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.