The 1910'S 455 Pages 455 to 570 H

The 1910's 455 Pages 455 to 570 H Growing Pains and Terrible Teens 456 New Street Lights once Prompted Parades 459 Fire Trucks and Sirens in 1912 464 Telephone Yanked from City Hall 468 In Spring, a Young Man's Fancy turns to -Taxes 470 Propose Two More Rail Lines to City 474 Man finds traffic Rules "Inconvenient" in 1915 476 1912 Legislature saved Baraboo Industry 480 Al Ringling's 1912 Decision-what might have Been 483 A Significant Ground-breaking in 1915 485 191 5 Citizens Honor a Civic Benefactor 487 Bamboo's Eventful Summer if 1915 491 Al. Provided Fascination for Sidewalk Superintendents 494 An Afternoon Interview and a Grand Opening 498 Live Theatre brings Culture to Baraboo 500 The Silent Movies in the Early Days 504 Nothing is Too Good for Baraboo 507 Nothing WAS too Good for Baraboo 511 Seams of Time 513 City Fathers Reject Gift from Ringling Theatre 515 Cahoon Mine was once a Principal Industry 519 The Sauk County Village of Bessemer 523 When LaRue and North Freedom were Boom Towns 525 Canoeing the Wisconsin in 1914 528 Early Refractory Days at Devils Lake 530 State Wins and the Refractory Moves 534 Patriotism in Sauk County, 1917 and Today 537 Baraboo' s 21 were a Lucky Bunch 539 WWI Diary lists Familiar Hardships 541 A Croix de Guerre in Baraboo 544 Baraboo Youths burn German Books 547 Sauk County Welcomes Home its WWI Veterans 551 Big Traffic Problems in Early Baraboo 554 From Indian Trails to Super Highways, 1840-1960 556 Epidemic once led to Closing Churches, Schools 561 Where is the Warner Memorial Road? 564 Abe Wood, Dr. Ochsner and Ochsner Park 567 456 apparently, and "The horse broke Baraboo's Growing j · through the ice and into about two feet of water. The horse's head went under Pains and Terrible the ice, and before help could reach Teens him he was dead". Actually this was a time of major improvement in the city utales of Qfarlier 11Baps infrastructure, with the City Council continually occupied with sewers, By Bob Dewel paving, garbage, and yes, sidewalks. The schools The school situation was different This is the final article to be based then. Only the city operated high on the Virgil Cady scrapbooks of 1912- schools, directly under the jurisdiction of 1918. The clippings he saved have the city Council. Only the city's citizens given us a microcosm of life nearly 100 paid school taxes at that time. The years ago in Baraboo. It was a time school Board was simply a commission when the old had to give way to the reportable to and appointed by the city new. council. It took an ad hoc local We've already written about the organization, the Guardians of Liberty, to great telephone controversy, the demand an election in April, 1916, with proposed electric train line, the the School Board members elected by elimination of horse-drawn fire wagons in popular vote. favor of an auto fire truck, and how it Meantime, the city won a law took a legislative act to keep the circus suit against the builders of the red brick in Baraboo in 1912. high school on Oak and Second Streets. Because I have written Local persons that attended there may extensively in the past about the not know that the building was at one introduction of electricity (11-11,23 and time virtually condemned during Vlll-26), the struggle with major construction. Floors were already corporations is not repeated here. settling, an arch fell down, and joists Suffice to say that the city was in and sagged and had to be propped up, etc. out of the power and gas business. Built in 1906-07, lawsuits dragged Dams on the river supplied the early on until 1912, when the city won a power needs but were unable to meet lawsuit and was paid the grand sum of the growing demand. It was time of $87 .50 and all costs by the architects. growing pains for the emerging city. Within 20 years of its construction it was Horse drowns on Washington St. replaced with a new high school, It was also a time comparable to though the red brick school continued the "terrible Teens" which can make life to serve until sometime in the 1960's. miserable for young people. There are One gets the feeling that cheapness stories which do not merit a full article, was a priority in 1906. The building was but deserve at least a mention. For built for only $75, 000 after several cuts example, the horse was still a major had been made. Schools are not the means of transportation and field work. place to be cheap. We complain about our streets today, Speeding over the High Bridge. but look what happened to Rev. Beyer Speaking of lawsuits, the city and of the German Methodist