Time Machine Trip to January 1902

 

Kaukauna Times - January 1902

By Lyle Hansen

January 3, 1902

There was quite a flurry in the bread market on the south side for a short time last Saturday afternoon. Fred Wiggers delivery team indulged in a runaway careening the wagon on Third Street. Buns and bread took a drop and were scattered promiscuously along the highway.

The first of the new issue of ten-dollar buffalo bill was placed in circulation by the treasury department. The bill is named the buffalo bill because of the central figure of a large buffalo.

 

January 10, 1902

Joseph McCarty, who is now engaged in cutting ice for the Chicago and Northwestern railroad company, made record in filling his own ice houses, which task he completed in a trifle less than four day, the shortest time in which it was ever accomplished. Although the ice is not very thick so far, this winter, it is of much better quality than usual.

At the council meeting of Tuesday evening, application was made by H.A. Frambach for a franchise granting to him, his successors or assigns, permission to erect and conduct an electric light plant in Kaukauna. The franchise also adds that it is the ultimate intention to take up the claimed franchise and present rights and property of the Kaukauna Electric Light Company and transfer them to the new company.

 

January 17, 1902

A six-year-old boy named Pendergast, residing in the town of Kaukauna, was kicked by a horse last Friday. His skull was crushed in on the right side. Dr. Tanner was summoned and found the boy in serious condition with little hopes of being saved. He administered aid and trepanned the skull removing the portion resting on the brain. At last reports the boy was doing well and seemed to be on the road to recovery.

 

Not a wheel turned at the plant of the Union Bag and Paper Company in this city last Saturday, out of respect to the memory of Vice President A. N. Perrin and Secretary Treasurer Frank Washburn, the officers of the company who were killed in the New York Central tunnel collision, and whose funeral occurred that day.

 

A. W. Patten, 74, the well-known paper manufacturer died at his home in Appleton Wednesday morning.  He was born in a poor family in Massachusetts, and he spent his youth at labor to assist in the support of the family. He possessed the vigorous natural abilities learned by observation of men and affairs. He rose from the ranks of a poor boy to die as a multimillionaire with interest in several paper companies one of which is the Outagamie Mill in Kaukauna.

 

This locomotive was manufactured by the railroad boys on the southside of Kaukauna for the purpose of decoration at their fourteenth annual Thanksgiving ball given at the Kaukauna opera house. The work on the little engine is do perfect that it resembled the “real thing”.  

 

The Appleton physician who decided that smallpox is only acne must have turned some of his patients loose. A woman with her face and hands badly broken out with the disease boarded the train there bound for Brillion. As soon as the news spread through the car that smallpox was on board the train there was a scramble of passengers to the next car. When the train arrived in Kaukauna the woman was alone in the car. Dr. Nolan who happened to be on the train was called to examine the case and pronounced it sure-enough small-pox. The car was cut from the train and moved to a siding then attached to the rear of the train and proceeded to Brillion. The car will be thoroughly fumigated and disinfected in Brillion.

 

January 24, 1902

Blue jays and meadow larks have made their appearance according to reports from the rural districts, indicating an early spring.

St. John’s Catholic church at Little Chute has declared a dividend on its pew rentals to the parishioners. The pew rents for 1901 were $200, in excess, of the church expenditures and having no debt to apply to. Rev. Fr. Knegtel declared a $1 each to the 172 pew holders. 

 

January 31, 1902

The First National Bank came near being turned into an ice rink. A water pipe in the office of Dr. Titus just above the bank in the Central Block sprung a leak and for two hours during the afternoon, while he happened to be absent, a stream of water poured onto the floor and down through the ceiling. Before the break could be fixed and the stream shut off about an inch of water stood on the tile floor of the bank and bank employees were doing business beneath umbrellas to shed the flood from above.