Algoma and the Telephone Party Lines

“1 2 1 2 F 1 3, Please.” That was Aunt Friday’s phone number in the day of party lines. The “please” was a courtesy to the operator who connected the proper wires. It was a time when neighbors knew that three longs and a short belonged to the family across the field and two shorts and two longs belonged to the family across the road. Everybody with a telephone shared a line with 8 or 12 other families. Each knew all the long and short rings and everybody knew who was getting a call. There was no such thing as metadata. There were neighbors keeping track of calls. If one long and one short had an illness in the family, those who heard the ring picked up to listen so they'd know what was going on. If food or assistance with milking would help, somebody came over, but not because they were told there was a need. If there was a death, family troubles or a scandal in a family, the grapevine passed it on posthaste. Listening in was not only a way to get the news, it was also a passtime.

It was a time when city lines were shared with 4 families. To make a call, one needed to pick up the receiver and listen a bit, ensuring that ringing the operator would not interrupt the call of another. That meant accidentally - or not - being privy to conversations. It also meant that kids wished they could understand German as the adults using the phone instantly switched language. Kids all knew the good stuff was discussed in German.

Phone numbers in Algoma were much shorter than Aunt Friday’s though. Anybody wanting to call Katch’s Department Store would simply tell the operator,  ”26X, Please.” If the wires were accidentally crossed and 26R was plugged in, the caller would get Clarice and have to place the call again. 53M got Agnes and 53R got Annie. Agnes and Annie were on the same line. They often called each other, but the operator had to connect them. When it was time to ring off - because Agnes or Annie’s ringer was not on and other callers got a busy signal - the women hung up. Hanging up was replacing the ear piece receiver back on the main part of the phone so another call could be placed. If that receiver was just a tiny bit off, the phone would be off the hook and preventing calls from coming through. Nobody dreamed of voice mail and nothing short of death in the family meant calling outside of one's home area. 

All the aunts and uncles lived in rural areas and were fortunate that wires came down their roads. Uncle Charlie’s phone was the best. It was on the landing between the downstairs and upstairs. No 1^st and 2^nd floor in those days. The wide landing had a north facing window with a rocking chair, a huge Boston fern and the big wall telephone. One stood next to the phone holding the receiver while speaking clearly into the protruding mouthpiece. Anybody under  5’ tall needed a stool to reach the mouthpiece. Kids didn’t play with it, perhaps because younger children weren't tall enough even with the stool or lacked the strength to turn the crank that notified central, which was what the operator was called. That was in the 1940s, but telephones made their appearance in Ahnapee/Algoma decades earlier, before 1900, when residents wondered why most would ever need such a thing.

Communication with the outside world was definitely on the minds of Ahnapee’s early progressive citizens though. A July 1865 Enterprise reported the Atlantic cable was nearly laid. Tariffs were being estimated and stock was selling at a premium. In the early 1880s, the Record reprinted a story from the Sturgeon Bay Advocate describing the telephone lines going between Green Bay and Sturgeon Bay via Ahnapee and Casco. The community looked forward to a telephone connection with Kewaunee in late spring, but it took until May 1891 before a line to Alaska was finished. It was called "a great convenience to the public." A few years later, in October 1897, telephone company Manager G.W. Overbeck announced the addition of a small room adjoining the main telephone exchange office. It was fitted with a telephone for the use of patrons, enabling them to connect with telephone lines to the "outside world." Years later, those telephone rooms would be only large enough for one person and referred to as a phone booth, which, before the days of wireless, truly was a great convenience.

By 1903, Algoma had an impressive 64 telephones and the August 14, 1903 paper announced the first telephone books. One hundred years later, the proliferation of cell phones with instant access and storage of numbers brought the beginning of the demise of phone books.

