November 1900

The rain reported the end of October still continues, off and on. The East Fork and the Black River was the highest that it has been for years. Some people will have to go in a boat to dig potatoes if we have much more rain.

Nearly everyone has had to carry water from their cellars with all of the high water from the rains.

W. E. Garfield had a valuable cow that was swept away by the flood on O’Neill Creek Wednesday afternoon.

John Welsh shipped three carloads of sheep Monday. Two carloads consisting of 280 sheep, were delivered here Saturday, but owing to the heavy rain couldn’t be shipped out and were taken to Mrs. King’s farm Monday.

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John Paulus, who recently traded with Geo. N. Phillips for the Elder Hendren place, has moved the building formerly used by Mr. Hendren as a study up to Hewett Street to be used as a sample room behind the O’Neill House.  Hi Hart did the moving.

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While engaged in cutting down a maple tree, which grew in his pasture, Andrew Olesen discovered a cavity near its base.  On investigating, he found a wooden box about two-foot square filled with plunder. The box had been buried so long that the wood was thoroughly decayed. Among its contents were 120 silver dollars of both American and Mexican coinage. The dates were from 1846-1859.  About $200 in gold coin, consisting of eagles and double eagles; several pounds of old gold and silver watch cases; candle sticks and a large quantity of solid silver knives, forks and spoons.

This discovery recalls the facts that some 20 years ago a well-to-do farmer living between Romadka and Lynn, the next station west of Lynn, was to have been murdered, his home robbed and then burned.  Last year the skeleton of a human being was discovered buried by the roadside, nearby where Olesen found the buried property.  A neighbor of the missing farmer was suspected of the murder and robbery, but sufficient evidence could not be obtained to warrant his arrest.  Later the suspect was caught while burglarizing a store at Pittsville, Wis., and is now serving a 22-year sentence in Waupun penitentiary for the crime.                                                                           

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James Campbell has traded his North Side residence for the Gullickson place at the southern extremity of Clay Street, giving $900 to boot.  Mr. Campbell gets five acres of fine land and we expect to see him expand in his poultry business.  He makes a specialty in raising Plymouth Rocks and has been very successful, though having lacked in range for the poultry.                                                                                                     

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The statistics to date make it appear that deer hunting and running a corn shredder about equally dangerous.  A larger number of injuries than usual from both sources are reported this fall.

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The Swedes and Norwegians have decided to purchase the Pettet lots on the West side near the I.O.O.F. Hall in Unity.  A Lutheran Chruch is to be erected upon the site next spring.  The German Lutherans may join them if present rumors are reliable.                                                                                                       

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The teacher in Nevins No. 2 School and R. Thorsen lost their bearings while out hunting, so they had to camp in the woods over night and enjoy the company of the owls.                                                                     

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The R. Conner Company of Marshfield will have nearly 500 men employed in the woods and will cut about 30,000,000 feet, a large percentage of which will be hardwood. At the company’s Stratford mill 10,000,000 feet of logs were left over.  The company has five camps in operation along its logging road out of Stratford, where the cut will be 10,000,000 feet.  The company also has camps in the vicinity of Neillsville, Withee and Longwood.  There will also be 10,000,000 feet cut at Laona.                                                                                                      

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H. B. J. Andrus expects to operate his creamery all winter. The receipts of milk continue to be good so far and patrons appear anxious to continue delivery.  The butter has commanded the top of the market all season, giving the best of returns to all concerned.                                                                                         

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Robert and Ira Galbreath, of Shortville, were in the city Monday with a load of 35 coonskins and several deer hides, which brought them quite a neat sum of money.  They are the owners of the champion coon dog in this part of the state.

November 1940

November 1^st, one’s thoughts turn to snow flakes and freezing temperatures.

Not so with Oluf Olson, Sr., or Mrs. George Frantz, both of Neillsville.  They are thinking some about raspberries.  Mrs. Olson picked enough berries on November 2, to serve nine people.  Mrs. Frantz picked enough for a raspberry pie.

