Clark County Press, Neillsville, Wisconsin

July 2, 2008, Page 20

Contributed by "The Clark Co. Press"

Transcribed by Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon.

Index of "Oldies" Articles 

 

Compiled and contributed by Dee Zimmerman

 

Clark County News

July 1908

 

On Wednesday Vet Marsh leased his hotel, the Forest house in Granton, to Paul Thoma who took possession at once.  The new proprietor is a son of W. C. Thoma.  He was married in Oklahoma and while living there had considerable experience in the restaurant business.  He is a pushing and pleasant young man who will make a success of the hotel.

•••••••••

Mr. Hiram Parker and Miss Sadie Walker, both of Tioga, were quietly married at the Methodist parsonage in this city, June 24.  Rev. W. P. Burrows officiated at the ceremony.  They will live on a farm near Tioga. Both are highly spoken of by those who know them.

•••••••••

The following persons have secured saloon licenses for the year beginning July 1: John Simons, Joseph Dillman, Andrew Braun, John Wasserburger, Chas Wasserburger, A. W. Waldeck, James Paulus, Gust Anderson, A. L. Cowles, F. W. Schultz, August Storm, B. J. Gehrmann, Fred Hemp and C. B. Dresden.

•••••••••

Mrs. Henrietta Kuechenmeister died at the home of her son, Clement in the Town of Grant, June 29, 1908.  The deceased was born in Germany, November 5, 1828.  Her husband, Carl Kuchenmeister died July 31, 1907.  They were old residents of the Town of Grant and had an honorable and worthy name in the community.  Three sons survive, namely: Oscar, Reinholdt and Clement.  The funeral will be held today, Thursday, at the home of Clement Kuechenmeister.

•••••••••

There will be a 4th of July celebration at W. H. Thomas’s farm Saturday afternoon and evening.  A ball game will start at 1 p.m. and afterwards the time will be spent at the card tables and on the dance floor.

•••••••••

Elmer Selves is getting a set of cement block molds for making building blocks with dead air spaces in them both for house and round silo construction.  Parties who think of building should see Mr. Selves.  Cement is the coming material for building.

•••••••••

The new settlement at Willard, seven or eight miles down the Foster railway line, seems to be progressing rapidly although the people living there are having some difficulty in finding a way to get to town other than by train.  A post office has been granted and it is thought a school will be added to the benefits they have already received.  The settlement has grown considerably since last fall and more people are coming to that area.  Much clearing and building continues to be done.

•••••••••

Mr. and Mrs. F. O. Balch and son, Cleon and Mr. and Mrs. Len Howard autoed to Loyal Tuesday night.  They started from Neillsville at 7 p.m. and made the run up there in an hour.  The moonlight ride on the return trip was greatly enjoyed.

•••••••••

The westbound railroad track between Humbird and Fairchild was damaged by the heavy rains of Sunday night and Monday morning, about fifty feet of the embankment being washed away.  The sections crews from both towns were called out to repair the damage.  All trains were routed over the eastbound track.

•••••••••

The members of the local Kreuger-Verein Society held a picnic, last Sunday at Marx’s Grove on the North Side, at which a fine time was reported.  This German society originally composed of solders, but is now admitting others as members.

•••••••••

Sherman Gress, who has been keeping bachelor hall for a few days while making hay south of town, got tired of his own cooking and drove to Neillsville one day last week to see his ma and get a good square meal.

•••••••••

Robert Moser was up from Columbia Saturday on Business.  He is in the employ of Libby, McNeil and Libby who own the salting station at Columbia and other points.  Mr. Moser looks after the pickling pack at Columbia.  He states that the prospects are good at present for a crop of cucumbers.  The price is a little better this year than it was last year and it is to be hoped that the Columbia farmers will help in making this a good season.

 

July 1938

 

The Willard baseball team defeated the Christie team in a 14 to 9 slugfest Sunday.  E. Trunkel, E. Gregorich and John Zallar shared the pitching for Willard.  Monday, Willard handed Christie a 5 to 2 defeat to remain undefeated for the season.  Tony Zupance tucked in a neat three-hit performance for the winners.

