This Is Why He Couldn't Have a Gas Station

While the human race exists, there will be jerks. At the time we are concerned with — 1922 — jerks had found a relatively new way to be jerks, involving that relatively recent invention, the gas station. But already this avatar of jerkitude was so well known that the neighbors of John Kibler's triangle rose up to prevent his building a gas station where jerks could be jerks.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Hobart News 13 July 1922.

Also, news from the countryside south of Deepriver, some of it involving huckleberries in a way that I interpret to mean they grew wild around here. News to me!

Another Hobart Triangle

In June 1922, "John E. Kibler, a Gary steel roller," had to quit the mills on account of his health. From the Earle family he purchased a piece of property described as triangular and lying between Seventh Street and the EJ&E right-of-way, facing east onto Lincoln St. So I assume he bought this piece of property west of the doughboy statue:



It sounds as if the property was empty at that time, as Mr. Kibler said he intended to put up a frame building to serve as a delicatessen, gas station, and "ladies rest room." By early August 1922 the Gazette was reporting that Mr. Kibler's new building was "about completed." (The frame building now standing there was built in 1930, according to county property records.)


Sources:
♦ "Quits the Mills." Hobart Gazette 30 June 1922.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 11 Aug. 1922.