The Fort Dodge Messenger: March 12, 1907

Quiet School Election

Only 48 Votes Cast Yesterday and E.H. Williams Was of Course Elected

It wasn’t much of a task for the judges and clerks of yesterday’s school election to make the count when the polls closed last evening. Only forty-eight votes were cast, twenty-three at the Salvation Army Barracks, polling place for the 2nd and 3rd wards and twenty-five at Strobel’s shoe shop, polling place for the 1st and 4th wards.

E.H. Williams the only director to be elected was consequently chosen almost unanimously to succeed himself. The votes, with the exception of a few jokers, were all straight.

The Fort Dodge Messenger: March 3, 1903

Street Car Route Has Been Outlined

Fort Dodge Light & Power Co. Announces Line to be Followed by Extension

Present Petition to Council

Ask That Streets be Brought to Grade at Points Along the New Line

The management of the Fort Dodge Light and Power company has determined the route to be followed by the extension of the car line which is planned to be constructed this spring. The route is as follows:

From Twelfth street and Central avenue:

South on Twelfth street to Fourth avenue south,

East on Fourth avenue south to Eighteenth street,

South on Eighteenth street to a point two blocks within the Oleson Land company’s tract,

East to the grand stand of the Mineral City Park association.

The entire extension contemplated is two and one-quarter miles in length. The company has already sufficient material on hand to complete the construction of one mile.

A petition was presented to the city council on Monday evening asking that at certain specified points the streets be brought to grade along the proposed route of the extension. The council referred the matter to the street and alley committee. None of the changes asked are of any special importance. One is for a two foot cut for a short distance on Fourth avenue south between Twelfth and Thirteenth street, just in front of the German Lutheran church. A short fill is also requested on Eighteenth street between Fourth and Fifth avenues south.

Manager Will Healy, of the Fort Dodge Light and Power company stated this morning that the company expected to begin work on their extension as soon as possible after a grade had been adjusted, if the council should take favorable action on their petition.

The Fort Dodge Messenger: Jan. 24, 1906

Oleson Park Deed is Filed

O.M. Oleson Present Deed of Oleson Park to The City Today.

Senator O.M. Oleson formally conveyed the tract of land known as Oleson park to the city this morning by placing a deed to the property with Mayor Bennett.

Through the gift to the city was made nearly a year ago the final step in the transfer was not completed until today. The deed shows that the tract contains 70.81 acres. It will be filed for record at once. The park board are daily expecting to hear form the eastern landscape artist who has been employed to draw plans for beautifying the park. The tax of four thousand dollars is due in less than two months and active operations along the line of improvement will probably be started at that time.

Many websites are dark today in protest of two bills before Congress right now. The danger if the bills pass is that the Internet will be crippled, sites will be taken down for suspected copyright infringement/piracy without due process, ordinary people will be prosecuted for doing so much as posting a video of themselves singing a copyrighted song or quoting a copyrighted work.

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I realize this post doesn’t fit in with the purpose of this website, but it’s important. I purposely only use articles that are before 1923 and therefore out of copyright. I believe that even if I were to use more recent articles, it would be considered fair use under copyright law. But if I did use more recent articles, under SOPA or PIPA my site could be shut down and I could be prosecuted.

Carol Foltz

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

The Fort Dodge Messenger: Jan. 11, 1906

Wants Pictures of Inebriates

Saloonkeepers to Ask for Changes in State Black List Laws.

They Seek For Protection

Want Several Holidays Cut Out of Closing List – Secretary J.J. Klein Goes to Des Moines to Join Other Members of the Legislative Committee.

Photographs as a means of enabling saloonkeepers to identify parties to whom they have been notified not to sell liquors are to be one of the requirements of the state law governing the conduct of saloons, if the efforts of the Iowa Retail Liquor Dealers’ association during the present session of the legislature is successful. J.J. Klein, secretary of the association, left yesterday for Des Moines to join the other members of a committee now at work there with the object of bringing about this and other changes in the state liquor law. The other members of the committee are: President, C.A. Stephens, Cedar Rapids; Margin Ingwersen, Clinton; and L.C. Stevens of Sioux City. All four of the men are members of the executive committee of the association and were appointed to the task of framing bills for the legislature at a meeting held last December in Davenport.

