Time Machine Trip to December 1897

December 3, 1897

An Appleton paper prints a story of a well-known young lady of that city who walked in her sleep from Appleton to Kimberly, a distance of over 4 miles. The trip was made through the snow at about 2 AM and the lady did not awake until the arrival of a search party. 

December 10, 1897

Jos. Vilas is evidently a believer in the old saying that "A thing of beauty is a joy forever," for he has already received one of the new Columbia chainless wheels of the '98 pattern. The wheel is a crackerjack to look at anyway.

December 17, 1897

The long expected happened on Monday morning when George and Albert Weyenberg broke through the ice while skating on the river above the dam, the former losing his life by drowning and the latter narrowly escaping a similar death. When about sixty rods from shore the ice broke letting Albert into the water. George rescued his brother, but in doing so broke through the ice himself and lost his life.

December 24, 1897

A car load of piping bound for Kaukauna for the water works system was piled up in a wreck near Cincinnati, twenty-two pieces out of a total of forty-one being broken. This causes still further delay in the commencement of the work here as it will take several weeks to get the loss adjusted.

The Savings Bank sleigh ride last Saturday night was quite a success. Several loads of schoolchildren were driven around the town during the afternoon.

December 31, 1897

The dam across the channel below the Thilmany paper mill, put in to divert the water to the Meade & Edwards canal, and which has caused Thilmany mill considerable trouble by backing the water into the wheel-pit of that plant, was blown out with dynamite on orders issued by Mr. Thilmany. Mr. Thilmany had served notice to the Green Bay Mississippi canal company that he would hold them responsible for $50,000 in damages caused by their dam. Now the litigations will undoubtedly follow.

The TIMES this week is published on the same day that 1897 closes his eyes, as it were, in a deep repose of a never resurrecting past. This is New Year's Eve and at 12 o'clock tonight the bells will toll and dying knells of 1897, and as though simultaneously also at the same time send forth the welcoming chimes of the birth of the new year 1898. Many will sit tonight and reflect with pleasure on the blessings enjoyed by them over the past year, while others will sit and fret with sadness upon adversities that have visited them. Let us all still fight the battle of life. 

Ewald Kuehne, one of the best-known wholesale meat dealers in this part of the state, was killed in the runaway Monday night, driving home at Appleton, his horses evidently having started to run as they turned at his gate. Mr. Kuehne was thrown against the fence. He was one of the Kuehne Bros. who controlled the livestock shipments in the county, doing an immense business.