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Clark County Press, Neillsville, Wisconsin May 7, 2008, Page 24 Contributed by "The Clark Co. Press" Transcribed by Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon. Index of "Oldies" Articles
Compiled and contributed by Dee Zimmerman
Clark County News |
May 1908
Two hundred men are at present employed at the Hatfield power plant and this force will be doubled within the next week or ten days.
Three excavating machines on the canal are now in service and the work is being pushed rapidly. Power will likely be received in La Crosse in late July, or early in August. Some idea of the immense volume of water now going over the dam can be gained from the following: The spillway of the dam is 494 feet long and over this; 14 inches of water are flowing all the time giving about 18,000 horsepower.
Frank Ruddock is working in the shoeing department of the blacksmith shop at Hatfield. He has a pretty tough proposition on some of the companys mules, but if there is any man who can handle the job, it is Frank.
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Construction of the Hatfield power plant and dam was a large undertaking in 1908. It required the employment of many men, mules and equipment.
(Photo courtesy of Bill Roberts Collection)
About 50 men are employed at Owen, cleaning and cutting out the right-of-way for the Fairchild railroad to Medford. The company expects to have the road completed by next September. An officer of the road said that they will put in a station at Hollisters mill.
Rev. James Bain of Portage organized a Sunday school at the Prince of Peace Church in Pine Valley last Sunday. He expects to visit this locality again in the near future and look over the prospects of organizing Sunday schools at Hewettville and Columbia, if none are now organized in those localities.
(The Prince of Peace Church is believed to have been located on Sand Road, ½ mile east of the South Pine Valley Cemetery. D.Z.) (The Prince of Peace Church was located at the SW corner of West Sand Road and Sidney Ave, at what is known as the Church corner by the locals and is about 1½ mile east of the South Pine Valley Cemetery. Dmk)
Ambrose Steinwand, an old resident of the Town of Colby is dead. Mr. Steinwand was one of the first men to make cheese in Clark County and for many years manufactured the cheese that made Colby famous.
It is reported that a fish was caught in the Black River below Hatfield recently, said to have weighed over 40 pounds.
Now is the time to drag roads, as from now on the earth road drag should be used after every rain on the clay and loam roads of Wisconsin. This is the proper time to do work with the road machine in order that the roads may have the whole summer in which to get packed and hardened with the aid of the drag.
The drag will do more to keep earth roads in condition after they have once been given a proper shape and slope than any other tool known to road builders.
For Sale: 640 acres of unimproved farmland in Rusk County, Wis., 130 miles east of St. Paul, covered with maple, birch and hemlock cordwood timber; Located two miles from town, with a railroad, school and churches; Priced at $12 per acre, part cash, 3 to 5 years on balance, good market for all timber. Inquire at The Press office.
Last Sunday, a class of 315 children was confirmed in St. Johns Catholic Church in Marshfield, the largest in the history of the church. This speaks well for Father Folz who has been the pastor there for the past year.
Mr. and Mrs. Carl Rabenstein received work last week from their daughter, Mrs. W. E. Woodard that she and her husband had been offered and had accepted a position in the State Hospital at Jamestown, ND.
For Sale: Purebred Plymouth Rock chicken eggs for hatching. Inquire at the farm of Geo. E. Crothers.
Sheriff Jaseph picked up a man at the stockyards Tuesday, who seemed to be in bad shape. He cant even give his own name or answer any questions. He appears to be nearly starved to death.
Decoration Day will be observed at Chili in the following manner: At 10 oclock a.m. a parade under the leadership of Marshall E. M. Owens, along with the Chili band, will march to the cemetery. At 2 oclock p.m. there will be a program consisting of an address by a noted local speaker, music by the band, speaking by school children and vocal music by a quartet of both sexes. All that is necessary is fair weather and a good attendance of our neighbors and friends to make this a great Memorial Day in every respect. The flag on the liberty pole will be lowered with due ceremony at sundown.
