THE HERITAGE HERALDLAKE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY

VOLUME 51 APRIL 2013

In This Issue:

Scrap Metal Drives - Page 8

The Great Loopy’sAdventure - Page 10

Historic Homes - Page 6

Hobos, Transients, and Others

Page 3 COURTESY

ISSUE

Smith-Zimmermann Museum artifacts now accessible Online

DSU News Release

Chris Heinemann, Amber Eggebraatten, Stephanie Kruggel and John Flint, Dakota State University elementary education students, have created a set of online websites last fall that are accessible directly from Quick Response Codes (QR codes) in the Smith-Zimmermann Museum located on the DSU campus. The websites include vid-eos hosted on YouTube, along with self-grading quizzes for students to take to review what they have seen.

A QR code is a square barcode made up of mostly small black squares. The code contains data that can be read by most smartphones equipped with software to down-load a QR Code reader. Once you download a reader, the phone’s camera acts like a scanner, allowing it to read the barcode. The codes, once scanned by your phone, can provide you with a URL, like in the case of the museum’s codes, or contact informa-tion, SMS, or similar links to information right on your phone.

The websites were created as a partial requirement for the course, EDFN465, Mul-timedia and Web Development, taught by DSU’s associate professor, Dr. Mark Geary.

“QR codes represent a new way of sharing information that facilitates the useful capabilities of the smartphone to deliver just-in-time on-demand information. Our DSU education students have done an outstanding job in pioneering the use of QR codes for educational purposes, and reaffirm DSU’s leadership in producing skilled educators who know how to enhance learning through the effective use of technol-ogy,” said Geary. “In addition, the use of video allows the Smith-Zimmerman to capture the knowledge of a generation for our youth”.

The Smith-Zimmermann exhibits using the QR codes include the covered wagon, the 1920 Oldsmobile car, the Albany cutter sleigh, the telephone exchange/switch-board, the square grand piano, horse equipment, the typewriter and the firefighting equipment. Each exhibit has an accompanying YouTube video explaining the history of the object, and some videos include interviews with local historians for a more in-depth view of the exhibit.

An added benefit for teachers are the on-line quizzes and games students can play based on the specific sites to help them review objects experienced during the mu-seum tour.

Cynthia Mallery, coordinator for the Smith-Zimmerman museum states, “This represents an exciting step forward into the 21st century for the museum.”

The videos are free to view, and can be accessed from the Smith-Zimmerman Mu-seum website at: http://www.smith-zim-mermann.dsu.edu/collections.asp

Teachers wishing to use the online quiz sites, or have their own class create a site for their favorite artifacts may contact Dr. Geary at mark.geary@dsu.edu.

Use your smart phone to take a picture ofthe QR code that has been assigned to the1920 Oldsmobile.

Museum assigns QR Codes

Page 1

PAGE 2 THE HERITAGE HERALD

President’s Message

Sue Larsen

“Welcome Spring!” I certainly hope that spring weather has arrived by the time you receive this newslet-ter. Winter just doesn’t want to let go of South Dakota this year.

I thought that the April newsletter was the appropriate time to share a public notice that I found in the March 5, 1938, Madison Daily Leader. This notice was printed by the City Health Department. It announced a project that would help to remove unsanitary conditions by making sure that outdoor privies were fly-tight. Times have really changed. We no longer have to worry about keeping outhouses up to a certain standard.

In spite of the cold weather, many activities have been happening at the museum since the first of the year. We have had four wonderful Brown-Bag presentations. Thank you, Max-ine Swanson and the presenters, for the time spent organizing and giving

the Brown-Baggers. We look for-ward to the next series.

The Catholic Quilters group gave the museum a quilt to be raffled off as a fund raiser. The drawing was held on February 14 and Alan Dool-ey‘s name was drawn. We greatly appreciate the generosity of the quilting group.

Our faithful group of volunteers has been continuing work on the obituary collection. Much progress has been made, but there is a lot of work left to do. Volunteers are also working on accessioning items that have been donated to the museum.

Ginger Gaylor is a new muse-um volunteer. Previously, Ginger worked at museums in Virginia. We are fortunate to be able to take ad-vantage of her museum experience. Ginger’s husband teaches chemistry at Dakota State University.

Our Coordinator, Cynthia Mallery, has been going through the textile room and archives. Items are being sorted and inventoried. The items are then stored in acid free tissue, boxes or sleeves. Colleen Tucker has been helping with this sorting and getting items in the acid free sleeves. Thanks, Colleen.

At the March board meeting, two committees were set up to work on brochures. A new brochure needs to be created for the Smith-Zimmermann Museum. When this is completed, work will begin on a brochure that focuses on his-toric homes. We have a brochure that was done many years ago that highlights the historic homes in Madison. This will be updated and

expanded to include such homes in Lake County. If you know of a home that you feel should be included, please let us know. We could also use more volunteers to do research on the historic homes.