DeWayne Stebbins was a man of stature in pre-1900 Algoma. A Civil War vet, bank cashier, postmaster, Ahnapee Record editor/publisher and finally Wisconsin Assemblyman, Stebbins' importance to the community was noted in a September 1883, news article pointing out the "telephone instrument" at the Bank of Ahnapee and that "now the Honorable D.W. Stebbins can communicate with the outside world without leaving his office."  “Big Steb” was on the cusp of change that years later brought the end of isolation to rural families such as Aunt Friday’s. That change caused a young man to quake in his boots making a call to see if a girl would go to the dance at Alaska, rather than depending on a post card. The changes enabled Agnes and Annie to phone Katch’s or the Farmers Co-op Store to send out a 100# bag of flour. The changes brought a new world to the handicapped. The changes brought the rescue squad and the fire department in an emergency. One hundred years ago parents were concerned about what young people were getting into when they wanted to use the phone. Some things never change and parents today still worry about what the young are getting into with cell phones.

When DeWayne Stebbins was making a call in 1883, he might have been overheard by someone in the immediate area, but having the only telephone in town, there was no party line and nobody to “listen in.” There was no metadata either. One hundred thirty years later, few can imagine the privacy and anonymity that Stebbins enjoyed. 

Information comes from An-An-api-sebe: Where is the River? c.2001 and Commercial History of Algoma, Wisconsin, Vol. 1, c. 2006. Photos are from the commercial history and used with permission.

Kewaunee County Poor Farm

Within six years of statehood, poor houses existed in 22 of Wisconsin’s (then) 58 counties. In 1854 filthy bedding and foul odors were common in such places. That was in addition to a lack of privacy and a lack of ventilation. Housed primarily were the aged, the mentally and physically handicapped, and mothers with children for whom they could not provide. Some lived there temporarily while others were there to die. Wolf River’s Matt Simon was there because of business reverses. Called the “Aristocrat of the North Side,” Simon was elected to Wisconsin’s Assembly in 1858. One would not expect a man of his stature to be in a poor house.

During its first few years, Kewaunee County had two houses for the poor, the first poor farm being in the original Town of Casco. A few years later, it was relocated to the site of the Rushford post office, now the location of Grace Lutheran Church at Alaska in Pierce Town, the location at which it remained until the doors closed over 100 years later.

Physical privacy was non-existent and nothing was confidential. Lists of those living at the poor farm, or receiving any kind of assistance, regularly appeared in the county’s papers and in the minutes of the county board. If testimony was necessary, it was common knowledge. Between 1878 and 1905 Kewaunee County Clerk’s Committee on the Poor kept records that remain today. In the 1870s that committee consisted of Patrick McConnell, George Bottkol and Vojta Mashek. Their charge was to “regulate the support of a family by accident or different circumstances” to be admitted. A family did not usually mean both parents and children, but did refer to a husband and wife or to a woman with children.

Postmarked 1915

When Anton Gauthier presented a committee report on September 30, 1877, he said the county was responsible for the insane and idiots - 1 and 9 respectively - and non-resident paupers, while pointing out that each town supported its own poor. The farm’s overseer was paid $550. While the salary might seem fair for the time, the overseer had to furnish a team and farm implements. Not only that, his wife’s work was included in his salary. The woman whose industry was regarded as of so little value was as important as her husband, and often more so, in insuring the success of the farm. At the time a hired man was being paid 20 a month while a hired girl got $1.75 a week. Additionally, Gauthier noted that the wood house could hold 20 cords. The farm had 120 acres, 70 of which were improved and it was said the place was worth $6,850. Land was valued at $4,500, the buildings at $2,000, furniture at $150 and livestock at $200. County Board proceedings listed all the bills, sundries, wood, animals, and everything else one could think of including the fish from commercial fisherman Peter LaFond. Included in the lengthy pages of inventory were such things as curtains, bowls and spoons.

March 1878 brought need for a superintendent who, the board felt, must be a “heavy taxpayer of well known integrity and possess good business qualifications.” Two months later, May 1878, the Committee on the Poor furnished its report for clothing and keeping. There were 18 people, 5 of whom were under the age of 10. Planning for additional residents before winter, the board felt a two-story, 23’ x 30’ addition was required. The addition would be in front of the main building and cost about $500.

