The Fort Dodge Messenger: March 25, 1905

Name Has Been Decided Upon

Local Baseball Team in the Iowa League to be Called The Gypsumites.

Voting Contest a Success

Over Thirty Names Were Sent In and Although Many Excellent Names Were Submitted, Choice of All Was The Gypsumites.

The base ball team name contest which has been going on now for two weeks has at last been closed, and it has been decided to call the local team the Gypsumites. Investigation shows that nearly all of the board of directors favored this name, although they themselves did not cast any votes.

The reason that the Gypsumites was selected by nearly all was that this name cannot be copied by any other team, as there is scarcely a place in the whole country which would have any right to this name. Fort Dodge has become justly celebrated because of its great gypsum industries and in consequence, this name seems to apply to a fort Dodge team very well.

There were several other names submitted which would have made excellent names, but this name seemed to apply to Fort Dodge better than any of the others. Cardiffs also seemed to be an excellent name, and many favored this, but the majority favored Gypsumites, and so this name will be the one by which the local team will be known throughout the state.

L.A. Thorson certainly deserves the credit for the winning name, for he submitted both the Gypsumites and the Cardiffs. The Gypsumites was submitted by one other person also, but the latter did not sign any name. Mr. Thorson submitted both of the names upon which the contest developed and deserves the credit for so doing.

Tags: 1905, Gypsumites

The Fort Dodge Messenger: March 24, 1905

“Weary Willies” are in Bloom

Police Plucked a Most Beautiful Bouquet of Them Thursday Night.

Twelve Sleep in the City Jail

Were a Variegated Lot From The Ordinary Sweet William to the Hybird (sic) Ragged Tatters – All Chased Out of Town Today.

The city jail housed twelve sleepers last night. This marks the beginning of the hobo season in this section, and from this time on these men who are ever hunting work and afraid they will find it will be swarming over the north country sleeping wherever they can and begging their meals wherever they are able to find a tender hearted woman who will give them a “hand-out.”

For the past two years, there have been more hoboes (sic) in the country than at any time since Coxie’s army started on its march to Washington more than ten years ago and the season is starting out this year as tho there is still to be a great plenty of this class of people floating about.

Last fall the vast army of restless work hunters moved south with the ducks, and this spring they have appeared and are in full bloom alongside of the first delicate little easter flowers that have sprung into life the past day or two.

The gang that landed in the city on Thursday were from everywhere in general and bound for nowhere in particular. They were a variegated lot, running from the fairly well dressed gentleman “Willie” to the worst Raggedy Tags who would put Happy Hooligan on the shelft (sic) for all time to come. They were turned out this morning with instructions from the police to get out of the city with all possible haste, or they would be thrown in again on the charge of vagrancy and put to work shoveling mud on the streets. While of them were “looking for work,” they were not after that sort of a job, and made a hotfoot for the city limits with all possible haste.

This class of people believe in economizing sole leather, even through they get it out of the ash barrel, and even so early, the railroad men who run into Fort Dodge are reporting many on the move. There is scarce a freight train of any length that pulls in or out of the city, especially during the night, but carries with it from one to a half dozen of these fellows stowed away in an empty box car or on the bumpers. It is next to impossible for the railway men to keep them off, and there is scarcely ever a wreck but what there are one or two “unknown men” caught in the crush and killed.

Fort Dodge is not considered a good town by the hobo element, and is shunned by them as a general thing on account of the fact that they are almost invariably brought up in police court and threatened with being put to work on the street. This policy has been in force for several years, and as a class they have learned the attitude the town maintains toward them. The man who approaches the back door in Fort Dodge and asks for a handout is extremely hardy, and generally ends with a sojourn in the city jail or a few day’s work on the streets.

Tags: 1905

The Fort Dodge Messenger: March 10, 1905

Town of Clare is a Moral One

There is no Crime in Clare

He States That Clare Has No Name on List of County Poor, Has a large Temperance Society With One Hundred and Fifty Members.

Clare, a town which has always had the reputation as one of the roughest of the county, is really one of the most moral, and according to the claim of Supervisor P.H. Cain, who hails from the little city on the northwest, it can show a record that cannot be approached by any other city of the county in any particular. With regard to the matter, he said to a Messenger representative:

“They can say what they will about Clare, but nevertheless that town can show a record that cannot be approached in the way of morality and absence of crime. It is a fact that there has never been a Clare man incarcerated in the county jail; it is also a fact that there has never been a serious crime committed within the borders of the town. There is not one name from Clare on the list of the county poor and there is not another town of its size in the county that can show a temperance society with as large a membership as is held in the Clare Temperance League, which has 150 names on its roll book.

“There are three saloons in the town, I will admit, and that it looks bad for a city the size of Clare. But it must be taken into consideration that there are two dry counties that come to Clare for their liquid refreshments, and it is these people who really give the greater part of the support to the liquor business. There is Pocahontas, which is a temperance county, on the west and on the north Humboldt. The people from these counties come to Clare with their tongues hanging out, and when they do get filled up they are a bad lot.

“Of course there are a lot of people in Clare who take their liquidations pretty regularly, but when you come right down to the facts of the case, there is less of rowdyism in Clare than in many cities of the country that bear a better reputation. And it is a fact that there is actually no crime. There is no doubt of the fact, too, that there is a tendency in the city toward a reform and there is less of the ordinary rowdyism now than there was a year or two ago. The town is improving in moral tone all the time which cannot be said of many of the other places of the county.”

Tags: 1905, Cain, Temperance