The January newsletter reported on the LCHS 2012 annual meet-ing, and a list of board members for 2013 was included. With the res-ignation of Chris Olson, the LCHS board needed to fill the position. We were pleased to announce that Alan Dooley was appointed to fill the open position. Alan’s father Delmer, who lives in Ramona, served on the LCHS board for many years. Alan recently moved back to the area and has since been involved in museum activities. Thankfully, Chris has agreed to re-main active as our webmaster

We are thrilled to report that LCHS has been recently given two sizeable monetary donations. These dona-tions have made it possible for us to purchase additional conservation supplies and electronic equipment to enhance the use of technology at the museum. We will keep you up-dated as to how this new equipment will be used for presentations at the museum.

We are saddened by the death of former LCHS board member, Andy Wood. Andy was a member of the museum discussion group. Another discussion group member, Pete Hoi-dal, recently lost his wife. Also, Shy-rlee Roling, a volunteer at many of our school programs, died this past March. We extend our condolences to all families.

When I stopped at the museum re-cently, I was astounded to see a large group of boxes with items for the on-going fund raiser at the flea market. Thank you, Zeno. This fund raiser has been successful because of gen-erous donations such as this.

I hope you enjoy spring when it fi-nally arrives. Hope to see you at the museum soon!

Reminder. . .2013 Memberships are Due

If you haven’t paid your 2013 membership dues, please take a moment and send us your check for $15. We appreciate your support - Thank you!

VOLUME 51 PAGE 3

Madison residents rejoiced when the first train reached the town in 1880. The rail service not only pro-vided a quick means of transporta-tion for the settlers, but it was criti-cal in getting their goods to markets. Unfortunately, in the years to come, the trains also brought other breeds of individuals into the area, many of whom were not welcomed.

The local newspapers of the time – the Sentinel, the Outlook, and the Madison Daily Leader – gave them several different names: hobos, tramps, vagrants, bums, undesir-ables, and Weary Willies. Some were even called “members of the Wan-dering Work Dodgers Association.” Many of them were often penniless and avoided work except when they were forced to. Some were migrants, transients, and seasonal workhands who traveled around the country seeking farm work.

Whatever name they were called, riding the rails to their next desti-nation became their main source of transportation. Once arriving, some were often labeled as a nuisance, and others would occasionally cre-ate trouble at county expense. One notable time was July 1914.

One Wednesday evening, around 10 o’clock, July 22, the body of an unconscious male was found lying in a pool of blood just west of Madi-son’s railroad depot. The extensive bruising noted about the face indi-cated that the man may had been involved in a fist fight. However, se-vere wounds on the back of his head indicated that he had been struck with a blunt instrument.

The victim was transported to the city hall jail and medical help was summoned. The individual, believed to be in his mid-30s, did not regain consciousness and died around 3:30 that morning.

No identification was found in his possession. In his pockets were a cheap watch, a comb, tooth brush,

Hobos, Transients, and OthersDale Nighbert

razor, and a small notebook with work entries listed. Evidence indi-cated that his shoes were bought in Salina, Kansas, and his hat was bought in Omaha.

An inquest was held the following day. An attempt was made to round up and question possible witnesses – the hobos and other transients. However, it was reported that many had already made their “getaway” on the morning train. One man said he knew nothing of the occurrence, but knew the deceased was called Kan-sas City Red. He and others had ar-rived with him from Jasper, MN, the night before on the 8:25 train. He stated that the victim said he had no money, so they supplied him with supper. Afterwards, they went to a saloon, got a bottle, and went back to the railroad yard. Around 9 o’clock, the man said he was tired and went to look for an empty box car to sleep in.

After hearing testimony, the coro-ner’s jury concluded that the indi-vidual came to his death by “blows to his head inflicted by some person or persons unknown, with intent to do great bodily harm or murder.” The body was listed as a “John Doe” until more about this identify could be obtained. Meanwhile, his remains were kept at Peck’s Undertaking Par-

lor waiting for any family members to claim his body. State law said that if no family claimed a body, it would be sent to the state university lab at Vermillion for dissecting purposes.

A few days later, a friend appeared and identified him as Robert Kelley. He was from Kansas City, where he spent the winters gambling and his summers working for farmers. The Sentinel reported that his pal thought he probably got into a gambling game of some kind with his compan-ions, secured their money, and was killed. Due to lack of evidence and a suspect, the case apparently went unsolved.

Unfortunately, the death of “Kan-sas City Red” wasn’t the first inci-dent involving transients and hobos that month. During the week of July 16th , newspapers reported on the death of John Lejyhs, a 21-year-old who also came to the area with two others for the purpose of finding work in the harvest fields.

According to his companions, the young men were lying on the ground beside the railroad track in Sioux Falls waiting for a freight train to pull

The roundhouse and railroad turntable, located west of Union Avenue, are now long gone. The railroad yards wereonce a popular hangout site for hobos,transients, and others.

(continued on Page 4)

PAGE 4 THE HERITAGE HERALD

out. Lejyhs had fallen asleep, and when the train started his compan-ions roused him. As all three raced to get aboard, Lejyhs, who was half-awake, fell into a turntable pit. His companions succeeded in rescuing him and got him aboard the train.

