125 YEARS AGO
January 25, 1888
The courageous fellow who has been painting Sycamore’s stand-pipe, suspended by a rope a hundred or more feet from the ground with a below-zero breeze swaying him to and fro, has had a task that none envied him.
At a meeting of manufacturers last Thursday, the price of barbed wire was raised 25 percent. A foreign “trust,” it was asserted, had been formed and had raised prices, which had to be met here.
A bushel of corn makes four gallons of whiskey. It sells for $16. Of this $16, the farmer gets 50 cents, the government $3.60, the railroad $2, the manufacturer $4, the vendor $6 and the drinker, delirium tremens.
The green on the new 2-cent postage stamps has been discovered to be poisonous, a young lady in a department at Washington having been poisoned by touching them to her lip to stamp letters. A circular has been issued warning the public to use them with care.
Daylight comes earlier and stays later every day. There is already a difference of more than three-quarters of an hour since the shortest day, Dec. 21.
Richard Woodman and his wife were recently released from the State Insane Asylum at Concord, Conn., after 13 years’ confinement. An investigation shows that they never were insane, but were stubborn about paying over a bill that had already been paid.
100 YEARS AGO
January 22, 1913
The new DeKalb County Infirmary will be erected on the electric line halfway between Sycamore and DeKalb. ...The building will be modern and thoroughly built in all respects.
“Lin” Leary, alias Dan Kelley, who struck with a hammer at the daughter of the sheriff and escaped from the county jail when she unlocked a corridor door to admit a trusty, is again in the custody of DeKalb County, after an absence of four years next August. He finds here a new jail, and it is expected a jail that will hold him.
Ralph Curtis, who failed to get a divorce from Mrs. Curtis in the Boone County circuit court, has hied himself to that divorce haven of unhappy actresses, Reno, Nev., and after establishing a residence there has filed a suit similar to the one he lost before the Boone County jury last spring. The case last spring was tried before a jury, which refused a decree.
Heretofore counties have paid for the clothing of all indigent insane sent to state hospitals. All charge and expense for the care of the insane is now assumed by the state. There are still left in the county almshouses of the state about 200 people who are considered insane but have never been legally committeed; those counties must take steps to commit all such inmates and have them removed to state hospitals.
The primary election held in Kingston last Saturday was not very well patronized. A total of nine ballots were cast.
75 YEARS AGO
January 26, 1938
Fire that left ruin and devastation in its wake attacked the modern furniture store and undertaking parlors of Emil E. Johnson in Sycamore Friday night, entailing a loss estimated between $25,000 and $30,000.
E.W. Joiner has joined with a majority of Illinois county clerks in protest against certain provisions of the Graham and Saltier marriage laws that went into effect in July, 1937.
Petitions are being circulated to change the location of Route 23 in Sycamore, so that the highway, instead of passing through the business section on State Street, will continue south on Main Street, turn west at the corner of Main and Elm and run west on Elm to connect with DeKalb Avenue. This would avoid one turn.
Sudden descent of the thermometer checked the floods in northern Illinois Monday. Until the steady rain was halted, Sycamore and nearby communities faced the worst flood in their history.
Demand for full satisfaction for the bombing of HMS Ladybird, British gunboat that was damaged during the Japanese airplane bombardment of the USS Panay, has been made by the British government.
50 YEARS AGO
January 23, 1963
The Retail Merchants Division of Sycamore has set aside two days as January Bargain Days. There will be free parking and no trouble at all in finding bargains. We took a peek in preview at some of the bargains shoppers may find. Only people in hospital, cemetery or jail can fail to find savings.
Yeggs who cracked the safe in Waterman High School Friday night must have suffered keen disappointment when they found a mere $100. They thought they were working for the total ticket proceeds of the Little Ten Conference basketball tournament. All of the cash from the ticket sales was deposited in the Waterman bank Friday evening.
Between 100 and 200 new automobiles were ruined, 37 freight cars were wrecked and there was some fire damage as a result of a wreck on the Chicago North Western railroad about a mile east of Rochelle last Saturday.
At the meeting of the Sycamore-DeKalb Panhellenic, a member of the Northern Illinois University faculty presented an informative discussion on “New Mathematics.”
– Sycamore True Republican
25 YEARS AGO
January 27, 1988
U.S. farmers must learn to live without federal subsidies if they hope to compete successfully in the world market, said Iowa Congressman Fred Grandy at an agricultural town hall meeting sponsored by the DeKalb County Farm Bureau.
The Kirkland Police Department is no longer using an answering machine with a recorded message. If no local officer is in the office when the telephone rings, after the third ring the call will be automatically switched to the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office.
The 100,000th Meals on Wheels was prepared Jan. 21 at Huntley Middle School in DeKalb, where meals are prepared for delivery to homebound senior citizens five days a week.
– The MidWeek
