Clark County Press, Neillsville, WI

September 5, 2001 Page 24

Transcribed by Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon.

Index of "Oldies" Articles 

Good Old Days

 

Compiled by Dee Zimmerman

 

Clark County News

 

September 1876

 

The cold nights and mornings of the past week are reminders that we dwell far from the tropics.

 

Frank Cooper, the veteran editor of the Badger State Journal, and wife has gone to Philadelphia to attend the Centennial at the Exposition Grounds.  May they have enjoyment enough to last them until the next celebration.

 

Clark County is the only place in existence where the Goddess of Liberty is represented in a ruffled and flounced pull-back and water-fall.  This is an age of progression.  (We can assume this is in reference to the statue upon the Clark County Court house. D.Z.)

 

The court house will be completed in a very short time.  Clark County will then have one of the finest buildings of the kind in the Northwest.

 

The Clark Country Fair Dance is to be given at the O’Neill House.  It will be one of the best ever dances that Neillsville has had.  We know the parties that are making it up and know they will do a great job.

 

That street lamp in front of Mrs. Tibbitt’s restaurant is a great improvement.  The lamp throws light on a track that leads downward.  It will be fully appreciated by pedestrians when the days of snow and ice arrive.

 

The recent cold snap reminds us that we shall need wood again this winter.  It is well to be prepared for a season that is liable to come upon us at any time after dog days so our office is ready to receive a portion of the few thousand cords of wood that have been promised.

 

Rye, graham and wheat bread, freshly baked can be found at the Neillsville Bakery on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.  They also have fresh groceries: teas, sugars, coffees, spices, tobaccos and such, as cheap as at any other place in town.  Also, you can get apples by the barrel or by the pocket-full.

 

The Johnson brothers up in Greenwood have been redoing and improving the appearance of their hotel this past week.

 

The Fourth Annual Exhibition of the Clark County Agricultural Society commences at the fair grounds, near this village next Tuesday, September 26th.  The list of premiums adopted by the Society for this exhibition is the best ever offered in this county.  The grounds and buildings are being put in shape. Every attention is being given towards making it the best fair ever held in the county.

 

J. E. Smith, who has recently become established in business here, has opened an oyster room and restaurant in connection with his other business.  He intends keeping a first-class eating-house, where anything from a cracker to a full meal will be served at any hour of the day.

 

Furlong has purchased a cider press, called the “Young American.”  He is making cider for the multitude.

 

C. A. Youmans is now a full-fledged lawyer, having been admitted to the bar at the recent session of the Circuit Court for Clark County.

 

The cranberry crop, now being gathered, promises well in this locality.  The berries are of good quality and command a good price in this market.

 

The fall term of the Neillsville Graded School will commence Monday, September 11, 1876.  The teachers employed for the coming year are as follows: C. E. Miller, Principal; Miss E. J. Jewett, Grammar Department; Miss Eva Hartson, First Intermediate; Miss Rosa Head, Second Intermediate; Miss Fannie Tudor, Primary Department.  Pupils are requested to meet in the chapel promptly at 9 A.M.  Scholars out of the district will be admitted for $5 per term of three months.

 

Clark County is one of the best fruit-growing sections of the state as is evident from the fine specimens of apples brought into the village.  Several wagon loads have been disposed of here during the past few weeks.

 

A little work should be done on the street at the south end of the new bridge.  Somebody’s buggy or wagon will probably go into the mill pond when the streets become icy.  The bridge is a fine one and the street should be in keeping with the bridge.

 

September 1946

 

Additional provision for the county forest service will be considered at the fall session of the Clark County Board.

 

The project recommended by the committee was that $19,000 be transferred from the general fund to the forest fund.  The stated purpose of this was to purchase equipment.  But the discussion in the fall is likely to be broadened, for the county board is aware of the postwar possibilities of the county forest.

 

The county forest consists of about 128,000 acres. When this is all in trees, when the growth matures sufficiently to yield an annual crop, it will become a large asset to the county.  Timber form it now yields $2,000 or so per year, a mere drop in the bucket.  There are those who are very optimistic in estimating what the county forest will be able to provide, financially, to the county.