Upon their arrival in Madison, the seriously injured man was taken to the hospital. Abdominal surgery was performed, but unfortunately peritonitis set in. There was little hope for his recovery, and he died a few days later.

His friends said that the deceased, originally from Hungary, had only been in the United States a few years. His relatives stayed behind so there was no family to claim the body. The university was contacted, but due to the vacation season, they did not care to receive the body. Therefore, Lejyhs, a man of Catholic faith, was

reportedly buried at the St. Thomas Cemetery. Both his medical care and burial was at county expense.

A few days later, in another inci-dent, it was reported that a hobo at-tempted to hold up a party of well-known Madison ladies who were returning from a picnic. The Senti-nel stated that “had it not been for the presence of mind of the young lady at the wheel, they would prob-ably have suffered the loss of a few watches, etc., as the tramp was a very desperate looking individual.”

The Outlook reported on July 24 that it was getting too dangerous to travel around much after dark as the railroad yards were full of un-employed men, some of whom were agitators looking for trouble. “Some-thing should be done to drive these undesirable people from the city. Ei-ther drive them out or arrest them for vagrancy and put them to work

on the street,” the article stated. The following day, the Madison

Daily Leader reported that over 200 harvest hands had arrived in town by rail that morning. They left the depot, went up town, and bought lunches at the bakeries, meat mar-kets, and other places. The men were said to be “civil in their manner, paid for their lunches, and left on the 10:30 freight train.” It was believed that an employment agency in Kan-sas was telling the transients that South Dakota was hiring harvesters at $3 per day. The newspaper re-ported that the transients were hon-est men and eager to work, but they were deceived into coming here.

Hence, in the months and decades to come, Madison residents would continue to tolerate, but did not nec-essarily welcome, these men who traveled by rail.

In 1879, the John Boyd family arrived in Lake County by covered wagon and settled west of Lake Herman. His grandson, J. Ervin Boyd, who was born in 1905, com-piled a family history later in his life. Included in this history are several significant events that oc-curred in Lake County during his growing up years. This history is on file at the Smith-Zimmermann Museum.

I went through the true hobo days. They were almost like the gypsies, especially in the sum-mer and fall. At harvest time, they were at their peak. The railroad was their way to travel. I have seen the tops of railroad cars lit-erally covered with hobos. They would also ride in an empty grain car that had its side doors open. This was the best as it shielded them from rain and heat.

Some railroad conductors would try to keep them off, but

Hobo DaysJ. Ervin Boyd’s Memories

that was almost impossible. Some would ride in under the cars, over the wheels, or in that web of steel rods and braces. Every so often we would read where one fell off the train and was run over by the big steel wheels. That is why the rail-road company tried to keep them off.

If we needed some extra help at harvest time or had some extra work, Pa would go to the depot about train time and see if anyone wanted to work. Usually they were not in-terested. They had a little roll of clothing – a few personal posses-sions all tied up in a bag. That’s all they had in the world.

It was almost comical. When a freight train would stop to do some switching – coal cars, grain cars, etc. – you wouldn’t see a hobo. Then, when the train was all coupled up and started to move out, they would come from everywhere. Soon, the box car roof would be cov-ered again.

They had some kind of com-munication system telling where there was a good place to get food, etc. Often times you could see them cooking a little food over a fire surrounded by rocks. It must have been quite a life. They went south or south and west to warm-er climates come winter. Not so dumb!

The Boyd family traveled to Lake County in 1879 by covered wagon. This wagon is part of the Museum’scollecti on.

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It’s Spring Cleaning Time!

Do you have household items that you no

longer need or want, but you don’t want to

have a rummage sale?

Please consider donating

items to the

Smith-Zimmermann Museum’s

ongoing fund raiser at

Four Seasons Flea Market.

Please call the museum at 256-5308

if you have items to donate.

VOLUME 51 PAGE 5

Heritage Herald Briefs:

April 4Here They Come Again:Perennials, Ted LaFleur

April 11Ya Gotta Move:

Transplanting, Gary ZayApril 18

We’re Going to Pot!:Container Gardening,

Rene’ Brunner

Wishes Granted

LCHS has recently received two generousdonati ons of $1,000.00

each. One of the donati ons was from Bill & Mimi Wenk, and the other donor wishes

to remain anonymous. These gift s are

very much appreciated.The donati ons will be used

to update technology capabiliti es at the museum.

A Quick Correction –In the last newsletter article about the Nugents’

donation of Franklin School trophies, I made an error while transcribing the interview from the tape. There were at times twenty five, not merely five, people all working together on the Franklin History Book in the basement of the Nugents’ house. These people are all listed as contributors to the Franklin history project in their book. I apologize for the oversight.

Joshua Uecker

In MemoryShyrlee Roling - 1927-2013

Shyrlee Roling, a member of the Lake County Historical Society and a volunteer at Smith-Zimmermann Museum, passed away March 11. Shyrlee was born and raised in rural Madison. Shyrlee had been a present-er at several of the museum’s school programs. One area of expertise was showing students how to prepare wool for spinning and how the spinning wheel worked. In 2009, she was given a “Krueger Award” honoring her for her dedication, support, and contributions in preserving Lake County history. She will be missed.

