Clark County Press, Neillsville, Wisconsin

June 3, 2015 Page 18

Contributed by "The Clark Co. Press"

Transcribed by Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon.

Index of "Oldies" Articles 

 

Compiled by Dee Zimmerman

 

Clark County News

June 1920

 

 Pointing to the fact that much of the credit for keeping Wisconsin in her place as the leading dairy state in the union with a lead of $65,000,000 over New York, the second greatest dairy state, is due to increased production in the northern part of the state, George J. Wiggle, dairy and food commissioner, says in a statement showing the comparative production of 1919 and 1917 in northern counties.                                                             

•••••••••

News of Southern Shortville: Ladies and gentlemen, get your old shoes and tin cans ready we will soon hear Miss Irish’s wedding bells ring.

 

A lot of people find two-legged rats in their salt pork barrels and smoke houses.  Well, rats don’t work, but eat and travel.

•••••••••

Blum & Wenzel have bought a 200-acre tract of land from Wm. Beyer and will log it this coming winter.

•••••••••

Chas Byse was at Milwaukee on Saturday and drove six new Fords home.  He took two drivers with him and the three accomplished the feat of successfully driving six cars.  It was done with the use of a device made by F. W. Kinstley, the blacksmith, who made up an outfit by which two cars are fastened together and both operated from the front car.  The engine on the rear car is set at a given speed and is operated from the front car, which acts as a guide and brake for the rear car.  The device worked in great shape for Byse and the six cars were brought up on Sunday.

•••••••••

A fine new ornamental front is being put up on the Wolff building and it adds materially to the appearance of the building and street.                                                                                              

•••••••••

The Supreme Court of the United States on Monday rendered a sweeping decision in which was held in regard to the 18th constitutional amendment and the Volsted enforcement act.  The decision was unanimous and means that the court battles over prohibition have ended in a complete victory for the dry.

•••••••••

A special school meeting was held at the schoolhouse in South Lynn.  It was decided to build a consolidated school building joining the Wiesner and Porath districts. It will be built on the Dave Riedel hill.

•••••••••

We have just traded in a brand new Maxwell car and have it for sale at a very reasonable discount from the regular price.  The car has been run but a few miles and is in first class condition.  If you are looking for a real bargain, call and look this Maxwell touring car over.  Also have two Ford touring cars and one Chevrolet touring car, second-hand, for sale.  Central garage

•••••••••

Sunday night, this section of the state was visited by a very heavy storm which did quite a little damage in some localities, lightning causing some loss.  Tuesday night, another storm struck and lightning hit the Neillsville School flag pole, traveling down the metal gutter and on to an electric bell wire leading from the high school to the grade school building.  The lightning seems to have struck shortly after nine o’clock but a fire in the building was not discovered until nearly 11 o’clock.  The fire alarm was sounded and the fire company called out.  It was discovered that the bolt of lightning had entered the school building along the bell wire into the book room on the second floor and ignited the casing along the door.  It had evidently smoldered for some time before breading into a blaze.  The flames were extinguished but not until after considerable damage had been one to the book room and the books.

 

Also on Tuesday night, lightning hit the Pine Valley Lutheran Church.

•••••••••

I have just installed a new shower bath in my barbershop and my patrons may have the opportunity of using this cool, delightful and refreshing bath at all hours of the day.  A fine line of cigars and cigarettes were also installed.  We pay special attention to bobbing the children’s hair and are prepared to do this work right on any day of the week except Saturday.

 

Shirlee Geeslin, Prop. At Neillsville Bank Barber Shop                                          

•••••••••

Cabbage Plants for Sale: Imported late Danish Ball Head and Holland Cabbage plants, 50’ for 100 or $3 for 1,000.  See - H. E. Bartell Phone Red 72                                                                  

•••••••••

Report cards for the Neillsville high School students may be secured at the principal’s office in the high school building all day next Saturday.                                                                                          

•••••••••

E. W. Alden of Hillsboro has bought the Hamilton Hotel from Bob Prochaska and took possession on Monday.

•••••••••

G. E. Cook, state auto license reporter, stepped off the 5 o’clock train last Wednesday evening, and before leaving the depot, he found cars not properly licensed and by nine o’clock Thursday morning he had found 14 cars and two trucks without licenses.  That is the way those federal men work; they drop into town without previously being announced and force people to comply with the law.