Changes Wanted.

It is understood that the changes in the present law which are desired are mainly these: The elimination of New Years, Washington’s birthday and Labor day as days on which the saloons must close; a provision that the friends of inebriates shall furnish saloon keepers with photographs and descriptions of those to whom they are forbidden to sell liquor, and the reduction of the number of signers to saloon petitions in small towns from 80 to 65 per cent, besides making it necessary to obtain the consent only of property owners residing upon the street where the saloon is located.

The saloon men also want the law amended so that they will not be held responsible for selling to minors and inebriates unless they do so knowingly.

A suit is now being waged against four Council Bluffs saloon men in which a woman is seeking to get $10,000 of the saloonists’ hard earnings for selling liquor to her husband, after being notified not to do so. Similar cases have occurred elsewhere and it (sic) such cases that have aroused the saloonkeepers to an effort to protect themselves.

Would Give Protection.

“A bartender may see a man on the street and speak to him for years without knowing his name,” said one of the fraternity yesterday. “If the man’s wife or mother notified the bartender not to sell him liquor, how would he know to whom the notification referred? It is utterly impossible as the law now stands, for us to have any safety whatever, and the photograph scheme would give us just the protection we need.”

The Iowa Retail Liquor Dealers’ association comprises probably two-thirds of the dealers in Council Bluffs and throughout Iowa. Back of it stand the big brewing and distilling firms, which own a large proportion of the saloons now in operation. The association is not merely a picnic organization, but is for working purposes. When suits are started against saloonists for apparent blackmail the association takes a hand and fights them to a finish.

That the liquor business is feeling the sort of strength that comes from union is shown by the fact that arrangements are now being made for the building of a large brewery at Le Mars. A few years ago anyone that embarked in a business of that sort in Iowa would have been thought a candidate for the commissioners of insanity, declared one dealer yesterday but the work of the association has put the liquor business on so firm a footing as to make a large expansion seem likely all over the state.

No one seems to doubt, say well informed liquor dealers, that a fight of large proportions is about to be waged in the direction of securing a more lenient liquor law than the one now in force, as plenty of capital, energy and other useful resources are on hand.

The Fort Dodge Messenger: Jan. 4, 1904

New Officers Take The Oath

Successful Candidates in Recent County and Township Elections, Take Office.

Supervisors are in Session

Treasurer Ryan Appoints Assistant Depuey (sic) – Sheriff Selects Woolsey.

County treasurer, sheriff, surveyor, coroner and county superintendent of schools, two supervisors and township officers to fill vacancies took the oath of office today. The county officers are:

Treasurer – J.T. Ryan.
Sheriff – Henry Olson.
Surveyor – C.H. Reynolds.
Coroner – A.H. McCreight.
Superintendent – A.L. Brown.

The supervisors are:

First district – A.F. Simpson of Duncombe to succeed himself.
Second district – P.H. Cain of Clare, to succeed J.T. Ryan.

Treasurer J.T. Ryan today appointed O.F. Weiss, assistant deputy. No appointment was filled for deputy treasurer although it is known that E.H. Cox will be appointed to that office. Clark Woolsey has been appointed deputy sheriff to succeed himself.

By acclamation Swan Johnson, of Dayton, was appointed chairman to succeed A.F. Simpson. The board is now engaged in settling with the former treasurer, J.A. Lindquist. The following program has been made out by the board:

Tuesday, January 12.
Appointment of court house janitors, county physicians and official newspapers and book binders.

Wednesday January 13
Annual inspection of poor farm.

Thursday, January 14
Ditches, roads and bridges and appointment of commissioner of poor and over-seer of poor farm.

The standing committees for the year are:

Claims – Cain and Hilstrom.
Settlement with county officers – Collins and Simpson.
Roads – Simpson and Johnson.