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Phillip Sonheim, who has worked at the Crothers’ farm in the Town of Pine Valley most of the time for the past 14 years, has accepted a position with Armstrong-Blum of Chicago, a company making machinery exclusively.  Mr. Sonheim and his brother, Dannie, drove up from the city for the weekend to visit their parents in the Town of Levis.  Phillip is an exceptionally good mechanic and cabinet-maker.  He has made many clever labor saving devices and useful articles both at home and at Maple Glen Farm.                                                                        

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Mr. and Mrs. Chester D. Cook left last Wednesday morning for Aberdeen, S. Dak., to resume their restaurant work for the Interstate Railway and Bus Company.  They had been home on an extended visit and for a rest.

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Marriage Licenses:

John Celesnik, 37, and Albena Gabrovic, 25, Hendren; Louis Edward Horvat, 26, and Anna Olga Snedic, 23, both of the Town of Hendren; Anthony Schuh, 23, Town of Colby and Geraldine Shelley, 16, Town of Unity; and Paul Klancher, 27, and Frieda Krultz, 23, both of the Town of Hendren.

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Farmers in the Town of Seif and that vicinity are constructing an earthen dam across Wedges Creek, about a quarter of a mile south of the Worchel schoolhouse.  They intend to create an artificial lake of about four acres, having an average depth of six feet and an extreme depth of 12 feet.  They secured a permit for the work, and already have a good start on the grading.

The purpose is to create a pleasure spot, with picnic grounds, and opportunity for swimming, boating and fishing. They have the promise of Alva A. Clumpner, game warden, that the lake will be stocked with German Brown trout.

Land for the lake and picnic grounds has been donated by John Poppe and by Mr. Olson, the Chicago man who now owns the old Henry Churkey place. The dam is on the Olson land, and Mr. Olson has promised more land, if it is needed.

Paul Klauer has circulated a subscription list, and has 57 or more signatures of farmers who will contribute work and money and of others who will give money.  The subscriptions secured will probably be adequate to get the grading done, but some cash is needed for culverts. The purpose is to buy some large concrete piping, by means of which the dam can be emptied, if necessary.

The lake thus created will replace a lake, which existed in the same location back in logging days.  That lake was made by a log-dam built somewhat north of the new site.  Paul Klauer has talked with people who fished in the old lake, and learned from them that the fishing had been good there.  He hopes it will be good again.

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Skies cleared Wednesday, November 13^th, in common with the rest of the Northwest, having come through the worst November blizzard on record.

Driven by a gale of high velocity, snow lashed the countryside Monday afternoon and evening, sweeping highways clear of traffic and sending the thermometer to a low of four degrees above zero here.

Although extensive damage resulted from the storm in other sections of the Northwest, and the death toll was expected to exceed half a hundred, Clark County experienced relatively little damage.

Coming after three successive days of light, but incessant rainfall, the high wind carried with it the season’s first snowfall.  For approximately 24 hours the wind swept over the countryside; but by Tuesday night it had blown on.  Temperatures continued to drop from the low of 15 degrees Monday night to four degrees above Tuesday night.

Rainfall Saturday, Sunday and on Monday morning totaled one and seven-tenths inches.

A dramatic story of a struggle against the storm, which took the lives of 15 and perhaps more duck hunters that were caught on the islands of the Mississippi River, was told by two returning Clark County hunters who narrowly escaped the fate of the 15.

A story of their fight against biting cold wind, rain and snow and ice, against a fatigue that might well have spelled doom for them, that of Ed Kutchera, Neillsville sportsman and former sheriff and Lester Steinhilber, Grant tavern keeper, was told this week.

 Soaked to the skin when the savage November storm broke loose on Armistice Day afternoon, they were trapped on a small island with a companion.  For 18 hours they held out there, without shelter or fire, afraid to attempt crossing a quarter of a mile of the gale-whipped Mississippi to the safe shelter of the mainland at Trempealeau.

On the isle to the north the frozen bodies of three Eau Claire hunters were later found; and to the south the still, frozen bodies of three other hunters, La Crosse men, were carried out in the wake of the storm.