Thursday night, during the thunderstorm, lightning struck the small barn of Martin Hoppe on the North Side, burning it to the ground. The building was covered by a small amount of insurance.
The same night, Bud Lazottes fine barn in the Town of Grant was fired by lightning and burned. He saved his farm machinery. The insurance policy of $600 partly covers the loss.
October 1938
The South Side Grade School softball team defeated the Greenwood team 10 to 7 and 14 to 9 in a doubleheader at the fairgrounds, Saturday afternoon. Darwin Graves pitched the opener for the local team and Dale Sherman shared the mound duties with Graves in the second game.
The two teams will meet in a return game at Greenwood sometime soon.
Burleigh Grimes, manager of the Brooklyn Nationals, has sued his wife, Mrs. Laura Virginia Grimes, for divorce. Grimes, formerly of Owen, owns a farm near New Haven, Conn. He was married in 1931 at St. Louis and he and his wife parted in 1937.
Reinhard and Davis have leased the automobile repair shop of Henry Naedler and one storage room for display purposes on East Sixth Street. They will take possession May 10. Mr. Naedler will continue his Automotive Parts & Supply department, with paints, sporting goods, etc. Mr. Naedler has been in the automobiles business here for 23 years.
Silver Dome Ballroom will have a Free Wedding Dance Thursday evening, May 12, in honor of Mr. and Mrs. Dale Seif. Monday Evening, May 16, there will be a Free Wedding Dance in honor of Mr. and Mrs. Seth Bower.
Postmaster Louis Kurth announces that an airmail plane will pick up mail at the Marshfield airport Thursday, May 19, in the afternoon and all patrons of the Neillsville area may send air mail letters or packages on this plane by mailing them at the Neillsville post office, not later than 12 oclock noon.
This is National Air Mail Week and our citizens are being reminded that for three cents additional, one-ounce letters may be sent by airmail to any post office in the United States.
Airmail has brought the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards so near us that mail is delivered in a few hours after mailing at Neillsville.
The new Neillsville Post Office, for which $70,000 was allotted, will be completed on or before June 8, the date set in the contract. With buff tapestry brick, granite steps, bronze exterior, light standards and landscaped grounds, the building presents an artistic and pleasing appearance. Utility and beauty are combined to a high degree, which one finds upon a journey around the building and grounds with the building being one of which Neillsville may well feel proud.
In the construction, 30,000 buff brick were used along with 58,000 common brick. The Dolomite stone trim came from Mankato, Minn. and also the granite. The lighting standards and fixtures are ornamental and the 116 post office mailboxes are of bronze in Greek design. The lobby is finished in unglazed quarry tile and the floors are of maple and oak. Much of the framework is steel construction; the roof is of copper and gravel composition. The wainscoting is of ceramic design. The workroom is finished in birch trim with the lobby and office in oak trim.
The M. J. Marsh store opens May 19 with a close-out sale during which everything in the store will be sold.
The Marsh store is one of the best known in this section of the state and has featured nationally known ready-to-wear. The hundreds of customers Mr. Marsh has served, for so many years, regret he is retiring. Coming here in 1879, Mr. Marsh has witnessed the growth of Neillsville from a frontier, logging village to a modern city and has seen huge forests give way to modern farms. In this development, he was an active figure. He is one of Neillsvilles best-known and most highly respected businessmen.
Another carload of Maytag washing machines, the second full carload to be unloaded here in the past six weeks, arrived here for the Neillsville Maytag Co., last week. John Schiesel, manager and his assistants have been busy unloading and making deliveries. The Maytag is a nationally known machine. With Mr. Schiesel active in sales work and advertising, it is going over good in this territory.