 

June 1945

 

Frank Svetlik has purchased the Seif interests in the garage and Ford agency heretofore conducted under the name of Seif and Svetlik.  He will conduct the business under the name of Svetlik Motor Co.

•••••••••

A Memorial service for Indians who have died in World War II will be held at the Indian Mission, Black River Falls, at 2 p.m. Sunday.  The address will be given by the Rev. Ben Stucki, upon request of relatives of the dead.  In The Press of last week appeared the list of eleven Winnebago Indians from this section in whose memory this service will be held.

•••••••••

A Muskie four feet long was taken from Black River Sunday morning by Merton (Bud) Runkel, A & P store manager.  The fish weighed a few ounces less than 22 pounds. 

 

During the brief fight to land it, the Muskie pulled one set of gangs out and was secured only by one hook on another set when it was brought ashore.  This hook was bent almost straight.  Runkel has a second Muskie on a few minutes later; but it, like the “big one” always does; got away.

 

The Prize Muskie was on display at the A & P Store Monday morning.  Runkel has put his red ration points away for the summer.

 

(World War II red rationing cards were required for purchasing meat. DZ)

•••••••••

Editorial by Wells F. Harvey

 

Neillsville is about to become a Friday Night town.  Beginning June 8, most of the business places will operate on Friday evenings as they have done heretofore on Saturday evenings.  And on Saturday evenings they will hereafter be closed.

 

This marks a definite break of an old custom.  In the olden days a country town was usually a Saturday night town.  If it was a good country town, it had a big Saturday night.  So true was this that the writer, surveying much of the United States to buy a weekly newspaper, was taught to look for a good Saturday night town.  He came to regard the Saturday night crowd as one sound index of a town’s prosperity. 

 

Many of us, not occupied with the business end of Saturday night, will regret a change.  We have enjoyed the gathering of the clans at the accustomed time; have come to expect to see the neighbors and to have opportunity to swap amenities and transact with them whatever business impends.  Thus the passing of the old custom will bring something of a wrench.  We are attached to our old ways.

 

Approaching such a change with natural reluctance, we ought to think fairly and considerately about the occasion for it.  Has it fallen upon us out of a clear sky, or has it come gradually, an evolution of the times?  Many men now in business, can remember when stores in towns like Neillsville were open every evening.  Then Saturday night was one of six open nights, a little busier than others.  In those days, clerks were expected to work 12-hours per day, as a matter of course, nor did they knock off at noon on Saturday.

 

The shortening of hours has come about primarily in industry and in the mechanical trades.  There, an eight-hour day has gained rather wide acceptance, and the movement is to shorten the week even below the 48 hours.  Many industrial plants have established for normal operations a 44-hour week, with eight hours each on five days and noon closing on Saturday.  This plan is popular, because it gives opportunity to do errands and odd jobs on Saturday afternoon, and to have Sunday clear.

 

This movement had, prior to the war, proceeded even further.  The Federal government had enacted a law placing the stamp of approval upon a 40-hour week and regarding time beyond 40 hours as overtime.  Thus, upon this theory five eight-hour weeks (days) would constitute a normal week, and Saturday would be clear entirely.

 

The shortening of hours in retail trade has followed behind the trend in industry.  Long ago, good towns quit the open evenings, with exception of Saturday; then came the elimination of Saturday night trade in the large centers and the steady shortening of store hours.  The large stores in the Chicago loop are now open from 9:45 a.m. to 5:45 p.m., Saturday included.

 

Quite obviously, there is a limit to the shortening of hours and some of us old-timers believe that the limit has been reached.  Nor is it reasonable for a rural community to slavishly follow the routine of the metropolis.

 

(I have a feeling that Mr. Harvey would be surprised to know that in this present day, many retail stores, including those in the malls, are open for business on Sundays, as well as open 12 hours or more daily.  Trends are forever changing. DZ)

•••••••••

The final chapter in the case of the missing bicycles was written by Undersheriff E. H. Snyder this week with a fishing trip on the Black River.

