BACKTRACKING
Wataga News-Herald, 104 Years Ago
by Terry Hogan
On January 2, 1903, the Wataga
News-Herald published
Issue 48 of Volume 1. The publisher was J. Boyd Johnson. It was the first issue
for 1903. About 1/2 of the front
page was dedicated to ads, with many of them being businesses located in
Wataga. There is nothing quite
like an old newspaper to give you a snapshot of life for the period.
In Wataga, one could go
see J. H. Merrill for lumber, lath, shingles, sand, paints, oils, pumps and
fixtures, to say nothing of Baum stock food and fire insurance. Merrill must have been the forerunner
of a shopping mall. On the other
hand, if you had transportation problems, you didn't have to go to Galesburg
for help. D. M. Cooper in Wataga
was a dealer in harness, saddles, collars, whips, buggies and "vehicles of
all kinds". But Cooper
proclaims in his ad that "harness repairing [was] a specialty".
Not to be out-done, S.
R. Miner of Wataga was able to supply the local demand for tin-ware, stove
pipe, stoves and ranges, and repairs for stoves and ranges. Miner would also take orders for
roofing, spouting and furnace work.
And if there was a serious problem with one of the heat sources, Miner
was also an Agent for the Harrison Mutual Burial Association of Knox County.
Perhaps the most
surprising resource available in Wataga was L. W. Olson. You could contact him
for steamship tickets for the White Star Line, Scandinavian-American, or
"any other Line".
The most unusually
placed ad on the front page belonged to McCalls Magazine, whose column ad, at
the bottom right corner of the front page was printed horizontally so that the
text ran vertically. Perhaps
McCalls got a discount?
As was the general case
for small town newspapers of the period, the local Wataga news was dedicated to
"good news" and sprinkled with local names to keeping them
subscribing. For example, my great
great great uncle, M. O. Williamson, who lived in Galesburg, was reported to
have visited Wataga on Saturday.
Another of my distant relatives, Philip French, was recorded as spending
the holidays with his parents, before returning to Hedding College in
Abingdon. Other local news
included that Dr. Eckley of Galesburg was in Wataga and performed an operation
on a horse belonging to Grant Gibbs.
It seems pretty clear that Wataga was a booming place in 1903, as it is
today.
Now it seems that the
towns of Le Roy and Saybrook were a little bit more exciting. The Wataga paper reports:
A gang of safe
robbers, which has been terrorizing central Illinois for the past year, robbed
the post office at Leroy (sic) of $1,000 in money, stamps and registered
letters. Then proceeding to
Saybrook, eight miles north, they demolished the jail, using a telephone pole
as a battering ram. The gang escaped
with a stolen horse and buggy.
Showing the Swedish
influence in Wataga, the Wataga paper devoted two full columns on page 5 under
the heading "Gossip from Skandinavia" to news from the "home
land".
Of course, no good
newspaper of the day could survive without the revenue from numerous patent
medicines that could cure everything.
My personal favorite is "Paxtine Toilet AntisepticÓ that was sold to
address "local treatment of female ills". This Paxtine antiseptic set a new standard as a female
wonder drug: "Écuring all
inflammation and discharges, wonderful as a cleansing vaginal douche, for sore
throat, nasal catarrh, as a mouth wash, and to remove tartar and whiten the
teeth." I don't believe I can
say anything to top this product.
It was obviously beneficial to about any orifice.
The Wataga paper did not
limit the local news to Wataga.
Similarly exciting local events of family visits can be found for
Foxtown, Pleasant Hill, and Oneida. Although, it seems to me that Foxtown may
have had a problem filling out its allocated space for news. A careful reading
of the Foxtown entries include "Many of our residents made a trip to
Galesburg Wednesday"
and "Maude Thorne was home Sunday." Finally, there was this entry
under Foxtown that I find both humorous and a little sad: "Willis Thorne having graduated
from Bush Academy, will hereafter dig coal for Rodell and Mitchell until spring." (I suppose Willis is related to
Maude, given the size of Foxtown.)
Finally there is the ad
for Horton and Foley, Undertakers of Galesburg. As the ad was in a Wataga newspaper, it adds "C. O.
Johnston, Swedish Assistant". I
suppose the Swedes didn't want some "Norwegian bachelor" as an
undertaker. Illinois was a melting
pot, but there were limits!
Such was the news fit to
print, 104 years ago when Wataga had a spring in its step; Swedish was the
second language; and all the children were above average.