1905

THAT CAN’T BE TRUE

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

Surprise: Some things you read in the old papers ain’t exactly true. Beyond the frequent typos and misspelled names, beyond the stories with hopelessly garbled details, there’s the occasional item that you read twice, three times, before realizing, “why, this is total bullshit.”

Journalism standards were loose in the 19th century (to say the least), and it wasn’t that unusual for a spoof, a satire, or an outright hoax to appear in a newspaper without any cue to the reader that the story wasn’t true. Tall tales were particularly common in wild west papers; a good book on the topic, Red Blood & Black Ink, has an entertaining chapter on the false news story genre.

The master of the art was probably Mark Twain’s pal, Dan De Quille. One of his “quaints” (as he called them) was about an air-conditioned helmet that would allow a man to walk across Death Valley in the hottest part of summer. The inventor supposedly took his invention out for a test stroll, but alas, it worked too well, and he was later found frozen stiff in the broiling-hot desert. His most infamous hoax was the report about the “Traveling Stones of Pahranagat Valley,” which he claimed were mysterious magnetic rocks that were attracted to others of their own kind — scatter a bunch of them over a tabletop and they would supposedly roll towards a center point and form themselves into a little pile. German scientists wrote to “Herr Dan De Quille, the eminent physicist of Virginiastadt, Nevada” for more details about the phenomena, and De Quille admitted it was a joke — but the Germans were incensed, thinking that he was instead being secretive about a great discovery. The story took on a life of its own, and requests for samples came in for years. De Quille took to replying that he was fresh out of the stones, and they should instead contact Samuel Clemens, “who probably has still on hand fifteen or twenty bushels of assorted sizes.”

Press Democrat editor Ernest L. Finley had presented Santa Rosa with (at least) three obviously fake items in 1905, starting with a pair of parody ads for the rival Santa Rosa Republican, which were intended to ridicule the new owners as clueless outsiders who didn’t fit in an agricultural community, “people from the big town, who never saw a pumpkin in their lives.” The other example was over-the-top silliness that had our own James W. Oates and his neighbor launching a skyship, complete with “wireless telegraph apparatus.”

But the story below was more in the league with De Quille’s fantastic quaints. A reprint from an uncredited East Coast paper, it claimed that some dairy farmers were bypassing cows to create milk and butter directly from hay. Without a single hint that it was a joke, the story burrowed down into tedious cost analysis benefits of using such artificial dairy products.

Question #1 is whether Finley himself was bamboozled. That’s doubtful, but possible; the story was actually a parody of the 1905 discovery of hydrogenation, where oil from vegetables could be chemically transformed into a substitute for margarine or lard. With that background, is it really so outlandish that someone in that era might also believe a process using “certain chemicals” could create a passable fake milk from plant matter?

At least one newspaper was outraged by the hoax and sought to debunk it. The weekly Florida Agriculturist called it “a sample of the outrageous stories that some writers will palm off upon an unexpecting and credulous public,” reprinting the exact same story that appeared in the PD, but tracing it back to an article in the Oswego Times.

The Dec. 31, 1905 edition of the Florida paper quoted a reader who supposedly lived near the Massachussetts location of the hay-to-butter plant: “We do not know of the slightest foundation for this yarn. We believe it to be a canard pure and simple. We do not have a daily paper regularly, but we have one occasionally and lately I have been almost shocked to see the way the reporter lies to make a sensation…It is strange that a reputable paper should print such awful nonsense without labeling it ‘A Joke.'”

CREAMERY BUTTER FROM HAY
New Process That Promises to Put Cows Out of Business

In the town of New Braintree Massachussetts, there is a factory in which butter is made direct from hay. The following description of the factory and the process followed will doubtless prove of interest:

The plant covers about five acres of ground; the building alone covers about two acres and is two stories height. It is constructed on the latest improved plans, being build of concrete and then smoothed up with cement. This plant is for the making of butter from hay without the use of cows. It uses some 10,000 tons of hay per year and arrangements are being made to more than double the capacity within the next year or so.

These people buy the hay as soon as it is thoroughly cured paying as high as $15 per ton for good clover, and from that down to $8 for the poorer grades. The hay is then cut up fine, about one-half inch in length and put in very large, strong vats or tanks, which are so made that they are capable of standing great pressure. About five tons of hay are put in each vat and certain chemicals are sprayed on the hay. Then steam is forced into the vats until all the hay is thoroughly softened. The vats is then hermetically sealed and left for twenty-seven hours, after which time immense pressure is put on and every particle of juice is pressed from the hay.

This juice is run through a separator and the butter fat comes out just the same as the cream from milk. This is kept at a temperature of 60 degrees for twenty hours and then churned. Butter produced in this manner is now selling in New York and Boston markets for 40 and 50 cents per pound, and the average amount of butter taken from a ton of hay is 100 pounds, a good clover hay making as high as 150 pounds per ton, while hay of a poorer quality will seldom run below 75 pounds per ton.

The juice after the butter fat is extracted is mixed with buckwheat middlings and baked into cakes, and is being used by dealers in fancy poultry for feeding young chickens, it having been demonstrated that 20 per cent more chickens can be raised from this food than any other food known.

