynamics. On the same date, he submitted three thick envelopes to the U.S. Patent Office, and mailed several letters to far-flung corporations in Europe and America.

Hunt Electrodynamics
Within months, Hunt had forged lucrative deals to license small components to various electronics firms, including Westinghouse and Consolidated Edison. He continued to operate from his farmhouse, but now began to make national news. His company posted large profits and its paperwork was meticulous. Considering Hunt was its sole employee, it was considered amazing he could complete all the paperwork himself as well as continue to create and patent inventions.

Hunt’s biggest hit, the Hunt Mark I Resistor, debuted on August 5, 1930, and rocketed the one- man company into the stratosphere. When Hunt realized he could make far more money producing the Resistor, he opened the Hunt Electrodynamics plant near Chester. Soon, the plant was the largest employer in town.

It was during the first few years of the Chester plant’s operations that Hunt began traveling. His trips took him far and wide, though almost no one in town knew where he was going. Mestmacher reported that Hunt returned from his trips with odd books and items from around the globe, and stickers on his trunks indicating he had been to Istanbul, Casablanca, Cairo, Catania, and elsewhere. By 1938, rumours began to spread that Hunt was planning to leave Chester.

When it was discovered that Hunt had been constructing a town in Death Valley, California—one of the most inhospitable places on Earth—no one was really surprised. Nothing about Hunt could strike the townsfolk as odd anymore. Few had anything bad to say about the man, but Hunt was considered an eccentric at best. Announcements were made that the Chester plant would remain in operation, but Hunt would leave for California.

By 1940, Hunt was living in Hellbend, California, permanently. He was largely forgotten in Chester, trotted out only as an interesting story from time to time. With Hunt’s mysterious death in the Hellbend explosion of 1952, the Hunt Museum was constructed in Chester to celebrate its most famous and successful son.