Andy Wood - 1936-2013Andy Wood passed away March 16. Andy was a member of the Lake County Historical Society for many

years. In October 2008 he was presented with a “Kruger Award” honoring him for his generosity with his time and energy, serving on the Board of Directors for multiple terms, working diligently on fund-raising ef-forts, and serving on other committees. After he left the board a few years ago, Andy continued to volunteer with a number of museum activities including the school programs. Andy was instrumental in beginning the First Tuesday Discussion Group. His participation will be missed.

BROWNBAG

SPEAKERGARDENINGPrograms begin

at noon

From Our ReadersDear Sirs,Enclosed is my 2013 membership fee plus an extra donation. Thanks for your faithful work. It is appreciated for us so far away from our early days. The articles are interesting and preserved for the future. Good!God Bless,

Norbert Limmer - Minneapolis, MN

Thanks, Norbert, and to all our members. We appreciate hearing from you and enjoy reading your comments.

PAGE 6 THE HERITAGE HERALD

Historic Homes In 1980, representatives from the

Smith-Zimmermann Museum, Madi-son’s Chapter of the American Associ-ation of University Women, and Madi-son’s Centennial Committee printed a booklet describing some of the his-toric homes located in the community.

The homes profiled, some dating back to the 1880s, were built in a va-riety of architectural styles: Colonial Revival, Queen Anne, Neo-classical, and others. Their first owners were bankers, merchants, doctors, lawyers, and other early residents who helped the community grow into the 20th Century. Interesting features in the booklet included pictures and addi-tional historical information.

The Lake County Historical Society now has plans to update this publi-cation and add other historic homes located throughout the county. More information regarding this project will be forthcoming.

One of Madison’s unique historic homes is the Duncan Mackay house located on the corner of North Divi-sion Avenue and NE 3rd Street. Called a “Bungalow,” this house was partial-ly constructed with field stones. It is also known as the house where the Dr. Baughman family, and later the Larry Green, Sr. family, lived.

In 1984, Donald Mackay wrote a story describing a history of his childhood home. It also included his memories of some of the events that occurred during those early years. This revised and edited article is one that will be included in the updated “Historic Homes” booklet.

The Stone HouseDonald Mackay

By 1909, the Duncan F. Mackay family had outgrown the modest frame two-bedroom house located on the east city limits of Madison. This sixty acre farm, our home since 1900, had a barn built of cement and the usual outbuildings. We raised corn, potatoes, oats, and alfalfa hay for a varied assortment of show ani-

mals: Clydesdale Horses, Berkshire Hogs, Orpington Chickens, and Jer-sey Dairy Cows. It was time to build a new one.

We watched our new home, the “Stone House” as it was called, be-ing built from our old home beside it. When we moved into it, our old home was moved to a site about a block from Martin Berther on North Egan Avenue. Then it was lived in by one of our cousins, Jesse Mackay.

The Stone House was to be an economy-structure using native boulders found in every fence cor-ner. The masonry, including hauling, slabbing off, and lifting the boulders into place, proved to be costly. Thus, the second story was not completed in rock as planned, but was finished in stained wood shingles instead.

Another economy measure was to heat the house with fireplaces – four I believe. This did not work out. To keep most of the house from freez-ing in the winter, it was heated with a hot water system fired by a hard coal furnace.

Other ways that we saved money were the use of light fixtures (lamp cords from the ceiling) and lavato-ries being left out of the bedrooms. The lawn was planted with alfalfa and mowed for the hay. This proved to be a good source of hay, but not a proper lawn.

I remember General Beadle was an honored guest at the Stone House. Other guests included many of our teachers, and one fond memory – the band leader from Gollmam Bros. Circus. His visit triggered us to put on circus acts with trapeze and wire walking for weeks afterward.

Filling the icehouse was a winter job. I would ride on the bobsled with ice haulers – usually Angus Thomas – to Lake Herman. The ice was cut into cakes, hauled out of the wa-ter and taken home to the icehouse where it was packed in sawdust. This kept our food cold in the sum-mer and meant that we could make homemade ice cream as well.

Twice a day I’d walked to school delivering our creamy Jersey milk to our customers in temperatures as low as 40 degrees below zero. My first school was Washington School. Later I attended the Normal School.

Among our good memories were eating delicious plums in the or-chard, gathering the brown Orping-ton eggs, practicing basketball in the attic (it may have been intended as a ballroom), and riding Sandy, the Mor-gan horse, out after the milk cows in the area now kept as a city park. We’d watch the County Fair from the south farm boundary. Sometimes we rode Sandy or the excursion train to the Chautauqua where we camped.

The Duncan Mackay house, located on the corner of Division Avenue and Northeast 3rd Street, was built in 1909. This home will be one of many listed in the “Historic Homes of Lake County” publicati on. (Photo courtesy of John Green)

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VOLUME 51 PAGE 7

(continued from Page 6)

I have memories of dreaming and fantasizing, as children will, on the deck of the back porch of the Stone House with the big cottonwood tree rustling and shafts of sunlight coming through. I remember our playmates: the Hexoms, Jimmy Mc-Govern, Tom Gulde, the Gruhns, the Westbys, and Mike Magnhild.