Doctors were paid for assessing residents’ physical and mental health. In March 1881, resident John Altan was judged insane and was taken to the state hospital near Oshkosh. Today medication and counseling would have been the first step in addressing his needs.  Altan’s name does not appear among Kewaunee County men serving in the Civil War though it is possible that he did indeed serve. In reading the old papers, there are a number of men – and women – who were sent to the Oshkosh asylum to deal with the blood, amputations, death and privations of the war. Some could not rid themselves of such demons. One hundred years later medical science treats those diagnosed with depression, bi-polar or another illness much differently.

John Spitka apparently had an amputation because when he was sent to Milwaukee for shoes, it was to the Manufacturer of Legs. Spitka’s conscientious was noted in the September 1887 proceedings when the Committee on the Poor consisted of Lorence Lutz, Fred Johannes and Dennis Sullivan. They attested to the number of times they visited the poor farm, consistently finding the place clean and well lit. In May they brought material for brooms that Spitka was making.  When they gave the September report, they had picked up the brooms that were sold for $7.41. It was then that improvements were mentioned – a new fence, addition to house yard and the need a new stove.

Others, other than poor farm staff and doctors, were compensated for care that extended beyond the farm. Red River’s chairman Joe Valcq was paid $120 in the matter of Mary Lancelle on March 21, 1882. Matter was not defined. Other residents were widows or widowers, often elderly,who were without families, a population which today has access to assisted living facilities or nursing homes. Minutes in December 1908 reported that members of the poor farm board had visited each person caring for an “insane or idiotic” person. It would appear many were paid for caring for their own family members, possibly aged parents. In 1908, the Committee recommended compensation to those caring for others at home. William Flaherty cared for Horace Flaherty and William Bacon kept Mathilda Bacon. Each received $100 a year for his efforts. Martin Wachal cared for Martin Wachal, Jr. and got $80. David Sconset kept Louisa Sconset for $75 and Catherine Colle was paid $54 to keep Mary Colle. Some were called feeble-minded.  It is quite possible those called insane, idiotic or feeble-minded were suffering from what in the 1950s was called hardening of the arteries. Sixty years later dementia and Alzheimer’s describe some of the same behaviors.

Residents lived at the poor home for a number of reasons. The prominent Matt Simon was a Catholic Wolf River resident who gave the land for that church. He didn’t forget his fellow Germans when he also donated land to the Lutheran congregation. Simon was a Wisconsin Assemblyman who, a few years later, lost his money because Milwaukee parties failed to pay him for substantial wood products’ sales. Family members were not paupers. Was a man who did so much for others, in essence, hung out to dry? It was really Simon himself, also in ill health, who asked to enter the institution in July 1884. In reading a number of histories and proceedings, Simon’s circumstances become even more curious.

Simon’s first wife bore 14 children before dying in 1871. While working in Madison in 1880 he remarried and fathered 4 more children.  A Record article on June 21, 1894 informed readers that the Simon’s four young children were taken from Ahnapee, inferring that they would be residing in orphanages . Father Adalbert Cipin took the two young daughters to a Catholic school in Green Bay and J. McDonald represented the Committee on the Poor when he took the two boys to the State School for Dependent Children at Sparta.  Simon was 88 when he died in 1914. Though his obit listed his survivors, it was noted that the whereabouts of children from the second marriage were unknown.

In a 2004 personal interview with Kewaunee’s much respected Dr. Reynold Nesemann, he said that the poor farm served a purpose that was (today) dealt with in medication. He talked about those who were alone and what happens without communication and a sense of being needed and belonging. He said that everyone at the poor farm had a job to do. Physical condition determined the kind of work. Whether one helped with milking, caring for animals or the land, or whether it was cooking, cleaning or washing, it was work that served the group. Each person had value and each was a cog in a wheel. One hundred years later, many of these same people would fall through the cracks and become homeless.

