September 17, 2003
Herald news ... 100 years ago
By Emma Jane Muir
Special to the Herald
• Traverse City is in a fair way to land an extensive shoe factory as a permanent industry if reasonable requirements can be met. The board of trade directors met earlier this week to consider a project to induce a Milwaukee shoe manufacturing concern to locate here. At the insistence of Director Friedrich, Frank M. Gardner, former head of the shoe department of the Hanna & Lay Mercantile Co., went to Milwaukee to investigate the project and has returned with a favorable report. He believes it would be a valuable industry for this city.
• George H. Cross, prosecuting attorney, quietly packed his satchel Monday morning and took the train for Coldwater. Before he went, he had moved all his belongings from his boarding house on West Eighth Street to a house of his own on Sixth Street. The Bachelors' club members were quite surprised to learn about the happy affair which took place Wednesday. The young lady, Miss Jessie Stiles, is well known here, having taught school in this city.
• Monday evening last, the passenger train from the south was detained at Mayfield about seven hours by three freight cars which were off the track. The derailing was caused by the track spreading.
• Judge Loranger returned last evening from a trip to Grand Rapids and Detroit. While away, he attended the production of "Ben Hur" in Powers' Theater and thinks the play a very fine, high class attraction.
• Thomas Gilmore, aged 77 years, of West Eighth Street, instantly killed himself late Sunday afternoon with a bullet from a 22-calibre revolver in an upstairs bedroom. He had been despondent for some time and had frequently experienced melancholy spells.
• The mail stage route from Traverse City to Neal was discontinued September 14. As an item of news this does not sound very important, but to those who can look back over the history of this city and the Grand Traverse region for the last 40 or 50 years, it brings a flood of interesting memories.
• J. P. Berg, an old and prosperous farmer of the peninsula, suffered a stroke of paralysis of the right side last week while in the G. R.. & I. depot. A notice was sent to the police authorities by the depot employees to come and get a man, but when they arrived they soon learned that it was a doctor that was needed and a telephone message soon had one on the spot.
• The two-year-old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Smithson, 914 Third Street, miraculously escaped death Saturday evening, being run over by a horse belonging to E. B. Barnes, the plumber. The horse was left tied near Beardsley's bicycle shop and for some unknown reason took fright and broke the strap, running away. The little one was in the road and the child's mother saw the perilous position of her child and made a rescue attempt. In so doing, one leg was run over and her right shoulder hurt badly.
• In a very few places scab or fungus has appeared on apples in this vicinity, but not enough to cause loss. If the weather should clear up for a week, there would be no danger of losing the crop. A week more of steady, wet weather might do considerable damage.
• Work has begun on the framework of the tower of the new Traverse City State Bank building and is progressing rapidly and will be the finest in the state. The dome is to be gilded in the most superior manner known, being the same as that of the Chicago post office building.
• Sad news has reached Mapleton of the drowning of Mr. Frank Ekstine along with four others in the same crew, in Pine Lake near Charlevoix Saturday night. The young man had lived at Mapleton all his life and he made many friends in his short stay.
• Advice on deportment. The boy who disregards home government, sneering at its dictates, will become a law-defying man.
• Medical advice of a century ago. To treat jaundice, beat the white of an egg thin; take it morning and evening in a glass of water.
• Best buy of the week. Boys' School Suits, $1 • $3 at Hamilton Clothing Co.