News of 1907

Either 1907 was a spectacular year for newsy items, or this is where I started labeling with the year as well as a description.  I'm not transcribing any of these because none are directly about Heschs, they're just funny or interesting.  There's one about a bear, one about logging, and even one about the weather, among other stuff.  Click for legibility.

There was a "secret society" in Little Falls called the Redmen, which later became "the Improved Order of Redmen".  It wasn't the only secret society in Morrison, but it was maybe the most fun for its members, even tho their theme was a disrespectful take off on Indian culture.  It was a different time in history, ya know?

 I always assumed towns came first, with the railroads choosing where to lay the track, thereby enriching a town or killing one too far from the tracks.  According to this, tho, Bowlus, Vater and Hillman were Soo townsites.

I know the next clip is from 1908--deal with it.  I'm including it cuz I already have your attention.  I just wanted you to know that that spring was weird ☺.

Bowlus, Vawter, and Hillman, Minnesota

Evidently, the railroads could just create towns along their routes, for their own convenience, regardless of swampy land or whether people needed towns there or not.  The Sioux Line knew, of course, that those places would soon be populated, but it's kind of stunning that now, over 100 years later, we can find accounts of NEW TOWNS in old newspapers.

                     Bowlus, Vawter and Hillman (aproximately) ☺

The death of Paul Hesch Jr.

We've talked about grandpa's brother Paul before, the seventh child, born in 1887, and his death 20 years later in 1907.  He was 13 here, in the photo taken after his father died (1900). 

I think we posted this tidbit from the St John's school newspaper before, too, speculating how awful it must have been for Mary, his mom.  Class of '03 had to be High School because he would have been only 16 then.  According to the pic below, jobs on the railroad were often used as college courses.  The announcement to the right mentions Hillyard, Washington...info via wikipedia:

"Hillyard, Washington is a neighborhood in Spokane, Washington which existed as a separate town between 1892 and 1924.

The town came about due to the Great Northern Railway and was named for James J. Hill, then-head of the railroad...Hillyard was the home of the Great Northern's famed shops where locomotives were manufactured, repaired, and refurbished. At the time, the Hillyard shop was the largest in the nation".

Thanks to Larry for finding these two articles this week.   He and I have often talked about how certainly,  people were the same then as now...the pain of a beloved son dying so horribly, as well as the loss of a another link to her husband, Paul, must have been devastating. I wish we knew more about him.

Some 1907- 1914 News

Today's post needs little explanation, being an odd collection of news like we've done before, but you know I'll chat you up anyway, right?  

  
I'd just found the P.H.Hartmann obit the night before Shari and I went to Oakland Cemetery in Little Falls (Mn), so I thought I'd look for his grave and get a photo.  Yes, I posted the obit on his Find a Grave page, just for equilibrium on the internet ☺. 



START DRIVING EARLY had a far different meaning once, but by 1911 it was already a play on words.  It worked on me ☺, reading the article 100 years later.  

What a neat view of the logging industry--the spring thaw was early that year, so the down-river mills fired up in early April.  The info would have been pertinent to just about 
everyone who lived in Morrison Co. because of all the tributary streams that fed the Mississippi.  Once the ice went out, logs followed. Between 20 and 25 MILLION feet of logs at the landing in Little Falls?!  Whew.

BTW, I mentioned this to a client who recalled pulling submerged pine logs out of the river in the 1970s, and using the wood.  Wait, didn't they have to be dried out first?  He said no, they came out of 60 years under water pretty much like they'd gone in--not at all water logged or rotted.  How cool to learn that!

                                                           

 John Naber, mom's uncle John, must have had problem when he drove the Studebaker home...




We explored Secret Societies in June 2010 (they were fashionable in Morrison Co too).  Below are a couple of articles about the Red Men in Little Falls, one that's just embarrassing  and one about how they became "Improved".  Yes, these were grown men (President Roosevelt among 'em).

The Reformatory in St Cloud has been "over-populated" for years, it seems.  Yeah, it was a different place in 1911.

A dangerous job

"Busy as a Tight-rope Walker
Most roads do not hire brakemen or
firemen.  They hire men who use this
work as a college course".

The Great Northern and Soo line railroads were popular employers of Minnesota farm boys in the early 1900s.  Various RR functions like baggage handling , mail car, fireman, depot agent, engineer, brakeman, executive and car shop worker were held by members of the family at one time or another.  
One we've reported on before was grandpa Anton's brother Paul, who died as a result of being a GN brakeman.  We put the story together at the time from other sources (family stories, Find A Grave, the St John's school newsletter, etc) but never had a dispassionate account, till now.

Larry found this blunt article last week in the East Oregonian Newspaper from August 1, 1907.  Sandpoint, Idaho.  Paul was born in 1887.  He was 20, not 25.  We know that Mary, his mom, a widow for 7 years by then, adopted a little boy named Paul Doyle from the orphan trains.  This Paul was born in 1906...was he maybe adopted as an homage to Paul the brakeman?  We'll never know...but THANKS LARRY!