Then there were the children. They were there with mothers unable to provide for them. Today many would be homeless. While children are eligible for programs through the schools, homelessness is a stigma that the average teen keeps quiet. But, the number of children called “idiots” on the poor farm list, and thus listed in the U.S. census roles, is questionable. Why were they so identified? In today’s world, if someone is called an idiot, one ascribes another’s actions to something totally ridiculous, foolish or without any thought to ramifications. Time has changed the word’s implication.

For some years, the word “idiot” was regarded as pejorative. Psychology now uses the term “profound intellectual disability” when describing one with a mental age below three years and one generally unable to learn connected speech or guard against common dangers. Following a few children living at the poor farm and listed as idiots on the census indicates they grew to be successful adults. If such children were intellectually disabled to the point that circumstances of the day required such notation, how could those children have achieved the success they did?  Is it possible delayed speech or severe stuttering could have labeled them? Would a physical deformity bring such a label? Would young children be so painfully shy in such circumstances that they were so labeled?

In reading such reports, one must keep a historical perspective and an open mind. Things are not always what they seem to be at first glance.

Today’s definition of “idiot” comes from Dictionary.com and from Wikepedia.

Sources: Minutes of the County Board found at the ARC at UW-GB and Ahnapee Record. HIPPA laws prevent one from reading reading actual files poor farm files at the ARC, however, most of the same information can be gleaned from the Kewaunee County Board proceedings and in the county newspapers. The photo of Grace Lutheran was taken by the blogger and the Poor Farm postcard comes from the blogger's collection. Here Comes the Mail: Post Offices of Kewaunee County, c. 2010 Kannerwurf, Sharpe, Johnson.

Algoma & the Generals MacArthur

Kewaunee County played a significant role in World War ll, though as that generation passes away few realize how the Lake Michigan counties of Northeast Wisconsin were so wrapped up in defense.  Manitowoc, Kewaunee and Sturgeon Bay all built large vessels and by Mother’s Day 1944, Kewaunee Shipbuilding and Engineering had launched its 69^th ship, a 176’ cargo and transport vessel built for the Army. Algoma’s role was a bit different.  That role connects to General Douglas MacArthur, one of five World War ll generals to achieve the rank of 5-Star General.

During the war Algoma Plywood and Veneer was manufacturing plywood and building plywood hulls, airplane wings and noses that went elsewhere for finishing.  Some of that plywood is associated with General Douglas MacArthur’s 1942 escape from Bataan. It was Algoma plywood that was used in the PT motor torpedo boat that rescued MacArthur, his wife, their son Arthur and his Chinese nurse, and other military personnel, taking them to Mindanao. From there they went to Australia. Ironically, MacArthur’s father, General Arthur MacArthur, Jr., was also on Luzon, but that was in August 1899, more than 40 years before  when President McKinley sent him there as field commander.

In his 1942 They Were Expendable,* author-historian William L. White described the plywood boats saying,  “An MTB is a plywood speedboat about 70’ long and 30 wide, powered by three Packard marine motors which can send her roaring over the water about as fast as an auto can go over land. So fast, in fact, that the motors should be changed every few hundred hours.”

White continues, “Each boat is armed with four torpedo tubes and four 50-caliber machine guns. There isn’t an ounce of protective armor on them. They’re little eggshells, designed to roar in, let fly a Sunday punch, then speed out, zigzagging to dodge the shells.” Men on PT boats were cited for bravery in the rescue of MacArthur who said, upon landing at Mindanao, that he was giving Silver Stars of Gallantry to every officer and man there.

MacArthur’s first connection with Algoma came over 40 years earlier when he was a student at West Point where he assisted in the design of Algoma’s north pier. The pier has been rebuilt in the last 100 years, but if anyone with MacArthur’s prominence was associated with it, it has been forgotten.

