Clark County Press, Neillsville, WI

March 27, 2002

Transcribed by Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon.

Index of "Oldies" Articles 

 

Compiled by Dee Zimmerman

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clark County News

 

March 1892

 

The Chatauquans and their husbands attended an entertainment at the residence of C. A. Youmans on Saturday evening.  A fine program was presented in celebration of Longfellow’s birthday.  That day was also the birthday of Mrs. Lyman, now of Eau Claire, a former member of this society, who was in attendance at the entertainment.  We understand that Mrs. Lyman is related to the Longfellow family.

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Saturday, Tom Hommel came near losing his dog, Dick.  Just as the passenger train pulled into the city, the dog started to run across the railroad track, ahead of the snowplow.  He came so near being killed that the snowplow struck him from behind and raised him up several inches.  But Dick had no desire to be converted into dog sausage by a locomotive.  So with the aid of the rapidly advancing engine, he gave a spring and alighted safely on the platform.  Hommel was so mad at the dog for a moment that he didn’t know whether to give him a kick or pick him up and hug him.

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Marsh Bros. new store is going to present a metropolitan air to the extreme when completed.  It will have nearly all the modern improvements to be found in a similar store in the large cities.  They have just had an arc light placed over the front doorway which is metropolitan indeed.

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Tom Kerns broke camp last week and let his logging men go home.  He has completed his contract with the La Crosse Lumber Co., which has been four years in the works.  C. Lowe acted as Kerns’ foreman.   Kerns is an old and experienced logger whose work has always given entire satisfaction to those he has dealt with.  So he will either have to take another contract next winter or feel like a needle in a haystack – lost.

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Johnnie Servaty has moved his livery business from the old barn located back of the O’Neill House.   His business in (is) now in the barn formerly occupied by Jack Stone, corner of Fifth Street and Grand Avenue.  Now all the Neillsville livery stables are located within a block of each other.

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The Town of Spencer is not to be outdone by its neighboring towns.  It now has a washboard factory started.  James Andrew Washington Sears with probably enough more names to include all the presidents of the United States has invented a washboard.  The washboard, it is said, will put all others in the shade.  Sears has started the factory at Spencer.  The rubbing board is of zinc, but instead of being corrugated as other boards are, the zinc is flat, with wire in the form of staples that are clinched on the backside of the plate.  Good for Spencer.

••••••••••

The busiest concern in our city according to our views is the new grist mill.  We noticed today no less than 15 teams with wagons at one time, waiting in line to have their grist ground.  Other customers were coming along regularly to take their turn.  One of our citizens informed us that he had been watching the teams come and go from the mill all day.  We are extremely proud of the new enterprise in our city.

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George Trogner went to Milwaukee and Chicago Friday to purchase a new steel boiler and additional machinery for his planing mill, recently known as the Gallagher mill. Trogner intends to fit the mill up with first class machinery.  We may expect at no distant day to hear of this concern to be at the top in the way of machinery.

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The bluebird is warbling the announcement that spring has arrived.  But the warbler may be wading around in the snow of the artic for a few days.  Neither the bluebirds nor the robins can hasten the season of warmth in one day.

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The residence of George Trogner was the scene of a wedding on Sunday, March 27, 1892.  Rev. T. G. Owens officiated at the marriage of Sam M. Crandall to Miss Maud Perry, both residents of this city.

 

Crandall is a young man well known in this city, having been employed for some time by A. S. Leason in the pump factory, afterward working for the Farm Implement Co.

 

Miss Perry is a step-daughter of George Trogner and has lived in this city from her childhood.

 

The newly wedded couple left Monday for Heintown where Crandall is employed in the stave mill.  They will make their home there also.

 

March 1942

 

Relics of Clark County’s early days are slowly being assembled in the forestry department office on East Sixth Street, just north of the county jail.

 

Over the last few years, County Forester, A. C. Covell has assembled quite a collection of mementoes of those days when the noise of woodsmen’s axes rang out through the timbered lands of the county.