(Introduction of the Maytag wringer washers became very popular in changing the means of laundering clothes, from the old drudgery method of the scrubbing boards and washtubs. The Maytag machines came equipped with electric, or gasoline motors which were used in rural areas where electricity wasnt yet available. My mother was thrilled with getting her first gasoline motor-powered Maytag wringer washer in 1937. The flexible exhaust hose was placed under an opened window, extended to the outdoors to let the engines exhaust fumes out. If the locking apparatus on the one caster wheel couldnt hold the washer stationary, it would move around in the kitchen by the vibration of the machines motor. D.Z.)
W. T. Price ran a four-horse stagecoach on an overland route from La Crosse to Neillsville in the 1860s, after the opening of the ferry at Dumfreis. Teams passed daily overland, crossing the Black River at that point where there were hotel accommodations, a connecting link with all points south and east.
(The town Dumfreis name was later change to what we now know as Melrose. D.Z.)
Train after train ran over the Omaha line through Altoona and Fairchild, Wednesday, every few minutes. High water and washouts on the Burlington and Milwaukee tracks near Prescott and Red Wing made the re-routing necessary. However, Omaha trains managed to keep running on regular schedules.
L. B. Ring, a former editor, has revived a history of the Neillsville Library. When the present library site was purchased, C. C. Sniteman, Judge James ONeill and three other citizens gave $100 each to help pay for the site.
The Mapleworks parochial school will close its years work with a program Friday, starting at 8 oclock in the church parlors.
The program will consist of dialogues, recitations, songs and presentation of diplomas to the 8th grade pupils. Rev. A. Laesch will also deliver an address. There will be an exhibit of schoolwork in the schoolroom. A very noteworthy piece of work, done by Albert and Charles Ledebuhr and Albert Hasz, under the direction of their teacher, Ray Rosenthal, has been the safety patrol by the above named pupils, on the corner where County Trunk K joins Federal Highway 10, near the schools. These boys, equipped with belts and badges furnished by the American Automobile Association, have stood on the corner during the school year and helped the younger pupils cross this intersection in safety.
The members of the Romadka Homemakers club, whose homes extend from Windfall Corners north to the Romadka School corners, have plans under way to plant hollyhocks in as many available placed as possible along the roadside to beautify their highway and hve it quality for the title of Hollyhock Lane.
New improvements recently have been made on South Hewett Street: a new porch at the east side of Mrs. Amelia Jacksons house; a coat of paint has been applied to the house occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Fred Wall and the west porch is now boxed in. At the J. L. Neverman home, the old arborvitae hedge on the north side of the house, has been taken out and moved to the golf course. This is an exceptionally fine improvement, giving residents of that section of Hewett Street a view far up and down the street.
A number of pre-prom parties were given Friday evening and all were most enjoyable affairs and fittingly prepared for the participants of the gala occasion, which followed.
Mrs. M. E. Bennett entertained at an 8:30 oclock dinner in honor of her son Keith. The guests included the prom King and Queen; Lewis Milton and Miss Marcia Russell, Dale Gerhardt, Patricia North, Joe Schiller, Loraine Hubing and Marguerite Brown.
At 7:45 dinner, Mrs. Louis Kurth had 14 high school students as guests in honor of her daughter, Miss Jeanne, at the Kurth residence on West 10th Street.
A third dinner party was held at Chapmans restaurant, which was prepared for 12 students. Streamers of the class colors along with bouquets of tulips and lilacs served as table decorations. Charm and beauty was added by the use of Red Wing pottery in the dinner service.
Miss Clara Jean Francis, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Ferd Francis of Greenwood and Darrell S. Buettner, son of Wm. Buettner of Christie, were united in marriage in their trailer home at 8 oclock on Thursday evening, May 12, 1938. Rev. G. W. Longenecker, of Neillsville, officiated.
The couple was attended by Miss Ruth Dunn and brother of the bride, Merrill Francis. The only others present were immediate relatives.
Following the service, a wedding dance and shower were held at Christie. The young couple will reside in their trailer house. The groom is employed as a truck driver.
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