The Fort Dodge Messenger: May 12, 1903

Title to 160 Acres is Now in Question

Webster County Land Which Was Once Included in Swamp Land Grant is Claimed by Denver Lawyer

The title of fifteen forty acre tracts of Webster county land, with an average value of fully $40 an acre ($958 today) and a total value of $24,000 ($574,788), is now in dispute, owing to an action taken by the county board of supervisors two years ago, at which time, on the recommendation of their agent, S.J. Bennett, they waived the rights of the county on these tracts, which were originally included in the swamp land grant. Upon t his action of the county the swamp land selections on these tracts were canceled by the United States land office at Des Moines.

All this time, the owners of the fifteen tracts in question were blissfully unconscious that anything was going on, no notice having been served upon them. When they learned what had been done, their titles had already been cancelled, and a Denver lawyer names Moses had filed application for the purchase of the lands for the regular government price, a proceeding which he was perfectly free to pursue under the law. The owners were notified a day or two ago, and by prompt action were able to reach the land office at Des Moines in time to give themselves at least a fighting chance to reclaim the title to their property. Had Mr. Moses go this payment to the land office before the files filed their remonstrance, he would have received the title to the land, but the remonstrance arrived first, and the matter will probably go to the interior department at Washington for final action. To save their title to the land, it will be necessary for the owners to undo all that has been done with the department in Washington and it will probably be considerable time before the litigation is concluded.

Attorney Frank Farrell, who has been retained to represent the present occupants of the land, gave the history of the transaction this morning as follows:

“Two years ago, an agent from the department of the interior in Washington came here to adjust the swamp land grant in this county. The board appointed as their agent in the matter S.J. Bennett, at that time a member of the board, who made a tour of the county with the representative of the interior department, and made a waiver upon part of the county covering some fifteen tracts of 40 acres each, on the theory that they were not swamp lands, and not properly included wihtin the swamp land grant.

“These tracts were all regularly selected as swamp lands as early at (sic) 1869 and the selection was reported to the proper officers of the state and the United States, but the county had neglected to call upon the governor of the state for the patents covering the same. All of these tracts were included in the sale of swamp lands made by the county in 1860. The county’s grantee sold them to different parties, and most of them have been transferred, by deeds of general warranty, many times during that period. All of the tracts have been regularly taxed for more than forty years. All are under improvement and cultivation, and all but three of the tracts have been continuously occupied by the owners for periods ranging from ten to twenty years. The other tracts have been occupied by tenants.

“It seems that in the adjustment with the agent from the interior department, the county, thru its agent, made formal waiver to its claim to the lands as being swamp lands. On the strength of this waiver the swamp land selections were cancelled at the United States land office at Des Moines and this cancellation was later approved by the general land office at Washington. The owners or occupants of these lands had no notice of the proceedings.

“Upon the approval of the cancellation, a Mr. Moses of Denver, Col., had an application on file for the purchase of the lands at the government price. Information as to the action that had been taken came to the owners and occupants a day or two ago, and action was taken immediately with regard to doing all that was possible to retain the title of the lands.”

Tags: 1903, Bennett, Farrell, Moses

The Fort Dodge Messenger: May 11, 1903

In The Mines Around Lehigh

Great Activity Has Been Evidenced of Opening Lehigh Coal Fields

New Mines are Numerous

Several New Shafts are Being Sunk and Output From Lehigh Will be Increased.

The Lehigh Argus in its last issue has an interesting and comprehensive review of what is being accomplished toward the opening of coal fields around Lehigh, more especially in Deception Hollow.

The statement will be of more than ordinary interest to Fort Dodge people and is as follows:

“The work in Deception Hollow of opening the new mines by Sam’l McClure Co. is progressing rapidly. A large shaft 7×14 feet has been sunk and the work of driving the entries is now under way. It is only seventeen feet down to the coal where the shaft is located but the shaft has been sunk below the coal several feet to make a sump. Double shifts have been put on and the men are driving back into the thicker coal. The entry will be driven due south. At the shaft the coal is two feet six inches thick, 200 feet south from the shaft is it three feet and six inches thick. The coal is very bright and fine looking and those best posted claim it to be the Tyson vein.

“The coal is there and in good quality but until the entry has been driven back and the Great Western people can be convinced of the quantity and qaulity (sic) they will not expend $50,000 in extending their line to the mines. From present appearances it is quite probable the road will be built.”