 

The Loyal Tribune announces an increase in advertising rates. The minimum charge for local display is 30 cents, this rate being earned by weekly advertisers using a minimum of five inches per week; transient advertising, 35 cents per inch; nation display, 42 cents.

 

The Clark County Press announces the following new rates for Classified Advertising, effective on and after August 29:

 

Two cents per word, with a cash minimum of 50 cents.  A minimum of 75 cents is charged, with a discount of 20 per cent for payment within 10 days from date of order.

 

The Neillsville American Legion has purchased the Kleckner building on South Hewett Street.  This building will be reconstructed and improved.  It will become a home for all veterans’ organizations and their auxiliaries.

 

The Legion is also acquiring land to the east along O’Neill Creek, with the purpose of converting it into a park and picnic area.  This area will be landscaped and trees will be planted.

 

Announcement of the purchase is made by Harry Roehrborn, commander, and Hans Brandt, adjutant. They were installed as officers at the last meeting, together with the following:

 

1st Vice, Dwayne Felser; 2nd Vice, Earl Bemis; Finance officer, Leslie Yorkston; chaplain, Henry Naedler; historian, Donald Cummings, Jr.; sergeant at arms, Edward Zschernitz; service officer, Joseph Cardarelle; trustee, George Prochazka; convention delegates, Hans Brandt, Laverne Gaier – alternates, Donald Cummings and Joseph Hartung.

 

Miss Martha Raab of Oshkosh, and Orville Jake, son of Mr. and Mrs. William Jake of Neillsville, were married at St. Mary’s Catholic Church on Saturday morning, August 24. Rev. J. J. Pritzl read the ceremony.  Attendants of the couple were the bride’s sister, Mrs. Lester Steinhilber and Everett Skroch of Neillsville.  Dinner was served at the Merchants Hotel to the bridal couple, their parents and immediate relatives after the ceremony.

 

That afternoon, the couple, accompanied by the groom’s parents, left for a week’s visit in Oshkosh.  The William Jakes returned to Neillsville on Sunday.  The couple will make their home in Neillsville.  The groom is employed at the Neillsville Dairy.

 

A pine tree, four or five feet in height, was planted Saturday by Lieut. Col. Herbert M. Smith on the shore of Hay Creek Lake.  The occasion was the dedication of the Veterans’ Memorial Forest, which occupies Section 14 of North Foster Township.

 

Those who were watching the planting, participants in the dedication looked through the drizzle downward to the lake. There, the flowage had covered the old, black stumps of virgin growth, stumps which had been left by the cutting of perhaps half a century ago. The trees which had grown on those stumps were small trees, like the one planted by Col. Smith, at about the year 1700, roughly a century before Wisconsin became a state and a century and a-half ago.

 

The planting of the tree, last Saturday, was witnessed by Jerry Smith, son of Lieut. Col. Smith.  Jerry is a lad of 13 years.  If he lives to be 90 years of age, he will see this tree approach merchantable size, ready for cutting.  The actual cutting will probably not be done until Jerry’s race has been run and the torch has been handed to another generation. By that time, most of the participants in the dedication of last Saturday will have been forgotten.  Also, the Buna campaign of New Guinea, vivid memory of today, will get only two or three sentences in the American history books.

 

Journeying toward the Veterans’ Memorial Forest, the participants in Saturday’s dedication had an uncertain impression of what they would see.  Trees? Naturally, after all, a forest is a forest and what is a forest without trees?  What they saw was an old clearing on what is familiarly known as the old “Whiskey” Olson place.  Here, on unfriendly soil, an effort was made to establish a farm perhaps half a century ago.  Close by the scene of Saturday’s planting were a few scrub oak, under the shelter of which a few participants took shelter from the drizzling rain.  Here and there were a few little pine trees, a foot or so high, which had come from heaven knows where and which had volunteered to do what they could for a barren area, otherwise unused.  A mile or so to the north, not visible from the scene of the dedication, were 250 or so pine trees, planted by the Clark County Forest Service.  Back in from the lake, on the route of the tour, was a clearing upon which the forest service gave a demonstration of machine planting. That was part of the old Olson place, still clear enough, after perhaps half a century, to permit machine planting.

