Archive for December 10th, 2011

10
Dec

“Nuttie” Willie Gets Promotion

   Posted by: admin    in Crime, Police court

The Fort Dodge Messenger: Dec. 10, 1904

“Nuttie” Willie Gets Promotion

Aspires To Something Higher Than Police Court and is Held to Grand Jury.

Threatened to Burn Property

Willie Got Huffed at Fred Hecht of Moorland and Made Threat to Burn House and Barn – Pleads Guilty to Charge.

“Nuttie” Willie is a bad, bad man, and is now occupying a cell in the county jail under $250 (about $6,000 today) bonds to wait the action of the grand jury.  It all arises form threats made by Willie against Fred Hecht, whose property he said he intended to burn.

The information was sworn out by Hecht on Thursday, and the police had Willie behind the bars in a very short space of time.

“Nutty” Willie, whose real name is Ernest Willie, has been a familiar character in police circles of this city for the past three years, and has turned up for an interview with his honor every two or three weeks with the greatest regularity. He has, however, been generally a very inoffensive person at all times before, and this is the first time he has aspired to anything higher in the line of justice than was obtainable from the city mayor.

The threat to burn the property of Hecht is merely the result of an imaginary wrong.

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10
Dec

Fort Dodge’s Live Ones: Mack Hurlbut

   Posted by: admin    in People, Society news

The Fort Dodge Messenger: Dec. 10, 1906

Fort Dodge’s Live Ones: Mack Hurlbut

No more appropriate classification of Mack Hurlbut, who is shown in the above sketch, could be made than to place him among Fort Dodge’s live ones. Mack is a live wire at all times and stands with the men who make Fort Dodge a town that has to be handled with rubber gloves.

Every man has a few characteristics that make him different from his fellows; without them humankind would be as a flock of sheep, “black or white” would be our only distinguishing point. Mack, in the making, was given enough of these points and characteristics to make him a distinctly original and individual person. In short they are, first of all brains, pluck, aggressiveness, true business instinct, executive ability,  unlimited energy and an attractive personality.

The numerous years that Mack has spent in Fort Dodge, during the biggest and best jewelry stores which time he has build up one of the in Iowa, have demonstrated these points to every resident of the city. For the benefit of those who haven’t sized up, through mere observation we will go into detail a little.

One needs only to enter Mack’s store on Central Avenue to see the result of his brains. Its arrangement, perfect to detail, proclaim them on every hand. As to his pluck – it is a byword with all who know him. Ask the burglars who broke his window and rifled it last year, and whom he doggedly pursued with wily schemes and hounded with detectives, about his pluck. His aggressive spirit shows in every business move for continual push is, and always has been, his policy. For true business instinct and executive ability he have only to look back and recall a vision of a long-legged and thin, raw boned boy sitting on a stool learning to repair watches, then note his present condition, to see the exercise of these two abilities. Unlimited energy tells its tale in his own watchword “sleepless and restless.”

(Editor’s note: I type these as they are in the original. The sentence in italics in the third paragraph should read The numerous years that Mack has spent in Fort Dodge, during which time he has build up one of the the biggest and best jewelry stores in Iowa, have demonstrated these points to every resident of the city.)

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10
Dec

Letters to Santa

   Posted by: admin    in Holidays

The Fort Dodge Messenger: Dec. 10, 1906

Letters to Santa

Dec. 7, 1906
Moorland, Iowa

Dear Santa Clause:

I want you to bring me a rubber ball, and a slate, a pencil box, a horn and a drum, are you going to in a buggy, or a sled? Where to you live in the summer time.

Please bring me a top. I guess that will be all

Good-bye

Ray Flaherty
Moorland, Iowa
R.F.D.

■ ■ ■

Fort Dodge, Ia.
Dec. 7, 1906

Dear Santa Claus:

as it is getting pretty near Christmas I will write you a little letter I am a little boy 6 years old and live near the Olson Park. I hope you will find my home all right well Dear Santy will you Please Bring me a drum skates and a sled and a train of cars and a sak of nuts and candy and popcorn balls O yes and Blugle horn. well Santy if you have not got what I ask for send what ever you think best.

yours truely,

Glenn Newsum.

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