Tags: 1903, McClure

The Fort Dodge Messenger: May 8, 1903

Important Writ of Injunction

Happiness of Harry Holm for the Summer Has Been Dealt Crushing Blow

Faces a Dire Predicament

Has Been Enjoined From Occupying His Favorite Seat in Grand Stand

Harry Holm has been enjoined. Never again may he occupy his favorite perch in the grand stand at Riverside park, just where he can watch the balls curve over the home plate and tell whether or not the  umpire is right or wrong. The injunction has been served upon its hapless victim and unless he can break it, he will have to go and sit in the bleachers, for never again can he be happy in the grand stand, save in  his old accustomed place.

The full extent and purport of this malignant document, which has been gotten out by J.F. Ford, J.C. Walburger and G.F. Rankin as plaintiffs, is shown by the following literal translation:

“To the said defendant: You are hereby notified that on or before the 14th day of August, A.D., 1903, there will be on file in the district court of Webster county, Iowa, the petition of the plaintiffs, aforesaid, enjoining you from occupying the seat in the grand stand at Riverside park in Fort Dodge, Iowa, the seat referred to being more fully described as being located directly back of the home plate in Riverside ball park and fourth row from the ground, and you are farther notified not to occupy or attempt to occupy the third or fifth row, and that you are h ereby relegated to the rear to make room for real fans.”

Healy Bros. & Kelleher appear as attorneys for the plaintiff. Harry has not yet retained an attorney. He is thinking over a plan of resting his case with the ladies of Fort Dodge. Before this gentle tribunal he feels sure that so harsh and unjust a measure as this will not be for an instant countenanced.

The clause about his not being a real fan also rankles in Harry’s memory. “I’ll show ’em,” he remarked. “If they won’t let me sit in the grand stand where I want to, I’ll go into the bleachers or climb a telegraph pole, but they won’t keep me from seeing if I have to use a balloon.”

Tags: 1903, Ford, Healy, Holm, Kelleher, Rankin, Walburger

The Fort Dodge Messenger: May 5, 1903

Fred Clausen, of Ogden, Narrowly Escapes With Life

Almost Ground Under Wheels of Minneapolis Train Bound for Fort Dodge

One of the narrowest escapes form death that did not result in anything more serious than a bruised arm, happened to thirteen-year-old Fred Clausen Saturday night at Ogden. The Minneapolis & St. Louis passenger train had just begun to get up speed after leaving the station and came around a curve directly upon the boy. He saw it coming in time and jumped, but just a little too slow. The fact of his being in the air with his feet off the ground, is probably the only reason he was not thrown beneath the wheels.

As it was, he was struck on the shoulder and thrown several feet down the embankment. The train was stopped immediately, and the crew went back to pick him up. Instead of finding him dead, as they expected, the found him sitting up nursing his shoulder, which had been struck pretty hard. The boy says, however, that the train did not strike him, but that he stumbled and rolled down the embankment, hurting himself that way. However that may be, he is extremely thankful for his exceedingly narrow escape.

Tags: 1903, Clausen

The Fort Dodge Messenger: March 30, 1903

They Visited Real Volcano

Fort Dodge Travelers in Far Off Hawaii Make the Most of Their Opportunities

An Interesting Experience

E.G. Larson and L.A. Thorson Peer Into Blazing Crater of Mighty Halemaumau

E.G. Larson and L.A. Thorson not only saw Honolulu during their trip to the Hawaiian islands, but were also favored with the unusual opportunity of looking down into the blazing crater of a real and semi-active volcano. The volcano visited by Messrs. Thorson and Larson rejoices in the euphonious name of Halemaumau. They were among  the passengers of the steamer Mauna Loa, the details of whose interesting trip are given by the Hawaiian Star, one of the metropolitan looking dailies of Honolulu.

the following report of the trip is taken from a copy of the Star, which was forwarded to the Messenger by Messrs. Larson and Thorson.

“There is fire in the crater of Halemaumau. The fire has been going day and night. News of the fire was brought this morning by a large party of tourists who returned from the volcano by the steamer Mauna Loa. The party went up to the volcano n early two weeks ago.

“From the statements of those in the party, the center of activity is a well defined portion of the pit. A place which was said to be about fifty feet in diameter was the particular center of activity. The lava was bubbling in this place. Evidently a greater portion of the flood of the inner crater is affected. What would appear to those above the floor of the pit to be fifty feet in diameter would be much greater. The spectators had to look down about 1,500 feet and a space fifty feet in diameter would appear nothing but a tiny speck from such an elevation.

“Quantities of steam were to be seen arising from numerous places in the big crater proper.”

Tags: 1903, Larson, Thorson

The Fort Dodge Messenger: March 28, 1903

Left On The Prairie in His Stocking Feet

What Happened to the Man Who Tried a Game of Bluff on a Gilmore City Merchant.

