Time Machine to August 1905

 

Kaukauna Times

By Lyle Hansen

August 4, 1905

 

St. Mary’s Grade School graduation class of 1905.

Agnes J, Bell, Edward A. Burns, Archibald F. Creviere, Genevieve C. Dogot, Rose G. Farrell, James E. Garvey, Laura E. Hiting, Lilly B. Kinney, Iva M. Krebs, Mary I. Kronforst, Anna C. Kraemer, Mathew J. Kline, Santford C. Kittell, Madaline L. Libert, Robert A. Landreman, Margaret M. Melchior, Eugene J. Nagan, Katharine G. Sadlier, Agnes E. Taugher, Aloysius P. Verfurth and Francis J. Weiler.

 

Among the laws passed by the recent legislature is one providing that when a child who has the right to be at school is compelled to work for his or her living wages shall be the child’s sole property.

 

The biggest pile of logs in the Fox River Valley can be seen at the Kaukauna Fiber Company's plant. It is several hundred feet in length, and the logs are piled to a height of nearly fifty feet. They are taken up with a cable driven by the engine in the mill, from one to four logs at a time.

 

Work on the new telephone exchange, to be installed in Kaukauna by the Fox River Valley Telephone Company, will be commenced within the next two weeks.

 

Most of the wires for the exchange will be laid underground and will follow alleys wherever convenient. The system will accommodate 1,000 subscribers at the start and will be added to as the business expands.

 

August 11, 1905

 

J. S. Fechter has the honor of being one of the pioneer merchants of the north side. He came here in 1885 and opened a general store in a building on Wisconsin Avenue, located almost opposite Desnoyer Street. Fifteen months after he opened his store, he was burned out by a fire that swept that part of the city. Having the utmost faith in the city's growth, he immediately set to work to reestablish himself. Today Mr. Fechter owns one of the handsomest homes in the city on Wisconsin Avenue as well as one of the most complete furnishings stores to be found in the Fox River Valley.

 

An Italian laborer employed at the lime kilns on the east shore of Lake Winnebago had a close call from death. While using a pick he came in contact with a piece of dynamite that had been left on the ledge. The explosion resulted in the man being thrown several feet and was found unconscious, His hands and face were badly lacerated and the sight of one of his eyes narrowly escaped being destroyed.

 

 

Ridge Point

Messrs. Ristau Bros., proprietors of Columbia Park, conducted an excursion to Ridge Point last evening over the Green Bay line of interurban. Six open-excursion cars being used to carry the large number that turned out for the trip. Prof. Mill’s Cornet Band furnished music for the dancing in the pavilion at Ridge Point.

 

 

A schoolteacher asked a boy to make a sentence containing the words “bitter end.” Several minutes later he rose and said: The dog chased the cat around the porch and as she went under he bitter end.  

 

August 18, 1905

The enterprising little paper town of Kimberly is fast putting on a metropolitan air by the improvements which are under way there this season. Sixty-two new buildings have been built or are being built this summer. For the most part, these consist of the houses the Kimberly Clark Company is building for their workmen so as to provide homes for all of them close to their work.

 

August 25, 1905

A proposition is on foot to sell the labor of all men taken to the county workhouse. The C. F. Smith Company which operates a stone quarry a short distance from the workhouse had made an offer to the county to pay fifty cents per day for every man taken from the workhouse. The proposal will be made in definite form at the county meeting of the county board.

 

Peter Schommer, the thirteen-year-old son of Nick Schommer at Little Chute had a most remarkable escape from death Saturday afternoon when he fell thirty feet from the roof to the basement of the two-story hotel which Mr. Schommer is building. The boy and his friend were playing on the roof near the hole for the chimney when he fell through the opening. He was unconscious when found and is suffering back and head injuries.   

 

Herman Balk, aged 16 years, while employed at the Combined Locks Paper Mill on a paper machine, was caught in a paper winder early Saturday morning and quite badly injured. An employee said it is not often a person survives being caught in a winder. 

 

Oral Smith, a 16-year-old boy employed in the Combined Locks paper Mill, had a portion of two fingers and his thumb taken off Tuesday by getting them in the calendars.