Electrocution on Water Street

The evening of March 10, 1922, former photographer John J. Naumann turned off the light.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Hobart News 16 March 1922.

The nearly illegible line in the second paragraph reads, I think, "dining[?] room in the Banks home, Mr." — the Banks home being, I suppose, the home of Nathaniel P. Banks, who was John Naumann's father-in-law (and who had lost his wife a year earlier). The 1920 Census shows the combined Banks and Naumann families living on Water Street, but does not note the house number. The address given for N.P. Banks in the 1930 telephone directory is 600 S. Water Street.

By contrast, the Gazette's report did not mention recent rains, suggesting instead that the tragedy might be explained by the discovery, the next day, of "crossed wires on a pole near George Stoecker's flats, one of the wires carrying a high voltage for running motors." ("John J. Naumann Accidentally Killed Friday Night," Hobart Gazette 17 March 1922.)