The Fort Dodge Messenger: April 10, 1905

A Real Live Sensation On

Police Alarm Sounded Saturday Night and Immense Crowd Assembled.

Blocked Street For An House

Waited Sixty Long and Awful Minutes While a Policeman Closed a Contract for a Room in a Business Block.

Saturday night after supper at the time the streets were crowded with people, the police alarm at the corner of Seventh street and Central avenue began sounding wildly, and was not long in calling a large crowd to the point to see what was the matter.

It was but a few moments until one of the policemen ran up the stairway into a nearby business block, and this clinched the surmise that there was something sensational doing in that neighborhood. The crowd surged up the street to the entrance, and there all progress was blocked so far as the sidewalk and half of the street were concerned. It was only a few minutes until there were all sorts of stories going the rounds each one more livid than the proceeding one, till the crowd had an idea that there were at least a half dozen people weltering in gore up in the block somewhere. Some of them had it that a man had been found dead in the building, others that a fellow had his throat cut, adn so the rumors were hatched till there was enough excitement there to furnish a good sized hanging.

for more than an hour the crowd of horror-filled people hung about the entrance, and even this morning not more than a few had found out that the cause of the whole excitement was the desire of one of the policemen to rent a room from the owner of the block.

He had seen about it a day or two before, but was not assured he could have it at the time. Later the proprietor found he could accommodate him, called up the police headquarters to tell him of the face. At the same instant he called up the city hall, central started the police call, and this was the cause of the startling occurrence which would have been in better season on April 1st.

Tags: 1905