 

Any team playing independent baseball and desiring games, please contact martin Kirn, Willard, Wis., for open dates.

•••••••••

David Parry and Carl Wagner did an expert job of cleaning the ceiling and sidewalls in the Sniteman drug store, which brought out again the brilliant colors of gold, brown and white used years ago, also rosettes and other decorations.  By the way, Sniteman drug store was the first building in the city wired for electricity, using carbon lamps until filament bulbs came on the market.

•••••••••

Two Greenwood families, Mr. and Mrs. E. A. Elmer and Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Quast, celebrated their golden wedding anniversaries Sunday, July 3, with many children and friends attending in honor of the event.  The Elmers were married at Columbus and moved to Greenwood nearly 40 years ago, where they raised a family of ten children, all of whom were present for the festivities.

 

Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Quast were married in Jefferson and resided there until 1907, when they settled on a farm south of Greenwood.  Later, in 1917, they moved into Greenwood, where they have since lived.  Mr. Quast was county treasurer at Jefferson for a number of years and has served as a trustee of St. Mary’s Church.

•••••••••

With grasshoppers finally hatching and thick in every part of the county, the bait mixing crew has been taxed to capacity on an eight hour a day basis for more than a week.  The crew is not able to fill all of the incoming orders, although so far bait has been distributed in Withee, Hixon, Hoard, Mayville, Longwood, Grant, Reseburg, Warner, Beaver, Loyal, Weston, Lynn, Fremont, Washburn and Pine Valley to a large number of farmers whose acreages have been affected.

 

The mixing station at Mentor has been operating for two weeks and during the last few days has been filling 220 sacks per day and rationing out 480, or an average of one sack every two minutes.  For the operation there is a concrete mixer, three men and a truck, some of the men being on WPA relief projects.  There have also been mixing stations for one or two days at Humbird and at the Grant town hall.

 

Bait mixed this year contains sawdust, whey and arsenic poison, rather than the usual black strap molasses and bran, which attracts the grasshoppers.  Because of the limited appropriation from the county board, the mixers have taken the most inexpensive measures advisable and it was apparent today that the sum was nearly exhausted, according to County Agent W. J. Landry.

 

Grasshoppers were so thick in Washburn County that they stopped a train at Earl, north of Spooner.  The train was unable to start without assistance.

 

(The abundance of grasshoppers in 1938, devoured small grain and corn plants on farm fields throughout the Mid-West. As a child, while living in southeastern South Dakota, I remember a cloud of grasshoppers landing on my parents’ corn-field, about 4 p.m. one afternoon.  The next morning we woke to see the entire field of corn plants, soon to tassel, had been eaten away with only five or six inches of stalk left.  The early 1930s were years of drought, to be followed by the plague of grasshoppers.  As a quote by Rev. Robert Schuller, “Tough Times makes Tough People.”  Farm families in that era had to be strong. D.Z.)

•••••••••

A Stevens Point taxi driver, last Thursday, drove a beautiful dark-eyed blond to a greenhouse where she told him to go in and buy a large bouquet of flowers.  When the taxi driver came out with the flowers, the pretty blond and the car were gone. The car was later found near Neillsville, without the blond in sight.

•••••••••

With fair weather, a large crowd turned out for the annual County Highway picnic at the Greenwood Park on Thursday.  County Treasurer J. H. Fradette was master of ceremonies and Bill Gosse’s “Hungry Five” German band from Colby played.  The southern part of the county won the men’s tug-of-war, and the north half of the county’s ladies won in their match.  Dancing and kittenball was on the program.

 

(In those years, the game of kittenball was what we now know as softball. D.Z.)

•••••••••

Thirty-five new residences assessed at $91,050, ten new business buildings valued at $55,000, business improvements of $12,500 and residence improvements of $18,500 were added to the tax roll of Neillsville this year.  Most of these buildings were put up in the past two years.  From 1935 to now, new buildings and improvements were exempt from taxation, which accounts for the big boost in the assessed valuation of the city, which totals $178,800 for the above.  These figures may be changed some before the final meeting of the board of review next week.

