Clark County Press, Neillsville, WI

April 23, 1997, Page 16

Transcribed by Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon.

Index of "Oldies" Articles 

 

In the Good Old Days

 

By Dee Zimmerman

 

Clark County April 1887

 

Isn’t it time for red horse pilgrimages to Dells Dam?

 

The marble works will be open for business on the north side of Neillsville on May 1st.

 

Mr. Streeter is delivering oak stove bolts to Meyer’s saw mill.

 

These warm days make it hard work for the rising generation to go to school.

 

Palmistry is not such a new craze; we have known men to sit around a table for hours trying to find out about each other’s hands.

 

Dr. Esch reports eighty-eight cases of measles, and more ripening every day.  As Tom Payne says, “These are the times that try men’s souls.”

 

The splendid black thoroughbred trotting stallion “Lochiel, Jr.” is the property of John Stewart of Greenwood.  Locally, he is known as the Thorp horse.

 

C. Youmans is building a house on his farm for his farm hands.  G. N. Phillips is doing the carpentry.

 

The baseball grounds have been plowed and will be harrowed, rolled and a high board fence built to stand off the cheap chaps.  Mr. McManus is something of a disciple of Isaac Walton, and went trout fishing the other day over by Hixton.  He has our thanks for a mess of the “speckled beauties.”

 

Joe Silsbey informed us Tuesday that there was a big log jam on Wedges Creek below Hewettville Dam some two miles long, and one some distance above the dam; in three sections, extending to the vicinity of the stave mill.  Ed Bruley has been at work on the big jam with a crew of men for Bright, while Brillion and his men have been tussling with the upper blockage for Hewett.  Flooding doesn’t budge things at all with the present stage of water and everybody waits hopefully for rain.

 

Street Commissioner Tom Hommel has been doing some extra good work removing stumps from the streets in the less central part of town.

 

J. E. Silsbey’s red cow has strayed or been stolen.  She is two years old with a notch in the right ear and is expected to have a calf soon.  A reward is offered for her return.

 

The Neillsville flour and feed mill has passed out of the hands of W. S. Colburn & Co., having been leased by A. B. Marsh & Co., who will continue to run it, making modifications in the plan working the business, and reducing the cost of operation.  Marsh has kept books for the mill for about two years, and knows the ins and outs of the business thoroughly.  The “Co.” stands for Levi Archer and Jas. Hewett, both gentlemen of large means and fine business ability.  The mill must certainly thrive under the new administration.

 

Geo. Brooks of Pleasant Ridge has sold his old home farm to Mike and Nick Hubing, for $2,100.  The farm is without a house, the old house having been burned several years ago.

 

April 1907

 

August F. Snyder is your exclusive clothier and gents’ furnisher.  If you want more style in your clothes; look at our merchant tailor suit.  Also the spring line of Douglas shoes in Pat Gun Metal and Box Calf.  None better made at $3; $3.50; $4 and $5.

 

The new cheese factory being built on the Bushman farm a half mile north of town is for the Greenwood Cheese and Butter Co., and incorporated co-operative company organized on March 9, with A. Speich, president, Frank Markee, Vice President, and John Bushman, secretary and treasurer.  It consists of seven members.  About 3,000 pounds of milk can be counted on at the start, Bushman says, and a start will be made April 1, if the machinery arrives in time.  Machinery with a capacity of 6,000 pounds will be installed.

 

There have been three weddings in our city this past week.

 

Fr. Hauck united in marriage: Richard Welch and Miss Victoria Barton at St. Mary’s Church, Tuesday morning.  The ceremony was performed in the presence of a large number of relatives and friends.

 

The young couple will live in a cozy little home in our city.  Welch is a mail carrier on one of the rural routes.

 

Frank Krejci and Miss Mamie Snyder were united in marriage at the Methodist parsonage at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday.  The attendants were Miss Mable Gault and Percy Northup. After the ceremony they returned to the home of the bride’s parents, a little beyond Visgar, where a number of guests were waiting.  The bride has taught for some time at York, and the groom is a successful farmer. They will make their residence at the home of the groom’s parents.

 

Judge Schoengarth united Geo. W. Harder and Eleanor Stanley in marriage on Monday morning.  Harder is a businessman from Greenwood and his bride is one of Neillsville’s young ladies.

 

One of the neatest and cleanest stores in the city of Neillsville is the grocery store owned by Frank Hemp and it is a pleasure to trade there.  Hemp recently came into full control of the store and is putting forth his best efforts to expand the store’s stock.  (Hemp’s store was on the southeast corner of Fifth and Hewett Streets)

 

Colby citizens have formed a stock company, capitalized at $25,000 and will manufacture boxes and like articles.  It will be known as the Perschke Mfg. Co.