The day had dawned without indication of the approaching storm.  There was a light misty rain with a mild breeze blowing from the west; “just the kind of a wind I like for duck hunting,” Mr. Kutchera related.

Because the thermometer registered 64 degrees above, the party dressed comparatively light for the day’s hunting, little suspecting that they would have to withstand a temperature of two degrees above in the open before they could return to shelter.

The party numbered five as it left Trempealeau about 6 o’clock in the morning after snatching a hasty cup of coffee. With Mr. Kutchera and Mr. Steinhilber were Henry Beardsley, Trempealeau hotel owner, Ben Reed and Jim Christie, also Trempealeau residents.

Throughout the morning and early afternoon they hunted and tramped over the 200 by 50-yard Island.  At 2 p.m. Mr. Reed and Mr. Beardsley left for the mainland to prepare a meal in the hotel for the other hunters.  It was just at 3 p.m. as Mr. Kutchera and the others prepared to leave in their small boat that the storm hit. 

It bore down on the small islands, with all the suddenness and fury of a tropical squall.  Rain, which had soaked the hunters to the skin during the day changed to a lashing snow.

Driven by the gale, the quarter-mile of channel between the island and the mainland swelled with waves from eight to 10 feet high, making passage in the small open boat impossible.  The mercury skidded downward until it landed with a jar at two degrees above zero.

“There was nothing to do but wait and try to keep warm,” Mr. Kutchera said.  They attempted making a fire, but water-soaked wood and wet matches would not respond.  They tired building a windbreak but the wind blew it down as fast as they put it up.

Darkness came, and with it worry of fatigue. “To sit for a moment, and perhaps be overcome by sleepiness, would have been the end.  Such is what happened to several hunters who were found frozen.  A few of them were frozen, yet standing in island marshes.  Most had stopped to rest against a tree and had fallen asleep.

Throughout the night they walked and trotted to keep the blood circulating. Several times one or another was about to give up, but was kept going by the insistent prodding of the others.

About 8:30 a.m. the storm had abated sufficiently to allow perilous crossing of the channel

It was then that the boat bearing Dee Huettenraugh, a Trempealeau fisherman, touched the icy shore of their island to rescue them.  By that time the hunters’ small boat had been coated three inches thick with ice. Their guns, too, were covered with ice.

In spite of their harrowing experience, they remembered the ducks they had bagged the day before, 12 or 14 of them, and loaded them into the boat.

And to top the whole experience off in grand style Mr. Kutchera and Mr. Steinhilber returned to the hunt after two hours of rest, and in another two hours they had bagged their limit.

(The Armistice Day, November 11, 1940 winter storm, recorded as one of the worst in the 20^th Century, cut a 1,000-mile path thru the Midwest Region from Kansas to Michigan, which includes parts of Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin.  A total of 154 deaths were blamed on the storm.  O those deaths were 66 sailors who died on three freighters as well as two smaller boats while out on Lake Michigan.  There were 49 deaths in Minnesota, with about half of those being duck hunters on the Mississippi River.  Wisconsin lost 13 lives due to the storm.  Central Minnesota received a total of 27 inches of snow at that time.

Max Conrad, a pioneering light plane pilot of Winona, flew up and down the Mississippi River in the wake of the storm, locating survivors and dropping supplies to stranded duck hunters on the river’s islands. D. Z.)                                                                                                                   

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Venetian blinds, those little lath-like curtains, which can be opened or closed, became a problem for city fathers at their Tuesday night meeting.

While Venetian blinds are acceptable under the statutes the city ordinance passed in May of 1933 it restricts more closely the obstructing of sight into the city taverns from the street. Apparently that was before the newer type of blinds came out. 

A new section of the ordinance is to be presented at the next city council meeting.

The Neillsville Post Office was located in the middle of the east side of the 500 block of Hewett Street, circa 1910.  There were five mail carriers, each shown with their daily delivery items in front of them, one having a new auto tire amongst his items.  The fourth man from the left, in the white shirt, was the postmaster.  (Photo courtesy of the Roy Strebing collection)

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