The 10,009 Foot Mountain Story

W

WittyNickname

CAGiversary!
This couldn't be LESS related to the world of gaming, but I've just spent nearly an hour combing google in vain, so I beg for help from my fellow CAGs now.

I'm researching for a story, and distinctly remember a story I read when I was a young boy (we're talking articles in Weekly Reader, or Highlights for Children, et al) about a scientist who was the first to accurately measure the height of a mountain. He found that the peak was at exactly 10,000 feet; believing his work would be negated or belittled as lazy due to the perfectly rounded number, he instead reported that the mountain was 10,009 feet to lend credibility.

Searching now, I cannot find any evidence of this tale on the Interweb. There are mountains listed at 10,009 feet, but with no mention (that I could find) of this anecdote. And the search for 10,000 foot mountains is fruitless, due to the sheer wealth of search results for every mountain that has AT LEAST that many feet in its height.

Has anyone, ANYWHERE, heard this story beside myself? I'm starting to think I've got some critical detail wrong (like maybe a big "just kidding!" at the end of the story), or that I've somehow made the whole thing up despite my very clear memory of being fascinated upon reading it as a boy.

I am forever in the debt of whomever can convince me I'm not on a fool's errand.
 
no, I remember something like that, I know that there is a movie on it somewhere, like this town had a "hill" and when the dude actually measured it, the accurate measurement transfered it into a Mountain.

Edit: Aha, found it. Here it is.
 
I checked that out too, just in case, but that's a work of fiction (despite the film's claims to the contrary). This story I remember was a real world account of a mountain that had had its official stated height changed after the scientist who'd originally measured it came clean with the fact that he'd added nine phantom feet to the top to make a less-even total.

This is gonna kill me until I figure it out.
 
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