Saved for the Wrecking Ball

Thank goodness for the fine work of Hobart's fire department and its "most splendid motor fire truck" in March 1923 — or what would there have been to raze 17 years later?


(Click on image to enlarge)
Hobart Gazette, March 30, 1923.


The "Fasel fire" was the subject of an earlier post.

Notice Axel Strom's advertisement lower down in the right-hand column. I suppose he had to move all his things back from the Fleck residence.

First City Government

The Hobart News of November 10, 1921, gave the results of Hobart's first city election.


(Click on image to enlarge)

The Hobart Historical Society has a photo-portrait of all those who made up the first city government of Hobart:


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.


Additional Source: "Henderson Honored as First Mayor." Hobart Gazette 11 Nov. 1921.

The Camp Ground in McAfee's Woods

Since January 1921 the Hobart Commercial Club had been working with Paul Newman, trailsman, to develop a camping ground near Hobart for tourists on the Yellowstone Trail. At a Commercial Club meeting in March, the camping-ground committee reported on its progress: it had entered negotiations with William McAfee to rent four acres of his "7-acre wood lot east of town"; it had planned what improvements would be built and roughly how much those improvements would cost (about $250, to be raised by subscription); it had already received donations of over $100.

I do not know exactly where these four acres were. William McAfee had owned land along the south side of Cleveland Avenue, east of town, for many years (indeed, his parents had owned land there at least since the 1870s), but it's in different places per the 1908 Plat Map …


(Click on images to enlarge)

…and the 1926 Plat Book.



Nor can I see anything recognizable as a camping ground in the 1939 aerial photos, though we do see what looks like a wooded tract on the southeast corner of Cleveland and S.R. 51. But it's a long time between 1921 and 1939, and the camping ground may not have been in existence by then, even if it could be identified from the air.


Anyway, work went forward during the spring of 1921, and by the end of April, the camping ground was nearly completed.



The Commercial Club had exceeded its own goal in raising money. So many local individuals and businesses had contributed that I can't index them all. The Kulage Brick Works even donated bricks.




Sources:
♦ "Commercial Club Holds Good Meeting." Hobart Gazette 11 Mar. 1921.
♦ "Report on Tourists' Camp Ground." Hobart News 19 May 1921.
♦ "Tourists' Camp Ground About Ready." Hobart Gazette 29 Apr. 1921.

Downtown Hobart, Bird's-eye View, ca. 1908

Another recent purchase.


(Click on image to enlarge)

August Haase was up in the loft of the Strattan House at Main and Third, pointing his camera northeast. The postcard is postmarked 1908.

You can read some of the business signs on Main Street. The front window of the Roper building is lettered with "Peoples Meat Market," and below that, "James Roper." The next building north is Fred Francen's* saloon. North of that, Axel Strom's tailor shop.

Out back of the buildings north of the tailor shop, you can see somebody's shirts hanging on a clothesline. And what an assortment of sheds and barns back there!

Moving north and out on the sidewalk — I'd like to know who that guy is and what he's doing with that pole.

And since we've been talking about the Augustus Wood house, there it is in the background. Also the Stocker house. Here, I've marked them:


(Click on image to enlarge)

Even further beyond, the cemetery, and the Pennsy crossing on Front Street. And the roofs of houses on Michigan Avenue, and the steeple of the Methodist Church.

_______________________
*I've also seen it spelled Franzen.