125 YEARS AGO: 1897
H.E. Harris has just completed and took to Plato a very handsome set of scenery for Dols’ hall of that place. The drop curtain is a beauty, having a brilliant color and an artistic finish superior to anything we’ve seen of his work, which is gaining a wide reputation.
The Hutchinson Leader has been forced to print but 2 pages of its seven-column, eight-page paper at home by demand of the businessmen of that city for advertising space. Hutchinson has a very much alive and progressive set of businessmen who heartily believe in advertising and the two papers are crowded the year-round with live ads, ranging from a column to a page in size. It goes without saying that they do all kinds of business as a natural result.
Mr. and Mrs. Burt Day and family are expected to leave Hutchinson for their new home in Albert Lea. The Leader, in common with numerous warm friends, regrets to see them go. Mr. Day made the Hutchinson Leader a household word and a strong, vigorous paper, never failing to be loyal to the interests of this city or to take a stand on the side of improvement and upbuilding this town. He has purchased of his brother, H.G. Day, a half interest in the Albert Lea Standard, the oldest and probably the strongest paper in southern Minnesota and will re-enter the journalistic field at once with the prospective bright for the future.
100 YEARS AGO: 1922
Twenty-four operations is the record of C. Herman Wendt, a Hutchinson man, who in the past five years has submitted to that many surgeries following an accident, which at the time seemed slight, but proved serious. Wendt ran fish bone into his left hand while cleaning fish, infection set in causing blood poisoning, resulting in serious trouble, many operations, and even partial paralysis of the left leg. Wendt is now a patient at the University of Minnesota Hospital, Minneapolis, where doctors removed the decayed bone.
75 YEARS AGO: 1947
Biscay residents rallied around their station agent Frank Osmek and protested with all possible force against relegating the depot there to a custodian basis, rather than a full-time agent station, in a hearing conducted there. The Milwaukee Railroad, in its petition, announced that it wished to discontinue an agent for the station in an announcement in September. In his place, a custodian would be placed in charge of the depot.
50 YEARS AGO: 1972
Carrots and parsnips are big this year in the Fred Zimanske garden at 585 Madson Ave., Hutchinson, and a banana squash reached prodigious proportions at the rural Cokato home of Zimanske’s daughter, Mrs. Bradley Oestreich. The carrots weighed one pound and a pound and a half and the parsnips weigh from one to three pounds. The squash tips the scale at 36 pounds.
25 YEARS AGO: 1997
Three months after RailAmerica placed a self-imposed embargo on the shipping of hazardous materials on Hutchinson-based Dakota Rail, the company has promised shippers that it plans to make the repairs necessary to again handle those materials. During a joint meeting of the McLeod Regional Rail Authority and Central Prairie Railway Association, RailAmerica Vice President Bob Parker said Dakota Rail will invest $46,450 to buy a truckload of 90-pound rails and 400 new ties that once installed by mid- to late-November, should allow the railroad to again handle materials classified as hazardous.
A change in residence has prompted Hutchinson City Council Member Bill Craig to submit his resignation to the rest of the council, effective Oct. 29. The council is expected to consider the request at its next meeting. In his letter to Mayor Marlin Torgerson and the other three council members, Craig said he and his wife have sold their house in Hutchinson and will be moving at the end of October. The Craigs will apparently be moving to a home on Lake Washington in Meeker County. The city charter requires council members to be residents of the city.
A 15-year-old student was arrested at the start of classes at Hutchinson High School Oct. 10 after allegedly carrying a loaded .22 caliber pistol into the school. According to the Hutchinson Police Department, Principal Scott Douglas received a tip that the male student might be carrying a weapon. The student was held at the McLeod County Jail pending an expected court appearance on Oct. 13, where he was expected to be charged with a felony for carrying a dangerous weapon onto school property.
