News From This Week’s Past: Boots Full of Feet

All items are from the Door County Library’s newspaper archives, and they appear in the same form as they were first published, including misspellings and grammatical errors.

The Expositor

January 2, 1874

Messrs. S. Wead and J. Solway had 20 nets; set in 18 fathoms of water. On Christmas day, the ice moved and dragged the nets over the shoals near Horse Shoe Bay. When recovered, they were nearly ruined.

Weekly Expositor Independent

January 2, 1886

Capt. Anton Hanson, of Ephraim, was in the city a day or two ago. Mr. Hanson is engaged in purchasing fish in the town of Liberty Grove, and shipping them to Oscar Lindquist, at Minnekaunee. Through him we learn that travel has now begun on the ice to Washington Island, a distance of some twelve or fifteen miles, and a number of fishermen have already erected shanties and commenced fishing through the ice in that locality.

The Democrat

January 3, 1895

Our head poet being absent the office “devil” was instructed to do his share towards filling up space. After three hours hard work he produced the following and collapsed:

It was a cold and wintry night,

A man stood in the street,

His eyes were full of tears,

His boots were full of feet.

Door County Democrat

January 4, 1908

Jos. Witte and Walter Keogh received a cold bath on New Years day while out skating with a skate sail near the John Nelsen place. The young men were sailing along at a rapid rate when suddenly they came upon a weak spot in the ice and before they could stop the ice broke and both of them were plunged into the water under the sail. They both succeeded in getting out without assistance and came out with nothing more serious than a thorough wetting.

Door County News

January 2, 1919

Some men will condemn a person of foreign birth who criticises this country and tell how he ought to be deported and in the next breath make disparaging remarks about the town in which he is making a living and raising his family. If a person does not like the country he is living in he should get out of it and the same applies to a city or town. Make more room for a more desirable citizen.

Door County News

January 7, 1926

NEW YEAR USHERED

IN VERY QUIETLY

The New Year was ushered in on Thursday night with little demonstration. The whistle on the electric plant welcomed the New Year, which was about the only noise that could be heard.

Of course there a number of parties in which people waited to see the old year die and the new born, and we presume there may have been some stimulant of a degree stronger than one-half of one percent, though if there was the revelers behaved well under the influence. No disturbances of any kind were reported by police and the justices of the peace did not get any fees out of it.

In fact it was a very peaceful death for 1925 and unusually quiet reception for 1926.

Door County News

January 6, 1939

Town Clock Again Keeps Cedar Street Informed

Sturgeon Bay’s town clock on the Bank of Sturgeon Bay started ringing Wednesday morning at 9:30 after a week of inactivity, brought on by the severe cold and excessive moisture of the past few days. Jack Draeb is responsible for getting the clock to working again, and it was the culmination of a week of work spent in babying the mechanism.

Every day since the clock stopped, Jack has climbed up into the bell tower and very cautiously heated the bearings directly adjacent to the face of the clock, and allowed the water to runout. This isn’t such a simple job, for the bearings are large and require much heat to loosen the accumulation of ice and snow.

If too much heat is applied, the heat will crack the glass face of the clock. Thus when the bearings are thoroughly frozen with ice and snow, a long drawn out process is necessary to aleviate the condition.

The Clock just started of its own accord Wednesday morning, the bearings being free by then, and business men on Cedar st. are pleased to hear its chimes again. Probably because now they can again accuse their employees of being “clock listeners,” which activity consumes less productive time than “clock watchers.”