Then again, the hay, after having been pressed, is put to a dry kiln and dried and then ground as fine as cornmeal and sold for horsefeed, it being claimed that this, mixed with oats half and half, givers better results than clear oats, and is worth about 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cents per pound. This feed is sold for about $20 per ton, so that altogether it is a very profitable business. Experiments are now going on by which the manufacturers are expecting to bring out new products making it still better.

– Press Democrat, February 4, 1906

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UPDATES ON PAST STORIES

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

Here are a few followups to posts based on articles from the 1905 and 1906 Santa Rosa newspapers:

* One of the oddest stories I’ve encountered was about a local man caught shipping a crate of dead robins to San Francisco. Robins, I learned, were considered a delicacy in 19th century America, and some still had a taste for robin pot-pie, even though trafficking in wild birds became a federal crime in 1900. In this update, the songbird smuggler tells the judge he was misled about the contents of the box, believing that it was only dried fruit.
* Healdsburg Dr. H. P. Crocker didn’t even have a driver’s chauffeur’s license when the auto he was driving hit a buggy carrying a family of five, seriously injuring a passenger. The good doctor appealed the fine given to him for causing the accident, using a novel defense that speed limits and laws requiring him to share the road with horse-drawn vehicles were unfair. After twenty months of appeals, Crocker finally paid his $250 fine.
* Archeologists would have a field day digging up the intersection of Sebastopol Road and the railway tracks. Here was a La Brea-like mud hole that famously sank vehicles up to their axles during the winter of 1904, the winter of 1905, and soon, the winter of 1906. God knows what manner of treasures fell into the muck as the autos and buggies were dragged out; there may even be a classic car down there. Maybe a fleet of ’em.

Why they couldn’t fix the Pothole From Hell is unclear. Apparently it was right at the railroad crossing and the land was owned by California Northwestern, which had a standing court order blocking the city from any work on their property (which was somewhat understandable in the wake of “The Battle of Sebastopol Avenue“). At the same time, the railroad was also demanding that Santa Rosa fix the hazard in the street. This report of a late 1906 city council meeting finds the mayor griping that not enough city business gets done at these meetings because city leaders spend an hour or more of each session wringing hands over the mud hole crisis.

* We last encountered Petaluma dentist Walter Hall in the summer of 1905, after he was arrested for beating up a vaudeville hypnotist. A few months later, we learn why Walter was so irritable: His wife of less than two years was about to ask for a divorce. Surprising details appear in the early 1906 stories about their split up, namely that she charged him with desertion (was she counting his night in jail?) and that he vowed to fight for his marriage. When they finally did divorce in 1908, the grounds were reversed; the dentist charged her with desertion. Painful though the divorce was, Dr. Hall still got off lucky; her previous husband committed suicide by shooting himself twice — both in his heart and head — before leaving her a considerable estate.
Shipped Birds For Japanese

D. Casassa, who is charged with having shipped a box of birds to San Francisco from Sebastopol marked “dried fruit,” was in Justice Atchinson’s court Thursday. He claimed that he shipped the birds for a Japanese who told him it was dried fruit, which he intended to send to his parents in Japan. The box was addressed to a poultry and game commission firm, and Casassa was instructed to get the Japanese to appear in Court next week to which time the case was postponed.

– Press Democrat, January 19, 1906

PAYS FINE FOR A CHUG-CHUG RIDE
Dr. Crocker of Healdsburg Enriches County Treasury to the Extend of Fine Imposed Months Ago

Dr. H. B. Crocker, the well known owner of the sanitarium at Healdsburg, who was some time ago fined $250 for a violation of the ordinance regulating the speed of automobiles on the county road, on last Friday paid the coin into Justice Hugh N. Latimer’s court in Windsor, and the incident is ended.

Dr. Crocker took the suit to the higher court and there the decision of the lower court was affirmed. Dr. Crocker thought of applying for a writ of review but evidently decided not to carry the litigation any further, and from Justice Latimer it was learned by a reported that the money had been paid.

– Press Democrat, August 13, 1906
MUD HOLE CAUSES MUCH DISCUSSION

At the meeting of the council Tuesday evening the matter of fixing up the mud hole at Sebastopol avenue and the railroad tracks was again discussed. The council is tied by an injuction and cannot proceed and it was reported that the property owners intended to force them to make repairs there if they were not done at once. The members of the council do not see how they can be forced to violate an order of the court and are awaiting developments.

Chairman Press Hall, who has tired at attempts to fix the street, declared that W. L. Call should be sent down to the mud hole to drive some piling and that a bridge be built across the disputed spot.

Mayor Overton declared that every time the council met an hour or more was spent discussing that particular mud hole and he would prefer to discuss something that could be done for the city’s interest than this location, where an injunction prevented needed street work being done…If the order of the court could be modified the council would willingly put the street in proper condition and it should be done before the winter rains set in.