World War l Camp MacArthur at Waco, Texas was named for General Arthur MacArthur, Jr., the General’s father and the man for whom the General’s son was named. Algoma men were among the 1,200 from Wisconsin who trained there, but little did they know that they would have a connection to the name in years that followed. Carl (Josh) Lidral wrote home about the 16 weeks of training the men would have at Camp MacArthur before going off to lick the Kaiser. Ernest Haucke, the first Algoma man killed in action on August 20, 1918 trained at the camp. So did Ralph Perry who later died of wounds suffered in the Argonne Forest. Algoma’s  VFW Post was named for Haucke, and Perry’s family memorialized Ralph in the presentation of Perry Field to the city. John Culligan, Jerry Jerabek and Augie Wasserbach also were at the camp. The men were well-respected leaders just as the MacArthurs were, however the MacArthurs were on a world stage.

History tells us the Generals MacArthur were the country’s only father-son combination awarded Medals of Honor. MacArthur, Jr.’s father was Arthur, Sr. who has the distinction of being Wisconsin’s shortest serving governor due to an election scandal. His 4 or 5 day term as the state’s 4^th governor started and ended in March 1856. Arthur, Jr. entered the Civil War at age 17 and served with the 24^th Wisconsin. So many Kewaunee County men fought in units with his at Chicamaugua, Stones River, Missionary Ridge and Chattanooga. He is credited with planting the flag and shouting “On Wisconsin.” It is likely that some of the men in the Texas camp were sons of those who were in those same Tennessee campaigns.  Whether or not any Algoma connection can be made with Douglas MacArthur’s son Arthur, it is up for grabs. To escape the limelight, it is said he changed his name.

Though the MacArthur connection hardly makes Algoma prominent, the shipbuilding and defense work among the lake shore communities played a part in World War ll. History gets lost as the days turn into years and years turn into decades.

Note: William L. White’s 1942 book was a best seller that is available on Amazon. A few years after publication, it was made into a movie starring John Wayne as Lt. Rusty Ryan. It also starred Robert Montgomery and Donna Reed. The movie ran on cable's TNT and was possibly shown at the Majestic sometime after its 1945 release.  It was essential personnel who were to be evacuated by the torpedo boats. So many men were left. It was that evacuation when MacArthur said, I will return,” a quote that has lived on.

Sources: An-An-api-sebe: Where is the River?, c. 2001 Johnson; The Commercial History of Development in Youngs and Steele Plat and Other Selected Properties, c. 2006 Johnson, Nell, Wolske; They Were Expendable, c. 1942 White; Women of the Plywood: The War Years, c. 1998 Johnson. The Plywood postcard is in the blogger's collection. The photo was taken from the bend in the Ahnapee River where the South Branch leaves the main channel. The view is of the lumber piles behind the plant and along the river. Buildings, roof tops and stacks are in the background. A copy is available for purchase from Algoma Public Library.

 Information about Arthur MacArthur, Jr. & Sr. is online, where there is much more available.

The First Miss Wisconsin: Mabel Dupont from Pierce Town

Northeast Wisconsin history was made in 1973 when DePere’s Terry Ann Meeuswen was crowned Miss America after capturing the Miss Wisconsin title a year earlier.  It happened because of women such as Kewaunee County’s Mabel Dupont paved the way. Her obituary says she was the very first Miss Wisconsin in 1930, chosen in a still somewhat new competition.

An online check has such Badger State beauty pageants dating to 1924, but a few of the earlier years show little in a recorded history. Mabel doesn’t show up in 1930, but neither does anybody else.

Sixteen year old Margaret Gorman of Washington, D.C. was the first Miss America on September 7, 1921. Now called Miss America, the 1921 beauty competition began in Atlantic City, New Jersey as the Inner-City Contest, an effort to pump up business for the forthcoming Labor Day. Eight young women vied for honors in an event which, over the years, had its ups and downs before being what it is today. Margaret won only to return to high school. A girl entering her junior year of high school would not be a viable candidate today, however Margaret was said to resemble Mary Pickford, sweetheart of America’s films (silent), and who could beat that?  Margaret Gorman was said to measure 30-25-32 and was 4” shorter than Mabel. Unusual measurements today, but Margaret was a teenager.

American Federation of Labor's Samuel Gompers was in his 70s and a judge in the contest. He saw the 16 year old child as representing American womanhood, strong and able to shoulder motherhood and homemaking. He felt the country rested on "women" like Margaret. That was in a day when women had few rights. It was only the year before that the 19^th Amendment was passed.