The Fort Dodge Daily Chronicle: Sept. 29, 1910

Week Busy One With Supervisors

Many Drainage Ditches and Other County Works Being Visited and Inspected by County Board.

The present week is a busy one with the members of the Webster county board of supervisors, and since Monday morning the members of that body hae been going early and late inspecting drainage ditches and other county work in various parts of the county.

During Monday the board visited Drainage Ditch No. 123 for the purpose of making a change in the location of the tile.

Tuesday Drainage Ditch No. 91, was inspected, as was also the new cement bridge over Brushy creek, south of Duncombe. This bridge has a 55 feet arch and is a handsome piece of work.

Wednesday Drainage Ditch No. 73, located in Newark township was inspected by the county board and this morning they left the city for a visit of inspection to Drainage Ditch No. 57, east of the city, planning to look over the tile laterals with a view of accepting the same.

The Fort Dodge Messenger: Sept. 14, 1906

Plans for Dam in the River

Light and Power Co’s. Project is Certainty – Engineer Preparing Plans

City engineer Charles Reynolds is engaged at present in drawing a set of plans for the construction of a dam in the Des Moines river near the upper river bridge at the direction of the Fort Dodge Light and (P)ower Co., who plan to erect the same as soon as possible.

This announcement will be received gladly all through the city. the project has been held in mind by the Light and Power Co., for some time but has only recently been definitely decided upon. This means that this company will be enabled to furnish the cheapest power in the state and that it will almost force big manufacturing firms to come here.

It is a step of great importance for the city and means more than the acquisition of any railroad line of factory such as Fort Dodge has worked for in the past. It is expected that work will commence next spring. An eighteen foot dam is planned.

The Fort Dodge Messenger: Sept. 10, 1903

Comply With Fire Escape Ordinance

Nearly Every Building in the City is Now Protected Against Fire.

Four Buildings Without Them

Owners of Two Buildings are Fined for not Obeying the Law.

Inhabitants of Fort Dodge “sky scrapers,” need no longer have any fear of waking up in the middle of the night disturbed by the alarm of fire and finding that there is no other means of escape besides the burning stairway, or windows high above the street.

The city fire escape ordinance passed last April in accordance with the state law is now practically enforced in Fort Dodge. There are only four buildings in the city, which on account of their size come under the law, unprovided with fire escapes of sufficient size and number to allow the inmates in event of a fire a mode of escape.

Two of the delinquents, the Great Western Cereal Company and the Green-Wheeler Shoe company have been fined the amount provided by law, $1 and costs, $10 per week afterward until fire escapes are put up. The other delinqent (sic), the Midland life Insurance Co., which has been ordered to appear on charge of disobeying the law and the fourth owner, Harry Sanderson, who is prevented from putting  up the escape on his building until the permission of the government is secured, the escapes being placed on the west side of the Sanderson black which borders on the postoffice grounds. It is necessary to secure the consent of the government before the work can be done.

All of the Central avenue business blocks of three or more stories, with the exception of the above named, have complied with the ordinance and the contracts for the escapes on the shoe factory have been let and work will commence as soon as the material arrives. The Great Western Cereal Company had provided the mill with one fire escape but this has been considered insufficient, so that more will have to be put in. The work of doing this will begin Thursday.  The Midland Insurance company has ordered the material and will have the apparatus u p within a few weeks. As soon as government permission is secured the fire escapes will be placed on the Sanderson block.

The most expensive escapes not put in are those on the court house. These are of the nature of a steel stairway and cost $450. One escape is placed on the east and one on the soth (sic) side of the building.

The Des Moines Bridge and Iron Works has held contracts for the majority of the work. The contracts signed by this company here would run into the thousands. the cost of the fire escapes for a building varies from $80 to $500 depending on the number and kind used and whether or not a stand pipe is put in.

The ordinance was passed by the council in the early spring. Notices were served on property owners on April first that the escapes must be in by June 1, but delay in the carrying out of the contracts by the construction companies has caused a postponement in the enforcement of the ordinance.