The Great Zangara, left, circa 1909, who visited Baker over a century ago, and right, a mugshot of Guiseppe Zangara, who was executed in 1933 after trying to assassinate President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

An unexpected perk of working for the Herald is the chance to peruse a stack of the old, old editions. One book, comprising papers printed from late 1909 into 1910, is slowly succumbing to the relentless, destructive forces of room temperature storage and infrequent perusal.

They’re beautiful to look at, in their own right. There is a baroque appeal to the many adverts and etchings of the time, ads for liniments, haberdashers and penny-farthing bicycles. And some you’d rather not see at all, caricatures best left in obscurity.

At one point in November 1909, a unique visitor must have stepped off the train into burgeoning Baker City, likely drawing stares throughout his voyage. After paying for a room, unpacking his secrets and summoning his pocket change, he came to the Baker City Herald and posted the following ad to the daily paper:

“The Great ZANGARA, CLAIRVOYANT.”

The ad includes a dark, moody photo of a man in a clean, white turban, his serious gaze peering into you. It’s the sort of presentation you might expect to include a crystal ball. And the Great Zangara swung for the metaphysical fences.

“The Great ZANGARA: New York’s celebrated clairvoyant is permanently located here,” the ad continues. “His honest method and 22 years of success in all the leading cities of the world have proven beyond all doubt that ZANGARA is the leader in his profession. As proof of his wonderful power he tells the name of those who call and what purpose they call to consult him. He tells all as to all love and business affairs, when and who you will marry, whether husband, wife or sweetheart is true or false, safe and paying investments, buying or selling property. Remember, ZANGARA succeeds and it costs no more to see the best. He develops personal magnetism — the power of control — and how to win the one you really love. Cut this ad out. Low fee for a few days. Remember the name ZANGARA THE WHITE MYSTIC, LYNNDALE Room No. 16, Hours 10 a.m. to 9 p.m, near the Post Office.”

Baker County historian Gary Dielman said Lynndale Chambers was listed in the Baker City Directory as being at 2028 1/2 Main St.

“The 1/2 means entry was via stairway to the second story,” Dielman said, adding that the building was also the site of a murder.

The building would later become the local Sears, and currently holds the People Helping People thrift shop.

At one time it was ample space to let, with modern accommodations. In later weeks Zangara would even move to room 27 on the next floor up, repeating his ad so frequently the press wore his photo out. He had to run a new version, claiming to “impart mental fascinations, good luck, health,” and even “overcome evil influences, enemies, weaknesses of the will.”

It paints an interesting picture of the times.

Zangara, though a rare name in this country, is a more common surname in Italy. Though there is no official etymology, it’s possibly a portmanteau of Saint Gerald. Whether Zangara had invented this persona, borrowing name, history and all, remains unknown. There is no Zangara logged in our local cemeteries, but backtracking his claim to coming from New York and seeing the world suggests he may have immigrated some decades prior, passing through Ellis Island.

Googling “The Great Zangara New York” yields, instead, a wikipedia entry on Giuseppe Zangara, noteworthy for claiming the life of Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak in an attempted assassination of President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt on Feb. 15, 1933. Giuseppe, who was 32, was quickly thwarted by the crowd at some great personal cost to their health, jailed, convicted, and on March 20, 1933, executed.

Purely a coincidence, given Baker’s own Zangara was working his mystique some decades before Giuseppe took a shot at the president, but photos of the two men depict remarkably similar features. Sharing the name aside, they could pass for family, if only one generation separated.

Confirming that, however, would mean scrolling through thousands of 1900s archives in New York if not all the way into Italy, and to make it doubly difficult, if it was pure clout and exaggeration on our mystic’s behalf it’d be a fruitless search.

Self-proclaimed psychics and clairvoyants have always been a worldwide social phenomena, though definitely a mixed bag. In some instances they were a window on a great many cultures and their earnest, centuries-old supernatural practices. There were definitely con men as well, carnivalesque entertainers cashing in on novelty and gullibility.

Until the 60s or so psychics were still popular and active enough to keep shopfronts with neon signs and working hours, but eventually the pageantry and elaborate decor became obsolete as psychics migrated to the now defunct phone “hotline” model.

Dielman said he’s not come across any evidence that any psychic was ever a fixture in Baker City.

“I’ve read hundreds of early 1900s newspapers, but I don’t remember any that made their home in Baker,” he said.

Any more the remaining traditionalists have fallen on the wayside, especially as modern skeptics stepped up to outright challenge such claims.

The late Amazing Randi made a career of disproving paranormal powers in elegantly simple but devastatingly public means. He even extended a $1 million prize for any verifiable proof of the supernatural in a controlled experiment, which was never successfully claimed by any challenger. From his own perspective it was even a bit crushing, given how many sincerely thought they would succeed.

In modernity, self-proclaimed psychics are largely relegated to bad TV, scaring themselves out of dilapidated houses or working through scripted encounters, somewhere far removed from the litigious liabilities presented by trying to predict the future, read minds or communicate with the afterlife.

Though Zangara listed himself in the Herald ads as “permanently located” it wasn’t uncommon for clairvoyants to pull up stakes and take off in the night, often for reasons directly correlated to the accuracy of their predictions (and the fees they incur). But such were the times he may have had to take up another line of work, or even change his name to make ends meet.

After only a couple months of Zangara’s ads in the Herald they stopped, never, apparently, to repeat. In all likelihood, he carefully packed away his secrets, turned in his key to room 27 in the Lynndale Building, summoned his pocket change, and boarded an outgoing train just in time for the new year. Another leg of what must have been a truly long journey.

It would be fascinating to discover his trail from here, but in a strange way it adds something to leave it be. To simply let this lone mystic slip back into the mystery he comes from.