The Short Lives of Lamp Posts

A lamp post built in Hobart has but a short time to live; it is set up, and is knocked down, like a bowling pin … and the car that knocked it down flees as it were a shadow.



I think Charles Gruel's meat market was located on Third Street, south side, about mid-block between Main and Center Streets, and the Beach jewelry store on the north side of Third.

Marshal Fred Rose, Sr. set about investigating this hit-and-run. Just a week later, the Gazette reported: "Marshal Rose has discovered the party who 'bumped down' the light post in front of Gruel's, and says the party has agreed to pay for the repairs, which he should do. It was purely a case of 'white mule' directing the arm at the steering wheel." That the party's name was not mentioned suggests to me that he might have been a person of some social standing.

But the knocking down of a lamp post was not unheard-of, as we can gather from the weary headline of the original story — "Another Lamp Post …" — and indeed, just as this case was solved, the town found itself facing a lawsuit based on a lamp post knocked down two months earlier:



(The "Pedersen corner" was the intersection of Main and Second Streets.)


Sources:
♦ "Another Lamp Post Bumped." Hobart Gazette 21 Jan. 1921.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 28 Jan. 1921.
♦ "Town of Hobart Sued." Hobart Gazette 28 Jan. 1921.