 

So that is the Veterans’ Memorial Forest – a forest with no trees of any size except a few scrub oaks.  A forest not of today, but a forest of the future.  A forest which is a promise, not a present realization. 

 

Except for very recent planting, the “Whiskey” Olson place is fairly typical of the better portions of the county forest.  The clearing there gives this area certain superiority for easy planting of Norway pine.  But it is like the rest, in that its development by unassisted nature is extremely slow and in that, it typifies the vast area of wasted opportunity throughout the county forest.

 

(The area referred to as, “on the shore of Hay Creek,” would have been on the east side of what is now Rock Dam Lake. D. Z.)

 

The meat famine threatens Neillsville. The famine here may not be so serious and as tight as in the urban sections of the East.  However, it will be tighter by far than local householders will enjoy; tighter, according to local food men, than it has been at any time during the war or since. 

 

The local stringency is due to return of meat controls, as is the famine in the urban centers.  Farmers and wholesalers are practically out of the meat business, now that the ceilings are back on prices.  Meat animals were moved enmasse during the period just preceding the return of controls. Then, the flow slowed to a trickle and almost stopped.

 

Just as formerly under regulation, the big meat packers found themselves unable to compete with Eastern order buyers.  Held to the ceilings and confronted with the poorest quality of meat of their experience, they twiddled their thumbs while the Easterners paid the price and started the animals for the eastern seaboard.  Also the Chicago packers laid off their help wholesale, having nothing for the men to do.  This result of control was a strange reaction, for most of those workers were CIO members whose organization had insisted upon return of meat price ceilings.

 

In Neillsville, the meat men did not know where their supplies would come from.  They met inquiries mostly with the statement that they were out of meat at the present time.

 

The Battle of the Cabbage Patch is over.  Winners in this unique contest between civilized wit and deer bellies were the wild, wild deer down in the Columbia country.

 

The “fruits of victory” were some 4,400 cabbage plants, some rutabagas and carrots.  Now, only the nubbins of the cabbage plants stick sharply above the ground to indicate the site of battle on the William Schultz farm.

 

But it was quite a battle while it raged.  When the deer started feeding on the delicate heads of cabbage, Schultz marshaled his forces.  Game Warden Alva A. Clumpner was called in.

 

After a strategy conference, the Schultz forces put out flares, believing that this maneuver would defeat the deer.

 

But instead of frightening the wild deer off the flares seemed merely to furnish them light to feed by.

 

“And,” said Clumpner in announcing the end of the battle, “when the deer got cold, they even used the flares to warm their shins!”

 

The Legault hospital at Owen remains closed at this time. The same building is used by Dr. Legault as an office and a home, but the hospital portion is unused.

 

The City of Neillsville saved more than $2,500 by using the city crew to rebuild the sewer on South Hewett Street.

 

This sewer job has been discontinued for this season and the crew has moved on to other work.  The sewer job was carried on from Eighth Street up beyond the post office, a distance of 397 feet.  The total cost for labor, trucking and material was $2,710.64, the rate being $6.81 per lineal foot.

 

As compared with this cost, the city had a preliminary and tentative estimate from a contracting concern, which estimated about $15,000 for the 1,100 feet up to the library corner.  The rate would have been $14 per foot and this figure did not include the item of back fill.  So the city saved about $7 per foot by doing the work with its own crew.

 

In completing the sewer up to the post office corner, the city cared for the part which had been making the most trouble.  Beyond that, to the south, the old sewer seems to have stood up and its replacement is not considered an urgent necessity.

Guy Youmans, (left), holding the driving reins of his ponies, and his father, C. A. Youmans, standing in front of the Clark County court house and jail in the late 1800s  (Photo courtesy of the Youmans Collections)

 

 


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