 

The tax roll shows a total depreciation of $3,800 on buildings but there was an increase of $1,800 in land valuations.

•••••••••

L. B. Ring, who for many years owned the Ross Eddy farm while editing The Press, in the following write-up, has set forth some interesting recollections of the early days in Neillsville, as follows:

 

“How rich I felt when I became owner of that Black Riverside farm.  And how the black Bass hated my acquisition of it!  I could sit on the riverbank and catch a dozen or so of those fish almost any time.  It was as easy as picking up items for the local columns for any newspaper uptown.  They swallowed the hook as easily and with as much joy as our voting population now swallow the White House hook.  We bit, as it were.  But I must sidestep politics.

 

“The River that Crothers used to hear from his home, once the Marlow Youmans farm, near Ross Eddy, always woke me up in the morning and got me out of bed to hike up town to do my newspaper work.  If I still owned Ross Eddy I would come back there and fish for a living.  But I had better not come back there.  For with Judge Dewhurst, James Hewett, Chauncey Blakeslee, Landlord James O’Neill, Herman Schuster, my brother M. C., and all of those dear people only living in memory, even a week in Neillsville now, I fear, would make me join those friends of long ago.  But, I sure would like to catch a mess of those black bass.

 

“But why cry like a baby.  I have had eighty-four years of fun and frolic, forty-one of them in Neillsville.  Just the same I would say that if I had made the world, I certainly would have made human life a little longer.  But I suppose we’ll have to let things go as they are, and leave the black bass to look after themselves.”  L. B. Ring

•••••••••

Heaped high and wide were the plates of strawberry shortcake when strawberry growers of Monroe and adjoining counties sat down to dine with friends and state officials at Sparta recently to celebrate a successful marketing season.  Marketing their quality crop through their own cooperative, these 200 or more growers, each with small acreages, are shipping their berries by rail and truck to the important consuming centers of the country.  They pay for and sell according to size, quality and grade to get top market prices.

•••••••••

The large flag, 16 by 21 feet in size, flown over Main Street July 3rd and 4th, is over 65 years old and with its 37 states shows it was made when there were only 37 states in the union.  This is probably the most prized flag in Clark County and is the property of Robert Kurth, grandfather of Louis (Neillsville postmaster), who cut down a pine tree to secure a flagpole 110 feet high, from which the flag was flown at Kurth’s Corners on state occasions until in 1882, when it was cut down at the time the new brick house was built.  The flag cost $65 and Mr. Kurth recalls after it was first put up, some body cut the rope and it took a steeplejack to thread it again.

 

(The brick house built by Kurth still stands on the corner of Hwy. 10 and Pray Ave. D.Z.)

•••••••••

The interior of the Winnebago Indian School, here, will be repainted in the near future and for this job over 300 gallons of paint have been purchased.

•••••••••

A very interesting and inspiring talk on the topic of “Baseball and Life” was given by H. P. Patey of Boston, brother of S. G. Patey of this city, at the meeting of the Kiwanis Club Monday evening.  Mr. Patey, who for 38 years has held a responsible position with Ginn & Co., book publishers at Boston, was for four years a pitcher on the baseball team of Dartmouth University and he has always had a keen interest in the game.  The same talk given here was given before the Boston Rotary Club recently.

 

How success in life depends much upon the same principles that make for success in baseball was graphically brought out.  He told how in the ninth inning of a World Series game Babe Ruth, despite cries for a home run, made a sacrifice hit that sent the runner ahead to second and won the game.  Knowing most of the famous players over a period of about 40 years, Mr. Patey’s talk was colorful and intensely interesting.  He also brought out how players became successful through living up to the golden rule.

•••••••••

 

Circa 1900, a cheese factory was located along what is now Pray Road and near the Highway 10 intersection, across the road from Kurth’s brick house.  The young boy standing in the doorway was Bert Hubing, who lived on a nearby farm south of the factory.  (Photo courtesy of Charlotte [Hubing] Jacob)

 

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