April 27, 2015
Looking Backwards

We're looking backward a little farther this week just for the fun of it.  Truly, some things don't change all that much as the years tick away.  Is it 50, 75, or maybe 100 years?  See if you can guess when this was what was "in the news" around these parts:

All persons are hereby notified to clean up their barns, yards and alleys. If not attended to at once the ordinance relating to the same will be strictly enforced.  The board will inspect the work, by order of the Board of Health.

Four saloons were opened in Westbrook last Saturday.  It seems Mrs. Nation would find plenty of work to do there should she ever decide to visit that burg.

John G. Johnson has gone into the farm implement business at Hadley.  He sells everything from a wheelbarrow to a threshing machine.  He wants your trade and will give you bargains....

Balaton has voted $10,000 bonds to build a new six room school house.

A dispatch from Dexter, Iowa says that the "senior class of the high school is out on a strike.  The faculty prepared a pledge to be signed by the pupils providing for an abstinence from passing or writing notes.  The entire class revolted and left the school." 

At a congregational meeting of the Presbyterian Church Monday evening, the building committee was instructed to purchase the lots on the corner south of Mr. Weber's residence and begin at once the erection of a parsonage for the church.

The Fred Filles farm southwest of town was sold last week for $35 an acre.

The play "Those Dreadful Twins" given for the benefit of the Slayton Cornet Band was a grand success.  T he audience was all that could be asked for, nearly all the seats being taken.

Swindlers are reported in various parts of the country who pass themselves off as post office inspectors and look over the mail boxes on free delivery routes charging the owners of the boxes a fee for inspection.  Look out for strangers along free delivery routes.

The sheriff of Rock County is threatening to resign if people continue to be so good in that county. His salary for April amounted to only $6.70, which is not sufficient to maintain the dignity of the office.

A library costing $40 has been ordered for the school in Brewster district, Mason township.  Half the money was raised by an entertainment by the school and the other half is given by the state.

Okay that last one might have given it away. Or not.  Well, these are actual news files from more than one hundred years ago - 114 to be exact, printed in the local Slayton Gazette in 1901.  What do you think will be at the top of the news highlights in another hundred years?

One can only imagine.