Gilmore City, March 28. – A high handed game of bluff was worked on Charley Neel on Thursday evening of last week, by a fellow who is working for his board, for a prominent farmer west of town. He represented himself as being the owner of a farm a short distance out, and was very much in need of a pair of rubber boots, but did not have the money with him to pay for them.

He put up a great talk, at the same time putting on a pair of boots which just suited him, but he thought he wouldn’t take them today, but he would wait till Saturday when he would be in with some butter and eggs. A lady customer coming in at this time, he changed his mind, and while Mr. Neel was waiting on her the fellow walked out, carrying his old shoes in his hand, saying that he would throw them in his buggy and then come back.

Mr. Neel was suspicious that all was not right, and went out to investigate, and discovered his man sauntering along towards the north, and followed him until the fellow turned west, at Hunter’s corner, and increased his speed. Then Mr. Neel put Marshal Stebbins on his trail and the fellow was overtaken on the bottom west of town. He refused to come back within the incorporation without a warrant, but was finally induced to give up the boots, and he was left on the prairie in his sock feet. Instead of being a prosperous farmer, the fellow hasn’t a dollar.

Tags: 1903, Neel, Stebbins

The Fort Dodge Messenger: March 24, 1903

Marconigrams Are On The Way

Some of the Things Which May be Expected When the Atmosphere of Fort Dodge is Full of Wireless Messages.

They’ll be tappin’ on the window pane,
They’ll bump against the door.
They’ll slide right down the chimney,
An’ spatter on the floor.
An’ what are simple folks to think?
An’ sure what will they say,
When they find that wireless messages
Come to Fort Dodge today.

Why, a feller can’t go down the street
To get a drink of beer,
When here there’ll come a pesky th ing
A’ buzzin’ in his ear.
An’ he’ll want to swear a little bit,
But he won’t know what to say,
For it’s one of them wireless messages
That come to Fort Dodge today.

An’ when you’re sittin’ safe at home,
An’ it’s cold and dark and night,
An’ you hear a kind of whisperin’ sound,
And jump to douse the light.
Why then you stop and think a bit,
An’ then you laugh and say,
It’s one of them wireless messages
That come to Fort Dodge today.

Fort Dodge may be the center of large flocks of wireless messages in the near future, if the plans which have been made by Chicago parties are carried out. It is expected that the air will soon be full of these little messengers, carrying news back and forth between Chicago, Sioux City, Omaha and other large packing centers. Tests were made for the first time in Chicago Monday by the De Forest Wireless Telegraph company, which proposes to put in the system. Fort Dodge will be in the direct line of communication and soon the air waves may be fraught with momentous tidings.

A Chicago special gives the following regarding the plans of the De Forest company:

“Wireless telegraph messages between Chicago and Omaha and other packing centers, as well as communication between the offices and shops of Chicago firms, are promised by Lee De Forest of the De Forest Wireless Telegraph company.

Mr. De Forest is now at the Auditorium hotel. He is in Chicago to select a site for the lake station and to put the temporary system in operation between the offices of Armour & Co. in the Home Insurance building and the stock yards.

Wires were placed on the flag staff of the Home Insurance building yesterday. The work of erecting a mast at the stock yards will be begun at once and by Monday it is expected that the first orders of Armour & Co. will be passing by the wireless system.

Plans have been prepared for the establishment of the lake station, and Mr. De Forest said that this station was assured, whatever result might attend the experiments for Armour & Co. The Chicago station will be on the north shore, near Evanston. Three other lake stations are in process of construction, but the Chicago station will be the largest. Three masts have been erected at Buffalo, and he says the work is being pushed at Detroit and Cleveland. Communication between Buffalo and Cleveland will be established by May, according to the statements of Mr. De Forest. Towers will be built at the Chicago station, and it will have twenty or thirty horse power, double or triple that of the other lake stations.

Contracts already have been made with lake steamship companies in Cleveland and Buffalo and with newspapers for marine service. The steamship lines in Lake Michigan are regarded as probable subscribers for the service here in Chicago.

A feature of wireless telegraphy which will soon be introduced, according to Mr. De Forest, will be the “automobile station.” A machine is equipped with a pole and sending aparatus (sic), and thus fitted, operates in the streets, sending quotations into several brokers offices. “Such an automobile will be in the streets within a month,” said Mr. De Forest.

The first test will be made Monday. Wires will be strung on the flagstaff of the Home Insurance company building, the down town headquarters of the packing company, and a mast will be erected at the stock yards.

