Bob Hansen
for The Hawk Eye
It certainly did not merit the courtroom gymnastics of that fictional lawyer, Perry Mason, and regardless of whatever intoxicant Sherlock Holmes may have consumed that day, the famous detective would not deem to consider it. But in September 1894, the mystery of Nyhart’s oats was just about the most exciting crime on Burlington’s court dockets.
The basics of the case were relatively straightforward. A.J. Nyhart farmed in the northern reaches of Des Moines County. That summer he had produced a bumper crop of grain. After an early harvest, he had seven stacks of oats and wheat valued at $350 standing in his south field awaiting movement to market. But that all changed on a warm late summer night.
This lucky shot served to momentarily curb the enthusiasm of the mob and it hesitated, allowing the gunman to disappear in the darkness around the Catholic church. But the mob quickly rallied and the hunt was on.
“The audacity of the attempt at the murder and the utter absence of any motive dazed the people who appeared at the city street corners to hear a statement of facts. It was the town’s ghost story. For four hours, people gathered as a growing mob of searchers scoured every corner of North Hill,” the paper recorded.
Then, shortly after 1 a.m. there came the sound of shots. Henry Stroh had opened the door of a shed and flushed a figure that ran off, pursued by Walter Fritsche and others. Near George Lane’s house, a lucky shot grazed the gunman and persuaded him to stop. He was quickly gathered up and marched off to the jail.
Around Burlington: Jeremiah Smith couldn t catch a break
Bob Hansen
for The Hawk Eye
It seems Burlington’s Jeremiah Smith should have learned his lesson the first time around. He should have learned that financial dealings with the government were a slippery slope leading to financial ruin.
But he didn’t, and as a result, Burlington became the first Territorial capital of Wisconsin.
In the 1830s, thanks to creative map making and political chicanery, Iowa was lumped into the Wisconsin territory, and by 1836 nearly half of the population of that sprawling expanse of lakes, woods and prairie lived in Burlington and Dubuque
Around Burlington: Random violence, knife attacks and gunplay warranted little attention
Bob Hansen
for The Hawk Eye
They are just two brief notes from the Burlington Gazette newspaper of 1885 and at the time attracted very little attention. The articles are given less space than the report of the Knights of Labor picnic at Schlampp’s Park or the Druids picnic at Bierweth’s Park on Fourth Street.
However, from a distance of 136 years, they raise the disconcerting possibility that this old river town was a gathering of feral sociopaths and random miscreants.
The first article is a police report concerning the very unfortunate George Smith, a barkeep at the venerable Union Hotel. The newspaper records that on the previous afternoon, George and his friends, Frank Foote and Tom Vaugh, were enjoying an autumn afternoon on the hotel’s front porch.
Around Burlington: Burlington divided into river nudists and nude-nots
Bob Hansen
for The Hawk Eye
In the summer of 1891, the view from the Burlington river bluffs was spectacular. There was the mighty rolling river, the wooded Illinois shoreline and the passing “wedding cake” steamboats. And then there were the bare bottoms.
Yup. Bare bottoms, buttocks, derrieres, tushes were part of the local scenery at the Mississippi levee, and it had reached a point that city fathers had to do something about it.
This “grievous breach of public morality” was exposed by an unusually warm summer and the desire of the town’s young men and boys to seek relief from the oppressive heat by dipping into the cooling river waters.