Clark County Press, Neillsville, Wisconsin

April 23, 2008, Page 13

Contributed by "The Clark Co. Press"

Transcribed by Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon.

Index of "Oldies" Articles 

 

Compiled and contributed by Dee Zimmerman

 

Clark County News

April 1928

 

Information has been received here that a new bus line is planned between the Twin cities and Chicago, running through Neillsville, traffic to open about May 1.  The agent for the line was here last week and made arrangements with the Merchants Hotel to sell tickets for the bus line.  New buses are being built of the most modern type and good service is assured. There will be two arrivals daily from each way.  The buses will touch at Marshfield and Wisconsin Rapids.

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The passenger coaches on the Omaha line are being repainted as fast as possible, changing the color from yellow to a dark green.

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The Neville brothers have about completed the season’s cut at their saw mill on the North Side.  About 100,000 feet of lumber was sawed, considerably more than last year, although the sleighing season was short.  They turned out some fine lumber.

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Mr. and Mrs. George Frie have moved into their new home on Oak Street.  They moved over last Wednesday from their farm and the evening before they were surprised by Rollie Osgood, Dale Lee and John Dahl and their wives and Miss Esther Dahl.

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The Busy Bee School, District No. 6, Town of Worden, Clark County, located about three miles south of Eidsvold, is one of the older rural schools in the northern part of the county.

 

Among the early residents were John Moore, John Hannah, Geo. Mabie, John B. Clark, Robert Fish and Wm. Kelley.  Later came John Duysen, John Boie, John Sloan and Douglas Daines.  William Warner began his career as a teacher in that district on August 8, 1887.  He had sixteen pupils enrolled and for the first term of two and one-half months, received $28 per month for his services.  During the three month winter term the enrollment increased to 20 and his wages were raised to $30 per month.  He boarded with John Sloan and paid two dollars per week of five days for his board.  H. H. Ferguson, J. B. Clark and John Sloan were the school board at that time.

 

The original log building was later replaced by a frame structure.

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H. O. Huckstead received a letter, this week, from an old friend, D. A. Pember of Onawa, Iowa.  Mr. Pember is now past 95 years of age and wrote a remarkable fine letter for a man of his age.  He lived here many years ago, making his home with Mr. and Mrs. Tom Reed, on Arnold Creek, more than 56 years ago.  He claims to have built the first watering trough at the Big Springs south of Dells Dam road near Hatfield.  That spring is one of the best in this section of the country, large quantities of water bubbles out from beneath a huge rock, always being ice cold and wonderfully pure.

 

The watering trough has been maintained at the Big Springs through many years, but it is unfortunate that the river road is used very little now and many people do not make use of the spring.  In dry times in the summer, the road down to the Big Springs and on to Hatfield is fairly good, so the drive down the west bank of the river from Dells Dam is very pretty and picturesque.  Some day when the road is good, take a drive and enjoy a long cool drink at the Big Springs.

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Hake’s Pavilion will open for the season on Wednesday night, May 2nd, with a free wedding dance.  On May 9th, Rasmussen’s Orchestra will furnish the music for a dance planned on that date.

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New road projects in both the north and south ends of Clark County have called for condemnation proceedings in order that the county cold secure title.  One road at Humbird runs almost through the Zerbel farm in the effort to straighten Highway 12 and it also affects the Stallard farm.

 

An appraisal committee consisting of C. S. Calkins, Robert Syth and Ed Kutchera was appointed by the District Attorney to review the damages and set a valuation on the affected lands.  They have completed their work and with their report and the lands, which have been bought without condemnation, the sum will foot up; to about $4,000.

 

There is also some dissatisfaction on the part of landowners on the new project between Owen and Thorp and this will also entail an appraisal committee and condemnation proceedings.  That committee has not yet been appointed. 

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The effort of two Ettrick men to keep the Ettrick & Northern railroad in operation is not meeting with much success.  M. Casey and Obel Pederson took an option on the road and paid a thousand dollars down.  They were busy trying to finance the balance when they found that they had only bought the steel and the right of way.  The depot and wooden bridges have been bought by another fellow.  It is going to be pretty difficult to operate the railroad without bridges and the bridge owner wants a profit on his deal, so there the matter hangs in the fire.

 

 

April 1943

 

O’Neill Creek went on a rampage, ice and water, Tuesday at noon.  The ice broke up and moved out, on the high and rising waters.  Great ice floes smashed high up on the banks, pushing the old bathhouse aside on the south and smashing the siding and underpinning of the Ghent building on the north side.

 

The damage to the Ghent building was threatening, as the ice tore away supporting members under it.  It became necessary to place temporary beams under the south wall.

 

The water in the creek and river was approaching flood levels, with considerable loose ice moving downstream.  On the Black River, however, the main body of ice had gone out some time ago.

 

As a precaution, vehicular traffic over the Grand Avenue Bridge was suspended.

 

(The Ghent building was on the north side of the O’Neill Creek Bridge, the present site of the Neillsville Kwik Trip. D.Z.)

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Ray Kutsche, sheriff of Clark County, is short a windmill on his farm as the result of a peculiar accident, which took place Tuesday afternoon.  The windmill came down with a bang when one of its legs was struck by the hind wheel of a farm wagon.

 

The team of horses, hitched to the wagon, was in charge of Clarence Meyer, who was helping Wilbur Sale.  The horses started up and steered their course in such a manner that the hind wheel of the wagon struck a leg of the windmill with force.  The whole structure buckled and came down.

 

The only sweet thing about the accident, from the standpoint of the Sheriff, is that the windmill managed somehow to avoid the electric light wires.  It started to fall in such a manner as to go directly across the wires, but evidently changed its course, looking for a cooler spot to land; which was all right with Mr. Kutsche, because he doesn’t want to know what happens when a metal frame of a windmill tangles with hot wires.

