Hotchkiss Fatally Strikes Spectator


Just one of the many spectators persistently crowding the course, Curt Gruner, a 33-year-old mill foreman from Passaic, New Jersey, pressed his luck too far in 1906. Slightly to the east of the Long Island Railroad crossing on Jericho Turnpike near Krug’s Hotel, Gruner found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Elliot Shepard Jr.’s Hotchkiss struck him down on the lap six, killing the unfortunate man.