 

While other fishermen were scrambling along the river after Muskies, Snyder was there on serious business, to fish from the river’s bottom the parts of a bicycle, which had been tossed there by a 13-year-old boy.

 

The youth was in the custody of the sheriff for the theft of bicycles belonging to Earl Wallace, Bennie Stucki and Edgar Ott, as well as thefts of $8.00 from the Zilk Villa service station, a cornet and several other of more or less value.

 

Snyder’s fishing trip was a success; for with an old cane pole, a line and hook, he snagged the bicycle parts and brought them back.

 

The youth was to have a hearing before Judge O. W. Schoengarth today.

•••••••••

The countryside in the environs of greater Milwaukee is being stripped of all available poultry by city folks who can no longer buy the red meat they need in their regular butcher shops.

 

Much of the poultry now being sold is being purchased at black market prices and the sources of supply of legitimate dealers have been to a large extent dried up.

 

Fantastic prices, running up to as much as $5 for a live chicken, are being paid.  Producers willing to sell even their breeding and laying flocks for high prices are killing the goose that lays the golden egg, because hatcheries are having a hard time getting enough hatching eggs to keep the keys to keep their incubators going.  These are the nation’s poultry and egg supply for the next 12 months.

 

Wise farmers, of course, are not selling their good laying hens, even though their relatives and friends from the city are begging them to “please sell us just one chicken.”

 

When rationing started here, most of the “heat” at OPA district headquarters came from problems of tire and gasoline rationing.  Now the heat is on those who handle matters relating to the inability of consumers to get meat.

 

There is more heat on the OPA now than there has been since the agency was started, because the public is getting restive about meat.  Workmen and their wives are protesting that men who do hard labor need more meat.  Parents are concerned about the diet of the growing children.  In short, the consuming public is getting and, and the OPA feels it.

 

Mrs. George Bleskachek, the former Getty Wagner, went east to be with her husband.  She then found what real food shortage is.  This is her description, as written from Rhode Island to her parents, Mr. and Mrs A. C. Wagner -

 

“If anyone back home says much about the meat shortage, they are just trying to be funny.  You can’t buy any in the stores here; not even a piece of bologna, and no butter, either.  I can’t imagine what the natives eat, must be lobsters and crabs.

 

“All Navy wives are allowed to buy at the commissary and you have to have two cards to get in, signed by navy officials.  Yesterday, we were lucky, we got some meat.

 

“They give everyone who enters a meat number, like 56, and down on one corner is the date.

 

The commissary closes at noon on Saturday and Brian and I went down at 10:30; our meat number was 558.  That meant there had been 558 people ahead of me.  I got another number that someone had discarded, that was 398, so I was lucky.

 

“I sat and waited until 2 o’clock before it was my turn and when I got there they had three veal roasts left and a few wieners, and that was all.  The roasts were quite big and the people didn’t have the rationing points to get it, I guess.  I took one and was glad to be on my way.

 

“They had 900 people on Thursday and four men behind the counter to wait on therm.  You stand in line for everything, eggs, butter and cigarettes.  Starting Monday, cigarettes are to be rationed six packages a week.  Otherwise you could buy them two packages for quarter.  Now you get a card and they punch it.

 

“I’ve been able to get one dozen eggs since I got here and I was there that morning at 8:30 and stood in line until 9 to get in, and then in line for over a half hour to get to the eggs, and all you could get was one dozen to a person.

 

“I’d like to see some of those people there in Neillsville, to stand in line for five hours to get a dozen wieners, like a girl down here did.  No one throws a bit of bacon grease or meat away and most of them use oleo on their bread.

•••••••••

Neillsville Beauty Salon is now under New Management and Ownership.   Permanent Waving, Machine-less - Cold Wave - Machine Operators: Gail Poehnlein, Ann Letsch, Winifred Tessmer

 

‘In the late 1800s and early 1900s, several barber shops were located in basements of downtown Neillsville businesses, such as the First National Bank (pictured above), Neillsville Bank and Kapellan buildings.  Barbershops in the First National Bank had entrances at the north side on West 5th Street.

 

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