I’ve been researching the 1909 Grand Canyon cave hoax for months. The hoax is the least strange thing I found

In 1909, the Arizona Gazette published an article claiming a Smithsonian-backed expedition had discovered an ancient Egyptian-style cave complex beneath the Grand Canyon. The Smithsonian has since stated it has no record of the expedition, the explorer, or the lead archaeologist ever existing in its files.

By 1909, William Randolph Hearst controlled nearly 14 percent of total U.S. daily newspaper circulation. He founded the International News Service that same year , a wire service that fed stories to papers nationwide. He didn't own the Arizona Gazette specifically. But he dominated the information infrastructure of the entire region.

Federal records show he also owned private land at Grandview Point, which was one of the primary tourist access points on the South Rim at the time. Internal government correspondence also shows NPS officials (1920s) were actively managing their relationship with him, strategizing around his land holdings and his attorney.

But the Hearst connection goes deeper than land and newspapers.

Phoebe Apperson Hearst – William's mother, personally funded a major Egyptian archaeological expedition beginning in 1899. Known as the Hearst Expedition, it ran from 1899 to 1905 and excavated multiple sites including Giza, producing approximately 17,000 catalogued Egyptian artifacts. She personally founded and bankrolled the museum of anthropology at UC Berkeley that still bears her name today. William himself traveled to Egypt with her on some occasions, purchased artifacts, and donated them to the museum.

The family weren't casual observers of Egyptology. They were among its most significant institutional sponsors.

By 1901, eight years before the cave article, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway had completed the only rail line to the South Rim. They built the hotels, the depot, the restaurants, the infrastructure. They controlled who got in, how they got there, and what they experienced when they arrived.

Combined with Hearst's private land at Grandview Point and federal agencies actively managing relationships with both. what emerges is a picture of a canyon with very few independent actors and very controlled access.

The article also names the expedition's explorer as "G.E. Kincaid."

I have NOT found any record of a G.E. Kincaid, in any record so far, that matches this description. It's of my own belief that the guy simply doesn't exist in that spelling or association.

However:

Trevor Kincaid was a University of Washington zoologist and USDA Special Agent with Smithsonian connections going back to the 1899 Harriman Alaska Expedition, where he worked alongside David Starr Jordan, the same man whose name appears in the article as "S.A. Jordan."

T. Kincaid spent the summer of 1908 in Japan on a USDA assignment and was confirmed back in Seattle by autumn 1908.

(The article places G.E. Kincaid departing Green River, Wyoming in October 1908, right in that window)

His (TK) USDA credential authorizing his next assignment is dated April 7, 1909. Two days after the Arizona Gazette article published. He was stateside, signing federal paperwork, at the exact moment the story ran.

His initials don't match, i know. Nothing Ive found puts him at the Grand Canyon directly. I'm not drawing a conclusion, but it is pretty interesting.

If you want to see the full web of connections, every node linked directly to its primary source- my research website has an interactive 3D graph that makes the relationships visible rather than buried in records.

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All relevant links and information:

Grand Canyon — 1909 Kincaid Research Project https://share.google/gexDPjcmfidgaDOdB

Phoebe Hearst:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebe_A._Hearst_Museum_of_Anthropology

-Disclaimer:

I'm not suggesting the Hearst family had anything to do with the cave story in any way. That's not what this research does. Im documenting who was present, who had influence, and what the institutional record actually shows. The Hearst name keeps showing up in relevant research though, and its worth noting.
That's all I'm saying lol