 

One of the prizes among the collection is a “windfall,” a piece of an old tree trunk bearing markings of a quarter-section in the original government survey.  This tree once marked the south quarter corner between sections 17 and 20 in the Town of Dewhurst.

 

The bark had been peeled for about a foot in length and six inches in width. And, although they were made in 1847, 95 years ago, the tooled marks “1/4” and “S” can be discerned.  The piece was found a couple of years ago by forestry department men.  The upper part of the tree had been chopped off above the quarter-section markings and the section bearing the original quarter-section marking was added to the forestry department’s collection.

 

Three log stamps, used by logging firms in the old days to identify their logs, also are included in the collection. These log stamps resemble a heavy sledge hammer head except that on one end the initials or identification mark of the logging concern are raised.  The stamp was put on the log by striking the end with the raised letters.

 

Two of the log stamps have been definitely identified.  One, bearing the initials “PSD,” was the stamp of Payton S. Davidson Company which operated extensively in the Town of Dewhurst in about 1860.  The other bears the initials “MCD,” and has been identified as the mark of the McDonald brothers, who operated in Sherwood and Washburn in 1860 or 1870.

 

The identification of the third stamp has not been definitely established.  It could be “VV,” or “W” or “M.”  Covell said he has been told that it is the stamp of the Island Mills.

 

Tying in with the log stamps is the butt end of an old log bearing the stamp of the Payton S. Davidson Company.  It was found a year or so ago in the bed of the Five Mile Creek, west of Neillsville in the Town of Hewett.

 

Other articles in the collection include a canthook, apparently hand-wrought and now rust eaten.  It was found at the landing site of the old Chippewa Valley Log and Boom Company, Covell stated.

 

There is a fit-hook ring.  It is just a plain, round iron ring about three inches in diameter.

 

Some day, when it has grown a little more, Covell says he hopes to put up the collection in some public building where it will be of interest and educational value for all.  In the meantime, the collection will be kept in the forestry department’s office, where it can be seen.

••••••••••

About 60 relatives and friends attended a farewell party in honor of Arthur Bushman, who left Tuesday for Ft. Sheridan, Ill. to be inducted into the service.  The party was held at the home of his parents, Mr. and Mrs. John Bushman. Cards were played after which lunch was served.  He was presented with a purse of money by those present at the party.  On Saturday evening a stag party was held at the Wuethrich Creamery in his honor.  Bushman had been employed there for six years.  He was presented with a wrist watch by his fellow workers.

 

On Sunday afternoon and evening, a family gathering was held at the home of Mr. and Mrs. John Bayuk at Willard, in honor of their son, Edward, age 20.  He arrived Friday for his first visit here since he joined the navy, two years ago.  He will leave Wednesday or Thursday to spend the remainder of his 11-day furlough with relatives in Hillsboro and Milwaukee before returning to his duties at the Naval Station at Norfolk, Virginia.  Those who attended the reunion Sunday were: Mr. and Mrs. Anton Fortuna and family, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Godee and family, Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Quast and Charles Debevec.

••••••••••

The piece of field artillery, which stands camouflaged on the courthouse lawn, may at long last go into action against the enemy.  The Otto A. Haugen post, American Legion, which owns the adornment, will consider selling it for its scrap value.  The subject is expected to be brought before the group at its meeting.  The artillery piece is a 47-milimeter gun built for World War I use by the Studebaker Corp.  It was brought to Neillsville about seven years ago.  Its weight is placed at six tons, or about 12,000 lbs.

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For three hours Wednesday morning the midnight train dropped out of sight in the wilds between Columbia and Sidney.

 

When the train failed to arrive at 12:20 a.m., Bert Pollonow, the night baggageman, became puzzled.  He telephoned Merrillan and what he learned made the picture even more puzzling.  The train had pulled out of the Merrillan station on time.

 

He waited anxiously a while longer and when the train was still numbered among the missing, he telephoned to Merrillan again.  The time the Merrillan depot attendant became puzzled and sent out a section crew to track down the missing train.