Church. the state clashed on what seems like a On a cold February day in 1916 simple local issue. It appears that the he was returning on his horse from High Bridge was not the sturdy structure ministerial duties in Greenfield, He turned that its massive structure presented. The onto Washington Street, the street ordnance is not dated, but the City bordering the fair grounds on the west. Council, in its wisdom, passed an This street did not yet have storm sewer 457 ' · ' . Photo courtesy of Ray Buhrmaster The importanceof the Baraboo Division Point on the NorthNestern Rail Line is indicated by the name of this locornotive--the Baraboo. Thanks to Dick Godard of the Lake States RailNay Hist orical Association,Ne learn that the engine, knoNn as number 26, Nas built by the BaldNin Works in 1870, complete Nith brass decor and special paint. In 1899 it Nas sold to the Mattoon RailNay and renamed Engine no. 3. Baraboo is a unique NOrd, and has been used in many Nays over the years. 458 ordinance restricting the speed of teams, autos. and any means of transportation to ten miles per hour, since greater speeds would "subject the structure to use and abuse." The fine was from ten to One Hundred dollars. with a possible jail sentence of six months. A man named Dwyer contested the Ordinance. and Judge O'Neil decided with him, declaring the ordinance void. He reasoned that it was a matter of state regulation, not local. The matter went to the State Supreme Court, arguments being presented by City Attorney Virgil Cady, keeper of these scrapbooks. Unfortunately Cady lost the case, the court ruling that 15 mph, not 10 mph, was acceptable. Curiously, the court ruled that automobiles could not be regulated speed, but that horse-drawn rigs could be! These were times hard to imagine today. Women were still angling to get the vote. The salary of the Police Chief for one month was $65. "Silent Policemen" were installed at downtown intersections. requiring exaggerated left turns. An audit revealed a scandal in the city treasurer's department. But two momentous occurrences created hardly a ripple at the time: the dwindling use of Baraboo as a railroad division point, and the losses of the Gollmar Circus in 1916 and the Ringling Circus in 1918. These industrial blows would stymie city growth for well over a decade-it is said that the Depression started in Baraboo in 1918. Growing pains indeed! Bob Dewel' s newest book, Tales of Earlier Days, is now for sale from the author, or at the Booksmith. h It is available in either soft cover at $24.50 or red hardcover AT $49.50. 459 New street lights once prompted parades T. Edward Mead, whose One pole remains today. It Editor's note: This article is daughters live in Mauston is located on private property being reprinted because the today, was secretary of the on the southwest corner of wrong photograph was Commercial Association and p.s/.t ~ included when the article and 10th Avenue in spoke qf the .benefits. tp th~ first was published. Baraboo. comniu'n:fty-Which womd It is interesting that this come with the new improve.-, type of major city improve Though chilly, the evening ment. His stellar committee, ment got so much attention of 1913 featured Dec. 8, an consisting of n~es impor in those days while lighting event that brought most resi tant in the community at the improvements get so little dents of the young city of . time, had worked hard, rais now. The recent installation Baraboo down to the ing some $4000 to pay for of some 130 new streetlights Courthouse Square. At last, many of the iron poles, in the business section in Baraboo was to have a real underground cables, and 1998 merited no parade, no street lighting system, like fu.stallation costs. This seem5 speeches, and no public Chicago and Milwaukee. a bargain, since the new thanks to the many busi "The night was turned into poles installed in 1998 cost nesses and individuals who day" gushed the Evening $1350 each. .conttilwtil<i. ~ th~irjn~t<illa News, as the boulevard Dr. E.G. Thuerer, the seem . tiort. Arld the-band didn't · lights were switched on,. irigly ever-present mayor in play. · · · crowds extended from the. those days, thanked the busi It appears that the 1913 city hall all around the court nessmen for the "beautiful lights replaced a helter-skel house square. Baraboo had and brilliant illumination ter mix of electric arc and gone from gas to electricity which the city now has." gas lights. The 1913 lights and gas and finally to all Actually, Thuerer had were replaced in the 1950's electricity.

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