– Santa Rosa Republican, November 28, 1906

HAS FOUND THE YOKE TOO HEAVY
Mrs. Abbie M. Hall Sues Dr. Walter C. Hall of Petaluma for Divorce

Some surprise was occasioned here yesterday, and when the news is known in Petaluma it will result in a sensation there also by the commencement of a suit for divorce in the Superior Court by Mrs. Abbie M. Hall against her husband, Dr. Walter C. Hall, the young dentist of Petaluma. The couple are prominent in social circles in the southern town and both are members of well known and old families of southern Sonoma.

Prior to her marriage to Dr. Hall about two years ago, Mrs. Hall was Mrs. James Treadwell, a scion of the wealthy Treadwell family and a man possessed of great wealth. The marriage savored of the romantic and came as a great surprise. While there had been hints that some dissensions had arisen in the Hall household, nevertheless the filing of divorce papers here yesterday occasioned a surprise. Frank A. Meyer is the attorney for the fair plaintiff. Her marriage to Dr. Hall was her third matrimonial venture.

– Press Democrat, February 14, 1906

DR. HALL IS TO FIGHT THE SUIT
Says He Did Not Willfully Desert His Wife as She Is Claiming

Dr. Walter C. Hall, the young Petaluma dentist, whose wife recently sued him for divorce in the Superior Court of this county, will contest his wife’s suit. She alleges that he, without cause, deserted her last year, and on the grounds of wilful [sic] desertion she asks the court to grant her a legal separation and a severing of the martial ties.

On Monday Dr. Hall’s demurrer to his wife’s complaint was argued in Judge Seawell’s department of the Superior Court. The ground urged most was that the complaint did not state a cause of action. Dr. Hall was represented by Attorney Thomas Denny, Attorney Frank A. Meyer representing Mrs. Hall, the plaintiff, resisted the demurrer.

Judge Seawell overruled the demurrer and gave the defendant ten days to answer. It is understood that Dr. Hall will fight his wife’s suit on the ground that he did not wilfully desert her as alleged. At the present time it looks as if there will be a lively contest over the granting of the divorce.

Mrs. Hall, as is well known, was formerly Mrs. Abbie Treadwell, the wife of James Treadwell, the young millionaire, who shot himself sometime prior to her marriage with Dr. Hall in Los Angeles. Prior to becoming Mrs. Treadwell she was Mrs. Leon Drive, wife of Professor Driver, a well known instructor in music. She obtained a divorce from him in the Superior Court of this county and Attorney Meyer, who represents her now, also represented her then.

– Press Democrat, March 13, 1906

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WRANGLING COWS ON COLLEGE AVE.

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

Here’s another reason why Santa Rosa streets were in poor shape; cowboys could still drive cattle herds through town in the early 20th century.

But in 1906, the town passed new rules that cattle, pigs, and sheep could only rumble down specified parts of College Ave. and Cleveland Ave. Unfortunately, the City Council neglected to specify how the animals would get to the designated routes from the Southern Pacific stockyard on North Street, leading a local cattleman to quip that he’d have to airlift his cows.

OBJECT TO THE NEW ORDINANCE

Claim an Airship Will be Necessary to Get Cattle to Slaughter House

The stringent ordinance which was passed by the City Council at their last meeting regulating the driving of live stock through the streets of the city is meeting with considerable opposition from the stock sellers and buyers, for they can see no way, under the provisions of the ordinance, to get in or out of the city, with their cattle, sheep, or hogs when they dispose of them in the local market or at a distance. Under the provisions of the ordinance live stock can be driven on Cleveland avenue from College avenue on the north to the city limits and on College avenue from Cleveland avenue to the city limits on the west.

In conversation with P. H. Noonan, the largest stock shipper and buyer in this section, a reporter learned yesterday that Mr. Noonan does not relish the provisions of the ordinance at all. At present he sees no way, except possibly by means of an air ship, to get live stock from the Southern Pacific depot to the slaughter house, or from any point outside of the city. If some reasonable way can be provided whereby stock can be taken to the slaughter house and corrals, Mr. Noonan would much rather not drive cattle fresh from the Nevada hills, for instance, through the streets recognizing as he does the element of danger undertaken. The first remedy Mr. Noonan suggests is the removal of the Southern Pacific corrals outside of the city limits. The next remedy he would urge is the providing of a road as near the city limits on the west as possible, with a bridge across Santa Rosa creek at some convenient place.

– Press Democrat, February 28, 1906

READY TO MOVE CATTLE CORRALS
CHAIRMAN REYNOLDS OF STREET COMMITTEE RECEIVES WORD FROM SOUTHERN PACIFIC
Corrals and Oil Tanks Will be Located Outside of the City Limits When North Street is Opened

The Southern Pacific Company has formally notified Chairman W. D. Reynolds of the Street Committee that it is ready to move its cattle yards and oil tanks outside the city limits as soon as North street is opened so that teams will be able to reach the new location. The Company also urges that the matter be attended to if possible before the winter rains set in.

The new location of the Southern Pacific tanks and corrals will be on the Company’s property at the head of North street, and the change about to be made is in conformity with the ordinance passed some time since The tracks [sic] will be raised so as to allow the oil cars to run alongside the tanks and empty themselves by gravity, and the corrals will be constructed in permanent style.

– Press Democrat, September 23, 1905

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