Mr. De Forest says he will demonstrate the practicality of his wireless system. “There is much at stake,” he said last night. “We can save them money. They now pay $100,000 a  year telegraph toil. The wireless system means less than half. It is something to be taken into consideration.”

But the Armour tests are among the smallest of Mr. De Forest’s undertakings. He wants to place Chicago in communication with all the cities of the lake region.

“We want to make Chicago the center of our western business,” he said. “The first test will be made between Chicago and Milwaukee. Then will come Mackinac, Sioux City, St. Joseph, Detroit, Cleveland and Buffalo. I expect to purchase a site for a station before the end of the week. It will be on the lake front, of course, and somewhere between Chicago and Evanston. We always attempt to get away from the city. That insures a better and more satisfactory service.”

(Editor’s note: The article is accompanied by a three-panel cartoon with scenes imagined from the poem. Lee De Forest was a dreamer and enthusiastic businessman, but perhaps less practical than he should have been. The De Forest Wireless Telegraph Company he founded in 1902 failed, as did many of his business enterprises.)

Tags: 1903, De Forest

The Fort Dodge Messenger: March 21, 1903

City Water is Pronounced Pure

No More Impurities are Revealed by Careful Tests of City Physician Churchill

No More Need for Teakettles

Necessity for Boiling Water is Now Over. Lasts Typhoid Germ Has Fled

Fort Dodge city water has been pronounced pure. No longer need the anxious housewife bend over the steaming teakettle in which the family beverage is simmering in order that the last wandering microbe may be exterminated. No longer may the business man, busy at his office down town, and far from the disinfecting teakettle, rush hastily out to get a drink of Colfax water or something stronger, that he may incur no danger of catching the dread thyphoid (sic).

City Physician Churchill announced this morning that after repeated tests, he has failed to find signs of impurity in the city  water, and that it is once more fit to drink.

The happy outcome of the bad water scare indicates that truth of the supposition that the cause of the impurities which manifested themselves was the holding of surface drainage beneath the ice. Now that the ice has gone out, the trouble seems to have righted itself.

Just as soon as the water is low enough, the sand in the filters will be renewed, and all will be well again.

The news that the water is pure again will be gladly received all over the city, as the condition of Fort Dodge’s favorite beverage has aroused considerable anxxiety (sic) for the past few weeks.

Tags: 1903, Churchill

The Fort Dodge Messenger: March 9, 1903

Unions Boycott Lehigh Stores

Deadlock is On as Result of Establishment of Cash System by Lehigh Merchants

Buy All Goods Elsewhere

Unions are Purchasing Goods by Carload. May Establish Co-Operative Store

A deadlock is on at Lehigh between the merchants and the laborers and the outlook is a very serious one for the store keepers of the city.

The trouble all arose over the establishment of the cash system on February 15. The merchants of Lehigh held a meeting some weeks ago and decided to adopt the cash system, putting themselves under bonds to stick to the cash basis.

The miners, brick makers, and other laborers took exceptions to this move and immediately made arrangements for trading elsewhere, going to Dayton, Burnside, Homer and Fort Dodge for all their goods, while the business men and clerks of the town were left with nothing whatever to do.

the labor unions of the city got together immediately after February 15, and ordered a car of flour, while each individual family sent to Chicago m ail order houses, cutting out entirely the home trade. The laborer unions have even invited the farmers tributary to Lehigh to join with them and take advantage of the wholesale prices they get in their car load lots of flour, potatoes, feed, etc., and many of them have done so, thus still farther hurting the trade of the merchants. The business men still hold to their agreement, but all or nearly all of them are willing to sell out. N.H. Tyson, who has always been a leader in a business way in Lehigh, has sold his general store and will move to Fort Dodge, according to report.

It is understood that as soon as a building can be obtained, the labor unions will start a co-operative store, and claim that they will effectually put a stop to other business enterprises in the town.

Lehigh has always been a credit town since its establishment, and the sudden adoption of the cash system came as a shock that upset the business tranquility of the town and brought on the crisis which now threatens. It has been the custom for the merchants to carry the people from the fifteenth of one month to the next. It is understood, also, that the state organization of the united Miner Workers of American have $750,000, a part of which they will invest in establishing a wholesale house at Des Moines for the distribution of supplies to the members of the labor unions at actual cost. The outcome of the present difficulty at Lehigh will be awaited with much interest, as the situation is considered a serious one. More orders are bening (sic) sent out for car load lots of flour, feed, potatoes, etc., every day or two, and neither side will give an inch.

There was an unusually large crowd of Lehigh people came to Fort Dodge on Saturday to trade as a result of the business situation there. The Great Western morning train brought about one hundred and fifty passengers.

Tags: 1903, Tyson