My father had a lot of trouble with the Stone House: the heating, the soaring cost overruns of a carpenter who scraped the hardwood floors with glass shards, and the traumatic

experience with the plumber’s con-tract. The plumber would stop at the bank so that my father could give him a cash interim payment on the work done. He had drawn this mon-ey right up to the finish and then pre-sented Dad with a bill for the whole job. It went to court and, as my Dad could not produce receipts for the withdrawals, he had to pay the bill again.

This, and the severe drain on our resources because of the cost over-runs, made it seem desirable to sell

the property, much as we liked it. After asking $20,000 for the farm and house, we finally sold it in 1915 to a Dell Rapids farmer with a lot of children. Dr. Baughman purchased it later, though there may be interme-diate owners shown on the county records.

The care and affection that the Baughmans held for the Stone House was, and still is, deeply appreciated by the Mackays.

Whatever happened to . . . The Woodmancy Apartments

Dale Nighbert

Lake County has seen the rise and fall of many unique looking, historic buildings since the area was first settled in the 1870s. One of these structures was the Woodmancy Apartments, located on the corner of Blanche Avenue and Center Street in Madison.

Harry and May Woodmancy, the original owners, moved to Lake County in 1908 and built the three-story apartment building around 1913. The building was described as having a finished basement, four-inch thick concrete floors, and red clay tile walls. A round-roof turret projected out of a corner with its windows and sills built into a curve.

For many years the first-rate building, with it “stately rooms,” was a home to countless tenants, but it gradually deteriorated to the point where only tran-sients and the elderly with no better place to go called it home.

To make room for additional parking, the West Center Baptist Church bought the building and an adjoining house. As reported by the Madison Daily Leader in their February 24, 1981, issue, “a piece of Madison’s history began to crumble as workmen began to tear apart and dismantle the structure.”

Thus, the Woodmancy Apartments became another Lake County historic building that’s now lost to a bygone era.

Woodmancy Apartments, located on the corner of West Center and Blanche Avenue was built around 1913. The building was torn down in 1981 to make room for a parking lot.

The First Tuesday Discussion Group meets the 1st Tuesday of each month at 1:00 at the Smith-Zimmer-mann Museum. Participants enjoy discussing events from the “olden days.” Though some of these events may not be historically accurate, it’s interesting to sit and listen to their memories of years-gone-by.

Gravel Pits: The Discussion Group spent much of the December and January meetings talking about gravel pits in the county. At the end of the December meeting, it was de-cided to ask Dean Reinicke to attend the January meeting and see what he could add to the topic. With Dean’s presence, we were able to add many more gravel pits to our list. We came up with over 30. The group was amazed at the number of commer-cial and private gravel pits that exist or previously existed in Lake County.

The Performing Dog: Someone in the Discussion Group remem-bered a story about a dog that was told by Bob Backus. Gale Johnson owned a dog that would perform tricks in a local bar. There was of-ten a customer in the bar who would want to purchase the dog. Gale sold the dog many times for 25 cents. Af-ter the sale, Gayle would whistle and the dog would return to him, only to perform more tricks and be sold again.

Tidbits

by Sue Larsen

(continued on Page 9)

PAGE 8 THE HERITAGE HERALD

Scrap Metal DrivesDale Nighbert

I wasn’t very old in the 1950s, per-haps five or six, when I first noticed something different among some of the pennies. Most of them were a shiny orange, but some of them were a dull gray. “Why are there two dif-ferent colors?” I wondered. The an-swer came some years later when I learned that it had something to do with America’s need to “recycle” dur-ing World War II.

Once upon a time, during the early years of the war, Americans got their first taste of recycling. As our young men were called to arms and sent overseas to fight the war, others were eager to do anything they could to help with the “war effort” back home. Some bought U.S. Savings Bonds, some grew Victory Gardens, and oth-ers collected scrap – such as paper, engine grease, rubber tires, kitchen fat, metal, and other material.

From the onset of the war, Ameri-cans understood that in order to ad-equately supply our troops with the necessary weapons and supplies, it was necessary to obtain more met-al. Metal was needed to make more ships, planes, tanks, guns, and other war equipment. Uncle Sam felt that recycling unused metal was of far greater value then having it lie idle in junkyards, farmyards, and people’s homes. Thus, he pleaded to the pub-lic for help.

Days after America’s entry into the war on December 8, 1941, an editorial appeared in the Madison Daily Leader asking the public to look around. “If you have junk metal, see that it gets to the junkman. He’ll know how to get it into the hands of the war industries that can use it.” Thus, the beginnings of scrap metal drives were underway. There was a call for all kinds of metal – obso-lete machinery, old boilers, old cars, scraps of rods and bars, and even tin cans, old skillets, razor blades, toothpaste tubes, and shaving cream tubes.