•••••••••

Vinton Lee has returned from Milwaukee, where he spent the winter, to work as cheese and buttermaker for the Neillsville Milk Products Cooperative, taking the position formerly held by Harry Schlinsog.  Mr. Schlinsog and his family will move to the Pleasant Ridge creamery, which he will operate beginning April 15th.

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Approximately 200,000 gardens will be planted this spring by families living on Wisconsin rural routes.

 

This is the estimate made by O. B. Combs, extension horticulturist at the University of Wisconsin, after conferring with county agents and neighborhood leaders throughout the state on producing the 1943 family food supply.

 

While Combs reports that there will be enough vegetable seeds for all gardeners against buying more seed than they need.   Generally Wisconsin gardeners, he believes, are carefully planning the kinds and amounts of vegetables needed for their families and will buy only enough seed for their own use.

 

A detailed plan for a family-size garden, together with kinds of vegetables, best varieties, amounts of seed and time to plan may be secured from local county agents and county home agents.

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County examinations for the sixth and eighth grades will be conducted the last three days of next week upon a schedule, which calls for sessions at 17 centers in Clark County.  For the sixth grade, there will be achievement examinations, while the eighth graders will write for their diplomas.

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Walter J. Trogner, Minneapolis, made Neillsville a visit this week, after many years of absence.  He was graduated from the Neillsville High School in 1906.  That fall, he entered the University of Wisconsin, where he studied before transferring to the University of Minnesota.  He was graduated from the law school there four years later.  Since then, until he retired in May of 1942, he had been engaged in the practice of law in Minneapolis.  After retiring, he and his wife made a trip to the West Coast. They now are making their home in Minneapolis.

 

Walter Trogner’s trip to Neillsville was made solely for the purpose of looking the hometown over: to meet once more the friends and familiar faces of long ago and to visit the cemetery where members of his family lie sleeping.  After a visit to this beautiful necropolis, Mr. Trogner stated that he felt that almost everyone he knew here, as a boy, had been laid to rest there.

 

George W. Trogner, father of Walter Trogner, operated a planing mill on the site now occupied by the Fullerton Lumber Co. office and yards.  He was a contractor and builder as well as an excellent cabinetmaker.  Many of Neillsville’s public structures and residences were built by Mr. Trogner, among them the Northside School and the First National Bank.  His own home, which he built on South Grand Avenue, now is owned and occupied by Conrad Frantz.  Finishing lumber and fine cabinetwork were among his specialties.

•••••••••

Much employment in Clark County is frozen.  This will become evident as time passes, if Paul V. McNutt, manpower director, proceeds to act in accordance with the plain statement.

 

The tendency locally is to assume that the freezing order, announced April 18, applies only to situations far away.  But that is clearly not the case.  The plain English of the statement makes no limits; it applies right in Clark County.  It is important to understand this situation, for failure to comply is punishable by fines as high as $1,000 and by a year in jail.

 

The purpose of the freezing order, which is still little understood hereabouts, is to prevent the shifting of manpower.  One of its chief purposes is to stop the flow from farms to factories, a shift that started in Clark County about two years ago.  Now, here and other areas have been drained of their manpower to a point of threatening national and international famine, the leaders were aroused to action.  They softened the draft as applied to men really doing farm work and now they are freezing upon the farms the employees left there or those who may go there. 

 

Hence local farmers and farm workers need have no question about their status.  Farm labor is frozen, absolutely, under the terms of the McNutt order.  Moreover, employment in work collateral to agriculture is frozen, also.  This is made abundantly plain in the detailed statement issued by authority, which explains fully what is meant by the list of 35 essential industries and activities covered by the freezing order.  This statement makes clear that the order covers agricultural services of many specified sorts and states in terms of farm product assembly services, which in Clark County obviously relates to such services as the hauling of milk.

 

The government order is specific in its application to the processing of food and specifies the production of all types of butter, cheese, milk and eggs.  In Clark County this means, of course, that employment is frozen in cheese factories, creameries and condensaries.  Thus the dairy industry, which is the main reliance and almost the sole business of this area, is wholly into the protected or frozen classification.

 

A classification of great importance locally is repair service.  The McNutt order refers specifically to all manner of essential repair services and specifies the repair of vehicles, such as bicycles, motorcycles, automobiles; buses, trucks; tires; typewriters and business machines; shoe repairing; radios, clocks; roofing; electric, gas, plumbing and heating installations in domestic, commercial and industrial buildings.  It is intended, says the order, that consideration be given only to individuals qualified to render all-around repair services on types of equipment herein as required for the minimum essential needs of the community.  In other words, the purpose is to prevent a breakdown of civilian economy, by keeping in repair essential mechanism.

 

Among the essential industries thus covered are the utility services here, the power company and the telephone company.  Included are communication services, health and welfare classification, educational services, newspaper and radio services, as well as many other services.

•••••••••

Hart’s South Side Grocery will pay Cash for Your Eggs, 33’ per dozen.  Harvest Gold Flour, 49 lb. bag $1.89; Vegetable Seeds, 6 pkgs. for 25’; Carrots, 2 bunches 5’; Large Grapefruit, 6 for 25’.

•••••••••

 

The Neillsville Baseball team of the late 1920s was made up of the following players: Left to right, back row; Free Carlton, Carl A. Olson, Glen Stoffel, Max Warsinki, Frank Warsinki, Leo Wasserburger, unidentified, Stub Gerhardt, unidentified, Emil Dushek, unidentified; front row; Plicky Tragsdorf and team manager, William Wilsmann, Sr.  (Photo courtesy of Bob Wilsmann)

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