Opinion

The 'Hello Company' and junk mail's birth

Saturday, February 14, 2004

I'm always interested when I find something about the Carnegie Library before it actually was built here in 1907. From the Feb. 6, 1903 McCook Tribune, "The young ladies of the Awl-O's club have received from Andrew Carnegie his usual interrogations connected with his usual interrogations connected with his proposition to donate to McCook $10,000 for a library building."

Carnegie would require that the city provide a location free and a pledge from the city to raise annually $1,000 to be devoted to library purposes. The article stated that $525 could be raised from the two-mill levy authorized by law and would mean that $475 would need to be raised by individual subscriptions.

At this particular time in 1903 there was an auditorium proposition being considered in connection with the library building, the auditorium to occupy the second story-the library the first floor.

In information collected by Oliver B. Pollak of Omaha for a book he is writing, Nebraska Carnegie Libraries, he stated that the Awl-O's club solicited $1,600 in pledges from McCook residents in 1903. The pledges were from $5 to $20. One of those who pledged $20 was Congressman George W. Norris. Norris wrote a four-page letter to Carnegie on June 12, 1903 saying that while serving as 14th Judicial District Judge he had seen the McCook Free Public Library, located in the courthouse basement, in use. "From my office I was able to observe the people as they came to and went away from the library on their different missions, some to sit and read, others to take away books." Norris wrote that this part of the state had intelligent but mostly poor people and stressed the importance of a library for those people. I look forward to reading Mr. Pollak's book and the stories of Nebraska's other Carnegie libraries.

The following was the 1903 way of saying there was a new telephone directory coming out: "A new telephone card is in making. The completed product will be hailed with satisfaction by patrons of the hello company here. The old one is out of date. "

Also in the Bartley News of Feb. 6, 1903, "A couple of McCook's 'hello' girls were in town, Friday of last week, visiting Mae Wood."

For my friend, Doug Garey of the Beaver City Times-Tribune, I include the following blurb from the Feb. 6, 1903 McCook Tribune: "A glance at the Beaver City Tribune with its 25 columns of advertisements is calculated to give the average McCook newspaperman heart trouble. Both McCook papers, last week, contained but 19 columns. Beaver City's population is about 1,000; McCook's over 3,000. Wow, that hurts!" The Tribune did not give credit as to which newspaper reported that information but the "ouch" comment obviously came from Editor Kimmell of the Tribune.

From that same little column came the revelation that in 1903, Nebraska had nearly 700 square miles of water surface.

That amount was more than any of the following states at that time: Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, West Virginia and Wyoming.

That statistic was included because of the many waterfowl that were being shown in poultry shows around the state of Nebraska at the time. Few states were showing waterfowl.

Railroading was a dangerous business, as I've mentioned before. Not only did it take lives on a regular basis, but also there were daily losses. From the Railroad News of Feb. 6, 1903: "Conductor A.G. Bump had the misfortune to mash the only good finger he had on his right hand, this week, in handling a vinegar barrel."

There was about 5 inches of snow, which stranded the mail carrier between Stockville and Bartley the week of Feb. 6, 1903. He was caught and snowbound Tuesday and didn't reach Bartley until late Wednesday night. With any wind, 5 inches of snow out in that country could be real trouble for men and horses.

Mr. Branscomb who carried the mail from McCook got two or three miles north of Boxelder (north of McCook) when the storm got so had he had to turn back to McCook.

Bartley also had three doctors it looked like. They welcomed Dr. Moorfield to their city "as it is rather inconvenient for Dr. Brown to make calls and Dr. Hathorn is absent a good deal of the time."

An ad in the February 13, 1903 Tribune offered $12 a month plus room and board for a dish washer at the Commercial Hotel in McCook. The job specified "a girl."

It appears that "junk mail" got its start in 1903 also. A bill was passed which allowed "quantities of not less than 2,000 identical pieces of third or fourth class mail matter without postage stamps affixed, provided that the postage is fully prepaid." That spells very early "junk mail" to me!

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