On February 19, 1942, it was re-ported that close to 275 tons of met-al had already been collected in Lake County. One pile, located north of the railroad tracks between the depot and Union Avenue, was described as having the appearance of a new city dump. The scrap was loaded onto railroad cars, hauled to Sioux Falls, crushed, baled, then loaded on freight cars and transported to “smelters” back east. Eventually, tons upon tons of scrap were fed into these blast furnaces and converted into steel for armaments.

In April, a Lake County Advisory Council was organized. Letters were mailed to every resident, urging them to dismantle and pick up scat-tered pieces of any old machinery or metal equipment. Farmers were asked to have scrap metals ready to be picked up by May 6. Committees in each township would then handle the collection. In towns, household-ers were asked to dig out the dis-carded articles of metal found in nearly every attic, garage, and base-ment, and pile them up on the curb in front of their homes.

On May 12, the newspaper report-ed that 162 tons had been collected. War officials said that this scrap, to-taling 324,000 pounds, was enough to build “6,480 machine guns, 648 bombs, or 54 anti-aircraft guns.” And the drives continued.

Throughout the summer and into the fall, the public was repeatedly asked to continue searching for and donating scrap metal. Then, in Sep-tember, there was one last push to collect scrap before winter set in. A major, state-wide drive was issued asking all South Dakota counties for their participation.

Lake County heeded the message. Beginning in early October, the coun-ty’s newspapers, movie theaters, implement dealers, businesses, schools, and the county salvage com-mittee teamed together. The Madi-son Daily Leader, Wentworth Prog-ress, and Lake County Leader gave daily and weekly progress reports of

the latest drive. The local movie the-aters took an active part and showed special films and news reels. Imple-ment dealers served as weigh sta-tions and collection sites, and tele-phone operators sent out emergency calls urging county citizens to make an effort to find scrap.

School children were given the day off to collect metal. The Octo-ber 7th Madison Daily Leader head-lines read, “Army of Children Rout out Junk!” A few days later, it was reported that they came through with “flying colors” and were given credit for collecting 230 tons. The McLeod, Campus, and Washington schools were credited for collecting the most.

On Monday, October 12, Mayor Rensvold declared a business holi-day so all employers and employees could join the intensive county-wide search for scrap. It was felt that if all businesses closed, the farmers would more likely be home.

The push for more metal worked. As reported in the Madison Daily

The city blocks between Union Avenue and therailroad depot became a temporary dropping off point for scrap metal during the war years. This picture appeared in the Madison Daily Leader May 26, 1942.

(continued on Page 9)

VOLUME 51 PAGE 9

Leader, South Dakota’s Congress-man, Karl Mundt, gave a speech to the United States Congress on Octo-ber 21, 1942. As stated in the Con-gressional Record, “Mr. Speaker, I want to draw attention to a news story showing that my home county, Lake County, South Dakota, is lead-ing the entire state in both its capita and its total collection of scrap. Its per capita collections are 128.22 pounds per man, woman, and child.

If the rest of America will do as well as Lake County, South Dakota, gener-ally America’s scrap metal collection campaign will be a brilliant and com-plete success.”

In November, it was reported that 1,168 tons plus another 410 pounds of scrap had been collected between August 1st and October 31st – just in Lake County! It was also estimat-ed that there was still 20-30% more scrap still available on local farms.

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Brown Bag SeriesMaxine Swanson

“Everyone has a story,” so says Steve Hartman on the CBS Evening News. And those stories need to be written down and saved for poster-ity.

“Writing Family Memoirs” was the continuing theme of the museum’s Brown Bag Speakers Series which ran every Thursday throughout Feb-ruary.

On February 7, Jim Swanson’s “’Dough Nut,’ the Memoirs of a Three-year-Old Baker” stressed the importance of sharing family mem-ories not only in a written format but also as oral history. The title of his presentation came from his re-counting to his daughters his early experiences in family bakery. Their response was always, “Yes, Dad, we know you ran the bakery by yourself when you were only three.”

Dakota State University’s Dr. John Nelson’s “Have You Heard the One About the Rancher and the Farmer’s Daughter?” was perfect for the Feb-ruary 14 slot. Nelson’s true romance story told of his parents’ courtship, marriage and early years of raising their 10 children. Valentine’s Day would have been Jack and Rosemary Nelson’s sixtieth wedding anniver-sary.

“It Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up to Be” said long-time Madison Daily Leader columnist Chrys Daniel to her audi-ence on February 21…raising chick-ens, that is. In her early married

It was recommended that this scrap be removed as soon as possible be-fore the squeeze of gasoline ration-ing was felt too severely. And so, the drive continued.

Note: The 1943 steel cent, also known as a steel war penny or “steel-ie”, was a variety of the U.S. one-cent coin which was “struck” in steel due to wartime shortages of copper.

life, Chrys wanted to earn some pin money to buy new curtains so she decided to raise chickens…but soon found out that writing a column for the local newspaper might be an eas-ier—and less dangerous—option. “There are many ways to capture memories,” Chrys told the attend-ees—old letters, diaries and jour-nals, scrapbooks, and Round Robin and Christmas letters. Photographs are great memory-joggers. Keep a notebook handy and jot down ideas to be fleshed out later or left “as is.”

