Time Machine Trip to March 1904

 

Kaukauna Times – March 1904

By Lyle Hansen

 

March 4, 1904

Kaukauna has experienced a wood famine this week; owing to the congested condition of traffic on the railroad caused by the continued cold weather and heavy fall of snow. As a result, there was not a stick of fuel of any kind in the local yards for several days.

 

Franklin Ind., Three boys, each about 16 years old. Attempted to hold up a passenger train near this city. One commanded the engineer to stop and fired through the cab window narrowly missing him, another bullet struck the window in the smoking car. The train was stopped, and the train men started in pursuit, but the boys escaped.

 

Charles Jacoby of the southside while at work and the machine shop in Menasha had one of his ears torn off by the terrible gash he received while working on a lathe. Physicians attempted to sew it back on but later found no blood flow and the ear was removed.

 

Lawrence University has received a gift of $8000 from an unknown donor, which to endow a chair of English Bible study. This makes almost $200,000 received by the university this year.

 

The state capitol building at Madison was destroyed by fire Saturday morning, entailing a loss estimated anywhere between $300,000 to $600,000. The whole structure, with the exception of the north wing, was entirely gutted. Current Governor La Follette’s reform administration had canceled the building’s insurance policies leaving the structure without any insurance.

 

March 11, 1904

Another heavy flow of natural gas was struck by Jos. J. Faust last week while engaged in drilling, a well on the farm of H. Stein of Dundas. The gas was struck at a depth of about one hundred feet, just below a layer of sand, the well drilling apparatus as usual being hoisted into the air by the force of the eruption that followed. That whole section of the county seems to abound in natural gas.

 

Some men who claim to be looking for work go around in March with a pitchfork and in July with a snow shovel.

 

March 18, 1904

It is a poor town that cannot present some claim why the State Capital cannot be located within. Kaukauna, being located on two main lines of the greatest railroad system in the northwest offers unusual advantages in the form of beautiful scenery and free electricity. By furnishing electricity, it would be doing the state a great service, because of the gas that caused the fire creating the nearly one million dollars fire loss.

 

A well driller has made the discovery that Appleton stands upon a big underground swamp, 120 feet down, and that the city may sink someday. On account of this, we expect to see a general removal of the inhabitants to Kaukauna the coming summer. Kaukauna is built upon rock and is here to stay.

 

 Chars. Eggert, a farmer in the Town of Greenville, came very near blowing himself into eternity on Monday. He had an old family horse which he wanted to put down, but no one would do the job for him. He brought the old animal out into the field, tied a stick of dynamite around its neck, set fire to the fuse and started to run. The fuse so frightened the horse that it ran after its master. Eggert seeing the horse, ran to the fence and crawled under it. The horse stopped and an explosion resulting in a hole in the ground, what was but a moment before a horse and a fence.

 

March 25, 1904

The heavy rains of last night and the night before caused quite a flood, raising the water several feet in Konkapot Creek and wrecking the bridge which leads to Beaulieu Hill.