 

It apparently was about that time when the conductor, Charles Wilcox of Altoona, pounded at the door of Thomas Wren’s home at Sidney.  He was covered to the knees by mud; for he had walked several miles along the tracks from “somewhere between Sidney and Columbia.”  Wren warmed up his tin-lizzy and a short time later he and the conductor came puffing and blowing into Neillsville.

 

Something had gone wrong with the train engine out there miles from the nearest telephone.  The engine of the early morning westbound train, which had been held at Marshfield, was sent through to bring in the stalled midnight train.  The early morning train, due at 2:01 a.m., pulled in at 7:35 a.m., about 10 minutes after the regular morning eastbound train pulled through.

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Freight trains as well as passenger trains made daily trips going east or west through Neillsville in the early 1900s.  The freight consisted of a variety of products that was hauled over the railroads across the Midwest.  (Photo courtesy of the Sontag family collection)

 

 

A drive to enroll 500 or more men for civilian forest fire fighting was started in Clark County this week by A. C. Covell, county forester.

 

The object of the volunteer units will be to fill the gap caused by the induction of men into the armed services and the removal of others to Industrial areas.  Many of those have formed the bulwark of Clark County’s forest protection units in the past.

 

With upward of 2,000 acres of county forest to be protected and an unusually dry winter, the weather conditions have created a real fire hazard.  The civilian volunteer fire fighters will be counted upon heavily to protect the forest-lands of Clark County.

 

Clark County has an investment of about $500,000 in its forest was the statement of Al Covell, county forester, made to the Kiwanis Club on Monday evening. The county has extensive plantations of young trees.  Up to this time there has been plenty of labor to protect these forest areas from fire.  Now, with the war calling men away to the army and to the city, Clark County is stripped down. Volunteers must be dependent upon to protect the investment.

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Defense bonds and savings stamps, totaling upward of $7,000 have been purchased by children of Clark County schools, an incomplete survey indicates.  The survey, conducted through rural and village schools by County Supt. Louis E. Slock, revealed that $6,529.10 in bonds and stamps have been purchased by children in 108 out of 157 schools.  The survey did not include the Neillsville schools.

••••••••••

The war rations books which will be parceled out to Clark County residents with the “sugar registration” promises to be more important in every day life than button hooks were in the days before the shoe-string.

 

After a person once gets he was ration book he will not get another unless the first one, emptied of its stamps is turned in.  Because of this the office of Price Administration suggests that people make and keep a record of the serial number of the book issued to each member of the family.  If a book is lost, destroyed, stolen or mutilated, this fact should be immediately reported to the local rationing board, the OPA instructs.

 

That the office of Price Administration is looking toward a possible rationing of other products is apparent in its instructions on the use of the war-rationing book.  Instructions for the first book, the sugar rationing, will also apply to “any later books unless otherwise ordered.”

 

War Ration Book 1 is to be given out for sugar.  It will contain 28 stamps. Each time a rationed product is bought the proper stamp must be detached in the presence of the store keeper, he employee, or the person making delivery on his behalf.  If the stamp is torn from the book in any other way it will not be accepted.

••••••••••

Choose your new Easter shoes for style and comfort.  These lively new shoes will create a sensation.  See them while stocks are complete at Unger’s Shoe Store.  They have new beige colors in ladies shoes, AAA to B widths, from $2.95 to $4.95 a pair.

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Get your 1942 bicycle license now at the Neillsville city police station.  You must have your bicycle equipped with lights and a horn to quality for your license.

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Your food dollar has a mighty big job these days!  That’s why homemakers are turning to A&P!  Aged sharp Wis. American daisy (dairy?) cheese, 33c lb; choice beef roast, 25c lb.

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A hundred years from now it will not matter the kind of house I live in, what my bank account totals or the kind of car I drive.  But the world may be different because I was important in the life of a child. – Joyce Eyman

 

 

 


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