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Chester Gould,
the creator of Dick Tracy was born in Pawnee, Oklahoma, on November 20,
1900. The son of Gilbert and Alice (Miller), Gould. His father was the
publisher of a local newspaper. His first commercial illustrations were
published in a local paper at age 7.
In 1919, Mr. Page, the editor of The Tulsa Democrat hired Gould to draw 18 political cartoons. He is paid $35.00. That same year the family moves to Stillwater, Oklahoma to be close to Oklahoma A&M College where Chester enrolls. Gould attended Oklahoma A&M 1919-1921, then moved to Chicago, Illinois to attend Northwestern University, graduating in 1923.
In 1925 he meet Edna Gauger on a blind date. They were married November 6, 1926. 1927 daughter Jean is born.
It took Gould ten years to be hired as a cartoonist with the Chicago Tribune. Chester Gould drew Dick Tracy for forty-six year.
When he showed his square-jawed trench-coated cop to his publisher, Joseph Patterson, Patterson suggested that he change the name from "Plainclothes Tracy" to "Dick Tracy" and history was written. The first detective hero in the strips, Tracy became a model for a variety of comic strip detectives including "Dan Dunn" and "Red Barry". Biographies of Tim Holt suggests Gould patterned his famed detective, jut-jawed Dick Tracy, after his favorite actor, Jack Holt, father of Tim Holt.
He did his first strip "Fillum Fables"
for the Hearst syndicate in 1924 and several others strips including
"the Girlfriend" for the Chicago Tribune before he had an idea
to create a new type of comic strip lead.
The creative team of Max Allan Collins & Rick Fletcher took over the strip in 1977. Since then Fletcher has been replaced by longtime Gould assistant Dick Locher (Fletcher was also a Gould assistant).
Wilmette Public School site at http://wilmette.nttc.org/virtualmuseum/museum02/Collins/gould.htm is displaying an online a scan of the telegram Chester Gould received from the Chico Tribune indicating they were interested in the possibilities of his character, "Plain Clothes Tracy." They are also displaying what appears to be his first drawing of the character. [Dec 2003]
In 1935, while driving home from a Wisconsin vacation, Gould and his family happened to pass through the tiny farming community of Woodstock, Illinois and an area just east of town known as Bull Valley. Bull Valley is a stunning area filled with wooded rolling hills and breathtaking vistas. Soon afterward Gould purchased an abandoned farm house on 60 acres. The following year, after painstakingly restoring the old farm house, Gould, his wife Edna and daughter Jean, moved to the country. Gould lived here until he died of congestive heart failure at age 84, on May 11, 1985. Gould is buried at Oakland Cemetery, McHenry County, Illinois.
Gould received the Reuben Trophy twice as "cartoonist of the year," in 1959 and 1977.
In 1982 Gould received Northwestern University's highest recognition, the Alumni Medal.
Commercialized beyond our imagination, the immortal comic-strip crime fighter, Dick Tracy has appeared in television, cartoons, postcards, stamps and a myriad of other venues.
The Chester Gould - Dick
Tracy Museum
PO Box 44, Woodstock, IL, USA
Sources:
1900 US Census Oklahoma Pawnee County.
Series T623. Roll 1341, page 138
1910 US Census Oklahoma Pawnee County. 4WD-Pawnee, Series T624, Roll 1268,
page 230
Chester Gould Changing
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Wilmette
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