 

Neillsville Bock Beer will be on sale Saturday.

 

Loyal will once again have an operating grist mill.  Nearly $6,000 worth of stock will be transferred when stockholders meet to incorporate and elect officers.  Chris Kippenhan, who has had a great deal of experience in buying grain and farm produce, will no doubt assume the management as he is the heaviest stockholder.  He and his family have moved from Greenwood and moved into the home owned by C. H. Brown.

 

Bulgrin Bros. have their new cheese factory almost completed and will be open for business about May 1st in Chili.

 

Little Ruby Eisentraut is visiting with her grandparents in South Grant.

 

We can use any amount of good dairy butter.  If you have any give us a chance to buy it.  We are paying top price for good butter at Walk’s Store in Neillsville.

 

April 1947

 

Owen will have improvements of its athletic park.  A new grand stand will be constructed and a lighting system will be installed for night baseball.

 

The city council received a petition for a permit to move the taxi cabin, now located on Sixth Street, to the lot north of the Lewerenz Sweet Shop.  The taxi service would be operated, according to this plan, from that location on South Hewett Street.  Burchell said the taxis would be kept at the back of the lot and not on the street.

 

Granton oldsters and youngsters are in the business of making maple syrup.  Driving through the village of Granton, a visitor could wonder if he was on a village street or traveling a well-planned maple sugar tree plantation.  Every available maple tree, of either the hard or soft variety, has been tapped by youngsters or oldsters, alike, to give up the precious sap to be converted into maple syrup or sugar.  The sap this year is unusually sweet requiring about one-third less sap to produce a gallon of syrup.  One reason for the brisk activity is the fact that syrup is sold for from $5 to $8 per gallon.

 

Three Neillsville High School Future Farmers won the coveted Wisconsin Farmer Degree at the annual state convention in Wausau this past weekend.  The Neillsville chapter received the Honor Chapter award for outstanding accomplishments.

 

Receiving the top individual award for the state was: Robert Knoop, son of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Knoop; Melvin Appleyard, son of Mr. and Mrs. Fred Appleyard; and Donald Marg, son of Mr. and Mrs. Ed Marg.

 

The Ervin H. Witt cheese factory, of Reseburg Township, located about three miles south of Thorp, changed ownership, passed on to Mr. and Mrs. John J. Worachek on April 1.  The Woracheks bought the property, including the cheese making equipment and machinery, 200 milk cans, office equipment and supplies, and other incidental equipment.

 

April 1957

 

Neillsville High School’s annual athletic banquet honored Jon Swenson, senior stand-out guard of the Neillsville high school basketball team and a football letter winner, who became the third to win the outstanding athlete award of the Neillsville Chamber of Commerce.  Dr. Milton C. Rosekrans, president of the chamber of commerce presented Swenson with the permanent trophy and a gold medal with 170 persons in attendance at the annual athletic banquet.

 

Two old-times ended their long service to the communities they served, this week.  Mike Johnson, Town of Levis, is a man of many titles – farmer, stage driver, woodsman who helped on the last big log drive down the Black River.  But the one thing of which he is proudest is the fact that he has been the only town treasurer people in the Town of Levis have known in the last 42 years.  At 84 years of age, he concludes a period measuring exactly half of his life, as treasurer of the town.

 

For 39 of the 42 years, he worked closely with his brother, John, who served as Levis’ town clerk.  Together they formed a town clerk-treasurer team that probably stands as a record in the annuals of Wisconsin township history.

 

William C. (Bill) Ambelang was chairman of the Town of Hewett for 23 years.  His term as chairman started in 1933 and when he took over, the town was broke.  “We had a bill from the Neillsville Public Schools for more money than we had in the treasury,” stated Ambelang.  So his first task was to seek some ready cash with which to keep the town going.  He approached two banks with a “Nope” response to borrowing money.  The third banker, Homer Root, offered to help.  He loaned Ambelang $200, and that tided the town over until they had some income.  “For the first three years we raised the taxes and haven’t raised them since,” Ambelang recalled.  Ambelang said he would miss activities of the chairman’s position for awhile.

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It is exciting to hear how some of our young people look forward to reading newspapers.

 

A recent incident was shared by a mother who told of her daughter’s interest in reading the Press:

 

As mother and daughter were driving into town one day, the eight year old was teller mom the live history of a man who had recently passed away.  The mother asked her who had told her all about that man’s life.  Her daughter, Jessie, responded, “I read about him in the Press on the “Opinion page.”  That’s a young reader who reads all of the newspaper.

 

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The Deutsch Clothing Store was located in Granton, circa 1910.  It was a subsidiary of August Snyder’s Clothing Store in Neillsville.  (Photo courtesy of the Clark County Historical Society, Jail Museum)

 

 


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