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1921 – 100 YEARS AGO
Two fires in the last 24 hours, one of them a safety first call and both due to chimneys, have served to keep the firemen busy cleaning up the used equipment. The first call was at the home of J. F. Huber on South First Street where a chimney burnout threatened the rest of the residence. The call was a safety first one and no damage was done. The other was at the home of George Woods on South Seventh Street early this morning where the roof had caught fire due to sparks flying from the chimney. The blaze was soon extinguished and the damage will amount to about $25.
Things are shaping up for a first-class crow hunt over in the country southwest of Maple Park. For some weeks past a flock of crows has been congregating in the woods of the section to the number of perhaps several thousand. Every morning the black feathered “songsters” start out on their quest for food and at night can be seen returning to their roosting places in the woods. When they first start out in the morning, the sky is literally black with them. Figuring that a crow can eat a nickel’s worth of grain or so in a day, it is evident that the cost of maintenance of the flock is no inconsiderable item.
DeKalb police are today seeking a 118-pound Lochinvar who rode out of the west Sunday and carried away the 140-pound wife of a Rochelle man. Rochelle authorities telephoned local officers to be on the watch for the elopers who are supposed to be driving a four-passenger Overland car. The man is described as wearing a green overcoat, but there the description ends.
Six boxes of handkerchiefs were found on the outskirts of Sycamore near the Great Western railroad tracks yesterday by George Johnson of that city and it is thought they were stolen from freight cars and hidden. Each box contained 24 dozen of the linen squares and if the thieves had made away with the loot it would have been quite a loss to the company.
Dead Animals Wanted, Telephone 961, DeKalb Rendering Works, Herman Rohr, Prop.
Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge were elected on January 10 as president and vice-president of the United States for the term beginning March 4, 1921. The election of Harding and Coolidge was made official by the Electoral College, then machinery provided by the constitution.
1946 – 75 YEARS AGO
The DeKalb Foundry Corporation yesterday announced that all rebuilding operations on the property on Pleasant Street have been completed and definite plans to start operation on January 28 have been made. The foundry has been completely modernized and improved with addition of many new buildings and all new equipment.
Resumption of peacetime activities for another DeKalb manufacturer reached a concrete goal this week with the shipment of the first postwar pianos from the DeKalb Wurlitzer plant. The first piano was consigned to Mr. Fowler of the Fowler Piano Company of Joliet and was delivered to the showroom of that company where it was being displayed as the first production of the post war era from the large DeKalb manufacturing plant.
Shabbona community is making definite plans for the erection of a new gymnasium building in conjunction with the high school development program. Present plans call for the building to be started in the early spring, as soon as weather permits, and providing strikes and building condition do not prevent the plan from developing.
Now that all of the functions of rationing have been eliminated, the office hours of the DeKalb County Price Control Board on North Second Street in DeKalb have been changed. When the rationing program was in full force, the office was closed to the public a few hours each day to allow the clerks time to take care of the many applications and issuing of rations. This is no longer necessary and the office is now open to the public throughout the day.
A bull escaping from a cattle truck terrorized the business and residential districts of DeKalb for two hours Thursday and was finally driven into a field north of town. It returned to the city during Friday afternoon, charged W. H. Edwards of The Chronicle who dropped to the ground and escaped serious injury, and was finally shot by Chief of Police Peck.
A redneck at the bath house at Hopkins Park revealed parts for the chlorinator and bath towels, that were thought stolen, are still there.
Although the weatherman appears to have only been fooling about the balmy weather of the past few days, one robin at least must have been fooled. Mrs. Clyde Holdridge states that a robin who was a regular visitor at her home last year arrived yesterday and was on the back porch waiting for a handout. The robin waited while she went to the kitchen and brought a slice of bread.
1971 – 50 YEARS AGO
The wiring for the signal heads on the new stop sign at the intersection of Barber Greene and Sycamore Roads was installed yesterday afternoon by the Virgil Cook Electric Company of DeKalb. The project is expected to be in operation within 10 days after the detector loops are installed in the road. The stoplights are traffic actuated.
Investigators are looking into the possibility that the $750,000 found in the late Paul Powell’s hotel room was put there after he died. Powell, the late Democratic secretary of state, died Oct. 10 in a hotel at Rochester, Minn., where he had gone for treatment. Another $50,000 was found in two envelopes in Powell’s Capital office by Powell’s secretary.
DeKalb Ag Research has offered up to 40 acres of land for the building of the Kishwaukee Community Health Services Center on property that now surrounds the new YMCA.
Fritz Peterson, the New York Yankees’ winningest pitcher in 1970, might be called a professor of pocket billiards at Northern Illinois University. Peterson, who fashioned a 20-11 record for the revived Yankees last season, is a physical education instructor during the offseason at Northern Illinois.
1996 – 25 YEARS AGO
Indian Creek students and faculty members are mourning the death of Waterman Middle School teacher Amy Todd Fleming. Meanwhile, Lee County Sheriff’s Police continue to investigate the death of the 25-year-old, rural Lee resident. Lee County Sheriff Tim Bivins said investigators do suspect foul play.
Soap may seem to many like a blessing for a sewer system, but it is doing anything but cleaning the water in Sandwich’s water-treatment plant. A mysterious, soap-like substance has been appearing in the plant since April of last year and continues to gum up the work today. The city, while not positive of the substance’s origin, has been pointing the finger at Impact Industries, a local aluminum die-casting business.
Like the community it serves, the Kingston Post Office is growing. Later this summer the post office will move from its cramped 720-square-foot location along Main Street to a 3,100-square-foot new building along Route 72, just east of the Kingston Grade School.
– Compiled by Sue Breese