“Dust Bunnies? In the Library?” Nancy Sabbe, director of the Madi-son Public Library, brought some of those “dust bunnies” to the museum on February 28 for the last Brown Bag presentation. “Dust bunnies” are items that defy cataloging but are too valuable to be tossed—1923 PTA minutes from Lincoln School, a col-lection of carefully clipped articles from an old Wentworth newspaper, a 1934 manual on the maintenance and repair of gas engines. “You can use these ‘dust bunnies’ to flesh out your memoir and make them so much more relevant,” Nancy said. “But just like ‘dust bunnies’ in your home, these items may not be on the library shelves but tucked away and out of sight, just waiting for someone to ask for some obscure bit of infor-mation.”

The Memoir Brown Baggers were deemed a rousing success by all who attended. Now stay tuned for the next series….

The Golf Course: A gravel pit locat-ed 1/4 mile east of 457 St. and High-way 34 (southeast of Madison) was the site of a golf course in the 1930’s. This area is now the location of Re-inicke’s Gravel Pit.

The golf course consisted of 48 acres. It was probably started by local business men who were golf enthusi-asts. Pete Struwe remembers when he was 8 or 9 years old he went to the golf course to caddy for his uncle, Vic Tuttle. The course had nine holes and nine sand greens. There was a small building on a hill in the northwest part of the golf course that was used as club house. It was also used for shelter during inclement weather. It is not known if golfers paid a grounds fee or purchased memberships to play golf there. Pete recalls that the course was well used. It was closed when the present Country Club was formed and the golf course was built on the north side of Lake Herman.

Dean Reinicke remembers when the golf course closed, the location was turned into a gravel pit by the county. In a land sale document dated July 2, 1947, ownership of the golf course was transferred from the Madison Golf Club, a Corporation, to Lake County, South Dakota. The land was sold to Lake County for $4,500.00. The golf club officers who signed the document were P.M. Newcomb, President, and Martin F. Berther, Secretary.

Later, Reinicke purchased the 48 acres from the county and the rest of the quarter from the Madsen estate.

Tidbits

by Sue Larsen(continued from Page 7)

PAGE 10 THE HERITAGE HERALD

The Great Loopy’sAttic Adventure

By Joshua Uecker

Then and Now. The Citi zen Nati onal Bank, located on the corner of Egan Avenue and Center Street in Madison, was built in 1887. It has been the home of several business over the years, most recently Loopy’s. The upstairs at one point was Dr. Aastrup’s dental offi ce.

A common topic at the monthly Collections Committee meeting is speculation on what sorts of veins for local history might still be in Madi-son that we have yet to investigate. During January’s Collections Com-mittee meeting, the subject of down-town businesses came up. A ques-tion was raised of what might still be in the Loopy’s attic downtown, as it is one of the few downtown busi-nesses we could think of whose at-tic space had not been turned into apartments. Though we weren’t sure what the last business in the Loopy’s

attic was, we were certain that at one point the area was a dental of-fice, meaning there could be a wide variety of interesting items, from pa-perwork to old dental tools.

As far as we knew, the Loopy’s building was owned by a pair of la-dies in Pipestone. As it so happens, I have a few friends in Pipestone, so I called up one of them who was more than willing to help me out. He told me that according to the business records in Pipestone, Loopy’s was owned by Mr. Gary Ploeger, who also owns a few different businesses in Pipestone. Since this did not exactly

mesh with the information we had, I asked the board their opinion as to whether I should contact Mr. Ploeger at this stage, even though we thought someone else owned the building. Lori Norby offered to check the Lake County business records to see what they said, and she confirmed that it was Mr. Ploeger who owned the Loopy’s building downtown. With that information confirmed, I called Mr. Ploeger in early February.

After a brief game of phone tag, Mr. Ploeger and I were able to talk about the Loopy’s attic. He was more than willing to allow some of us from the historical society into the attic to look for any paperwork or other items to be preserved in the museum. With his permission given, I presented the board with this in-

formation during last month’s board meeting. The board was pleased with the progress made on this is-sue and Sue Lars-en, Cyndi Mallery and Winston Gen-zlinger expressed interest in being part of the group that would go look

around the Loopy’s attic.A few weeks later, Sue, Cyndi,

Cyndi’s husband Al, Winston, and I arrived at Loopy’s at 9:00 AM to be-gin looking through their attic. We were greeted by Rhonda, one of the managers, who explained to us the lay of the land upstairs. She said navigating up there can be slightly confusing, and she warned us that one of the rooms (which did not have any items in it anyway) was slightly structurally unsound. Rhonda then took us to the staircase in the back of the store that would lead us to the at-tic. Each equipped with flashlights of some sort, we all climbed the stair-case into Loopy’s attic to see what we could find.

