Tuesday, July 31, 2018

Time Machine Trip to August 1899


By Lyle Hansen


August 4, 1899
The United Comrades of the Spanish-American War made an excursion from Oshkosh to Kaukauna, stopping at Eden Park. A more appropriate name would have been the "United Order of Bums and Boozers," for a bigger crowd of drunks and rowdies has not struck this city for a long time. Had the excursion landed within city limits, there would have been a cooler full of "soiled doves" and others who indulged in boisterous conduct, but our police have no authority over the city line.


Baltimore, Md., July 29 - Upon one scaffold and simultaneously, four negroes were hanged at 9:48 a.m. in the city jail yard. Three of the men paid with their lives for assaulting a 13-year-old girl while the fourth for killing a woman he lived with.

A girl named Mary, at birth, dropped the ‘r’ when she grew up and became Miss May. As she began to shine in a social way she changed the ‘y’ to ‘e’ and signed her letters Mae. About a year ago she was married and now she has dropped the ‘e’ and it’s just plain ‘Ma.’ That’s evolution.

August 11, 1899
A Little Chute girl sent $1 to New York "specialist" for a "sure cure for freckles." This is the receipt which she received:  "Remove the freckles carefully with a pocketknife; soak them over night in salt water; then hang up in the smokehouse in a good, strong smoke made of sawdust and slippery-elm bark for a week. Freckles thus treated never fail to be thoroughly cured."



“Mamma, what would you do if that big vase in the parlor should get broken?” said Tommy.
“I should spank whoever did it.” She said.
“Well then, you better begin to get up your muscle,” said Tommy gleefully, “cuz Papa’s broke it.”  




The 12-year-old son of William Alger on the south side had his left hand badly mangled by the explosion of a dynamite cap Monday. He found the cap at the Kaukauna Fiber mill, where he as working.

Work was commenced Tuesday on a new solid stone engine house for the Kaukauna Lumber and Manufacturing Company on the Island, the same being 20x36 feet. This company has also just completed a mammoth new lumber shed, 58x120 feet, at their yards for the storage of lumber. As soon as the necessary ground can be secured next to that already occupied by Mr. Jansen, they will erect another shed of the same dimensions, removing part of their old ones which have covered too much ground.


August 18, 1899
During the extreme low water, the first of the week the boys had great sport catching suckers and carp in the rapids just below the dam. They could be caught by hand.

The Union Paper and Bag Company is the name of the old Western Paper Bag company since this institution entered the trust. They are having their name painted in big letters on the roof of the mill this week.

August 25, 1899
The boiler in the sash, door and blind factory of the A. H. Wieckert establishment at Appleton exploded, killing one man instantly, injuring another so seriously that he died within an hour of his rescue from the ruins, fatally wounding a third and seriously injuring eight others.


New York, Aug. 23. – Colored children of this state, under a decision of the superior court of Long Island, are barred from attending public schools with white children.   

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