TDC: 07 Feb 1925 Sat
Chippewa Falls looks downright English. Shawtown Bridge construction is riveting. Rice Lake tells a ghost story.
A dose of the news Chippewa Valley folks were reading on Saturday, February 7, 1925. Source: The Eau Claire Leader.
"London Fog" Blankets City
CHIPPEWA FALLS, Feb. 6.— Covering the city like a blanket, a heavy "London fog" blotted from sight all objects more than a few feet distant this morning, disrupted traffic and was the cause of one minor accident.
Two automobiles and a team figured in a collision as the result of the fog. A team driven by William Smedry, Lafayette, was struck on Highway P at 7:30 this morning by an automobile. Before the mix-up was straightened out another car bumped into the rear of Smedry's sleigh. No damage was done.
Street traffic in the city was forced to move slowly and all drivers turned on their lights.
The title of 'richest man in the world' may have passed from John D. Rockefeller, Jr., or Henry Ford, to Hugo Stinnes (Junior) when the Stinnes interests, the most powerful industrial combination in Europe, acquired control of the vast holdings of M. Castiglione. Hugo and his brother, Edmund, are now the industrial kings of Austria, Czecho-Slovakia and several Balkan countries as well as of Germany.
RIVETING WORK ON NEW BRIDGE IS ABOUT DONE
WITH CONSTRUCTION OF CONCRETE FLOOR STRUCTURE WILL BE COMPLETED
Practically all of the riveting work on the new Shawtown bridge has been completed, only a little remaining, and removal of some of the false work is now in progress.
As far as the construction work on the bridge is concerned, all that now remains is the building of the forms for the bridge floor, which will be built of steel reinforced concrete for the floor must await the arrival of favorable weather, when there is no longer danger of frost. Construction of forms for the floor will probably be taken up as soon as the false work is removed and all the riveting completed.
Both of the approaches to the bridge have been completed and all that is needed before the bridge is thrown open to traffic is the pouring of the concrete floor and the lapse of sufficient time for it to set and harden.
The old bridge is taking care of all traffic while the new bridge is under construction.
RICE LAKE PLAYS UP GHOST STORY
RICE LAKE CORRESPONDENT SENDS MILWAUKEE THE LURID DETAILS
It may be some one up Rice Lake way is trying to outdo Neillsville in publicity of interesting news stories, and then again there may be real foundation for the following special correspondence that finds first page position in the Milwaukee Journal:
RICE LAKE - A bread-baking, floor scrubbing, heavy-breathing ghost, a ghost with weight, visible form and human physical tendencies of becoming tired is reported from this little northwestern Wisconsin town to take its place alongside the night, fire-startling ghost of Antigonish, Nova Scotia, of a few years ago.
The manifestations here puzzle even the skeptical. Four persons assert they heard and seen the ghost of Mrs. Pickman, who died in this city the end of last July. These are Mr. and Mrs. Max Kubis and their two daughters, 15 and 17 years old. None of the Kubis family ever heard of the Pickman episode until after the manifestations began, and the apparition they describe is said to conform merely to daily familiarity with a description of Mrs. Pickman as she acted in life.
Hears Knock at Door.
Mrs. Pickman, who formerly was Mrs. Frank Youngbauer, owned a mercantile building on Main-st here with neatly furnished living rooms in the rear. These had been rented, and Mr. and Mrs. Pickman were living in a four-room house in the northwest part of town where Mrs. Pickman died last July.
In August, about a month after Mrs. Pickman died, the Kubis family, formerly of Independence and Arcadia, moved here from Everett, Wash., and finding it difficult to rent a suitable house, took the Pickman house, a cheaply constructed home of four rooms, front room, dining room, kitchen and bedroom. The entire structure is covered on the outside with tar paper and has a rubberoid roof.
About a month after the Kubis family moved in, the first of the most peculiar manifestations was heard. Mrs. Kubis declares that about midnight she heard what sounded like a quick sharp knock on the door leading from the bedroom to the dining room, followed by the sound of the front door opening and closing. This was followed by sounds as though made by someone walking barefooted over the wooden floor between the front room and the kitchen. Each night it was the same.
Noises Heard in Night.
Later occasion, a noise as though someone was scrubbing the kitchen floor with a brush. On still another occasion sounds from the kitchen as of someone opening the oven and putting bread in to bake.
The two girls say that on one of these nights, after the sounds of labor ended, they were awakened by the feeling of someone heavy lying on the bed, across their feet, so they could not move. On looking at the foot of the bed, they declare they saw the form of a large woman.
Mr. Kubis arose one midnight and spoke words in the stoves, saw the form very distinctly, and plainly that she was able to distinguish the color of the dress she wore and could detect she was a very large, heavy set woman.
The basis of the dead woman. The man says his wife had a cold, making it difficult for her to breathe, and recounting the story of Mr. Kubis, he felt the deep breathing of the ghostly form.
Nothing Was Imaginary.
Nothing was imaginary about it. None of the Kubis family professes to be spiritually inclined, nor were they superstitious. When she was 19 the spirit of her mother came to her and she never saw it again.
Asked Masses Be Said.
I cried out in fright, asking someone to come and protect me,” Mrs. Kubis relates. “My grandmother was on the bed, and told me things about members of my family which I had never heard of before, things that other relatives verified for me when I reported them.”
The Kubis family moved from the little frame structure a short time ago, because it was uninhabitable in very cold weather. The house remains vacant and an abode of news. Neighbors declare that Mrs. Pickman often said that after death she would return to the house, although the Kubis family unites in insisting they had never heard of this remark.
Clock Stops Mysteriously.
Maybe spirits do come back if they desire to make themselves known,” Mrs. Kubis declares. “Maybe Mrs. Pickman was worried about something that she wanted to have straightened out. I am sorry I didn’t speak to her and ask her what it was, but sometimes we could talk when she stood there.
On the evening when the Kubis family started moving from the Pickman house, a few of their belongings remained, and Mr. Kubis says the wooden clock just before they left the house stopped. Next morning they returned early to get the rest of their belongings and found the clock running and almost.
Joseph Albright, a former neighbor of the Pickmans, declares his wife, a friend of Mrs. Kubis, woke one night and heard her husband declare that he had dreamed of and the dead woman had askeded that prayers be said for her. Mrs. Alaire prayed and at once either the dream ceased or the apparition vanished.
Mrs. Pickmon was buried in a small Nebraska town near Omaha.
It has been reported that still another woman neighbor became frightened one night since Mrs. Pickman's death at noises about the house and that she telephoned for her minister to stay with the family during the night.
Plus:
Give your tractor the same attention you’d give your horse.
How ya gonna keep ‘em down on the farm? Try electricity.
What does Eau Claire County pay in state taxes?
I had to look up the richest man in the world in 1925: Stinnes. Interesting to read about the "Inflation King." The Gilded Age offers a peek into the present and future.