After weaving through the up-stairs hallways, our group found two promising rooms. While Al and Cyn-di began looking through one, Sue, Winston and I went into the other. Al and Cyndi found a pair of metal file boxes that appeared to contain in-formation from Dr. Aastrup’s dental practice. Dr. Aastrup had an office in the building during the 1950s and 60s. Since their room didn’t contain as much as it looked like from the doorway, they came over and joined the three of us in sifting through boxes of additional paperwork from

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VOLUME 51 PAGE 11

the dental office. In the room the three of us started working in, there were about a dozen boxes stacked against one wall. Going through the boxes we found a wide variety of paperwork from the dental practice, including some of payment ledgers, as well as old dental supplies. Though we decided to pass on most of the dental supplies since they contained old chemicals, the paperwork and correspondence from his office appeared to be things that the museum could make use of. One of the more interesting non-paperwork related items we found was an old den-tal cup dispenser which caught our eye primarily because it looked unique and was definitely an artifact of the period

in which Dr. Aastrup ran his dental practice.

After our successful investigation of the upstairs, Rhonda asked if we’d be interested in taking a look in their base-ment as well. She did warn us that most of what was down there was the store’s extra stock, but there were a few places she knew that contained old hardware and things of that nature. Considering we were already there, the five of us de-cided it couldn’t hurt to take a look, and Rhonda led us down into the basement. Exploring the basement of Loopy’s did not yield much (as Rhonda warned us it might not). However, in one of the smaller rooms off the main area, I did find an old Mandeville Seeds Compa-

There are two statements that I have come to believe whole hearted-ly: time moves too quickly, and there is nothing new under the sun. There never seems to be enough time to do all of the things that need to be done here at the museum. While work-ing on one project, we find the need to add three or more future projects to our list of “to dos.” The one good thing that is coming from all of this work is that we are uncovering many artifacts in the museum archives that have been forgotten or mislabeled.

I was once again reminded a few weeks ago of the statement there is nothing new under the sun. Josh Uecker was going through a Chau-tauqua box and uncovered a group of programs that were neon orange, yellow, and blue dating from the late

Coordinator’s ReportCynthia Mallery

ny seed display. After leading Sue to it through the hole in the wall that served as the door, she agreed that the sign would be something that the museum could use, so we also took the nice met-al sign from the display.

With our boxes of paperwork and other items in hand, the five of us thanked Rhonda for helping us out, loaded the items into our vehicles, and took them over to the museum. In the coming months we hope to fully take stock of the items from Loopy’s and put them on display at the museum.

19-teens to early 19-twenties. After the shock wore off, all I could do is re-mark at my surprise that neon colors were also used long ago – which once again proved that there is nothing new under the sun. The joy of finding new treasures in every box is what keeps the work from never growing old or tiresome.

There are also two things that I firm-ly believe that keep the museum a lively and vibrant place within our commu-nity. These two things are our volun-teers and our wonderful community programs.

The volunteers make the museum a happy place. Not only are they a great help, but they are great sources of in-formation when identifying artifacts. Without the volunteers, the museum projects would never be completed. I look forward to seeing these volunteers on a weekly basis. They help to make the museum run like a well-oiled ma-

chine. Thank you, volunteers, for all of your wonderful help!

The return of the Brown-Bag pro-gram is another great thing that has been happening at the Museum. The number of people coming weekly has been steadily growing. Maxine Swan-son is the one who bravely took on the challenge of reviving these won-derful programs. I know that she has plans for many more brown-baggers throughout this year.

As you can see, the museum is one lively place. So, if you are looking for something to do, we suggest be-coming a volunteer, attending one or more of the Brown-Baggers, attend the First Tuesday Discussion Group, or come in and explore the museum. There is never a dull moment here. We welcome everyone to come join us in celebrating Lake County’s proud heritage.

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Have You Visited our Website Lately???If not, you’re missing out on some

excellent Lake County history!

For regular updates, visit us at:

http://www.smith-zimmermann.dsu.edu/

THE HERITAGE HERALDLAKE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Smith-Zimmermann Heritage Museum221 8th Street NortheastMadison, SD 57042

Phone: 605-256-5308E-mail: smith.zimmermann@dsu.edu

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LAKE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY

LCHS Heritage Herald Th e Heritage Herald is published quarterly by members & friends of the Lake County Historical Society and the DSU Production Center. Th e Society has been established to collect, document, preserve, secure, research, exhibit, and inter-pret objects of cultural, developmental, and historical value of the Lake County area from the mid-1800s to the present. If you have questions or comments, please contact our Museum. Th e LCHS’s Board of Directors meets at 5:15 the fi rst Tuesday of each month at the Smith-Zimmermann Heritage Museum, located on the campus of Dakota StateUniversity. Welcome Visitors!!

2012 Board of Directors:Sue Larsen, President

Rosie Brashier, Vice-president Shelly Doblar, Secretary Lori Norby, Treasurer Bonnie Olson Nancy Sabbe Karen Feige Deb Gerdes Joshua Uecker Winston Genzlinger Roger Orton Alan Dooley

Museum Coordinator: Cynthia MalleryNewsletter Editor: Dale Nighbert

Webmaster: Chris OlsonElementary School Representatives: Kim Heim

Quester’s Reps: Charlene Alverson

Museum HoursTuesday-Friday 1:00-4:30

Th e Smith-Zimmermann Museum221 8th Street NE

Madison, South Dakota 57042605-256-5308

e-mail: smith.zimmermann@dsu.edu