Mabel Dupont, the 24 year old daughter of a Rostok*couple, was living and working in Milwaukee during the 1920s. At just a little over 5’5”, the blue-eyed brunette Kewaunee High School graduate entered Milwaukee Elk’s Club bathing beauty contest and was chosen as Miss Milwaukee. In early March 1930 it was announced that Mabel would represent Wisconsin competing for America’s Sweetheart at the Miami National Beauty Contest.  

A Milwaukee Journal article said Mabel's curves mattered and that her bust and hips were 34 and 36” respectively. Although the article left out her waist measurement, it provided her shoulder, ankle and calf dimensions. A photo of Mabel well covered in an alluring swimsuit of the day also made note of her exact address on South 8^th Street. That swimming suit was as controversial then as it was in contests a few years ago. The promoters were attempting to offer a clean, wholesome image while offering the spectacle of a bathing suit in the hopes of attracting a greater audience. Just a few years earlier, women could be arrested on the beach for daring to roll down their socks and exposing their knees!

Four years after the contest, April 1934, Mabel married Milwaukee resident John Warras at a ceremony held at Holy Rosary Church in Kewaunee. She was 81 when she died at Algoma in 1987. Though both her wedding article and her obit made mention of the beauty contest, there nothing more. Mabel made history yet stands alone. She is the first and last Kewaunee County girl to be chosen Miss Wisconsin.

Note:*Rostok is in Pierce Town, about midway between Alaska and Kewaunee.

An online check reveals that scandal and the Depression shut down Atlantic City’s Miss America pageants between 1928 and 1932. In 1930 the contest was moved to Miami and billed as “Miami National Beauty Contest.” The winner was to be called America’s Sweetheart but the press continued to refer to her as Miss America.

The newspaper clipping was neither dated nor sourced but almost certainly comes from a Milwaukee Journal printed sometime in March 1930. The photo was taken by Kohler Studios. As Mabel was living in Milwaukee, the studio was no doubt there. An Ancestry  check found a studio with that name at 125 E. Wells in 1916. A Google search found 725 W. Water within a 10 year time period.

Algoma & Cowboy Wheeler: "How about 'dem' Green Bay Packers?"

There are Algoma residents who almost sleep, breathe and eat Green Bay Packers. There is one who actually did.  Who knows how many Algoma residents ever attended Packer games in the early 1920s when Cowboy Wheeler was playing? It was a time long  before fans were dancing to the Packer Polka or singing “How about dem Green Bay Packers?”  For an Algoma resident wanting to stand around watching a game, the best way to get there then was via the Ahnapee & Western Railroad. The tracks were only a few blocks north of Hagermeister Park where Cowboy and the Packers were playing. Though the Packers did not command a spot in the daily lives of Northeast Wisconsin folk nearly 100 years ago when Wheeler was playing end, he lives on in the minds of the Algoma oldsters who still refer to the building at 527 4th St. as Wheelers. Though the tavern, restaurant and bowling alleys have had numerous owners since Cowboy's widow Thora sold it a year or so after his death, the place too lives on in memories.

Vincent Lyle Wheeler was born in 1898 at Stiles, near Oconto Falls, and died in Algoma of a heart attack 41 years later. Just after 1900 his family relocated to Green Bay where the boy went to St. Patrick’s Grade School. From there Wheeler went to West High School where he was an athletic standout.  After playing football at West for three years, he went on to play at Ripon College. 

Wheeler played his first game with the Packers on September 15, 1919, a day when the Packers played Menomonie North End and won big. Cowboy made himself proud that day as one of the touchdowns  in the 53-0 slaughter was his. Looking at his online stats, it seems as if Wheeler only made one touchdown in three years with the Packers, but the years reflect only those in which there was a formal organization.  Cowboy’s obituary says he played for 7 years. Today’s players at Algoma, Kewaunee or Luxemburg high schools would be most surprised to learn that Wheeler played pro ball at 5’9” and 180 pounds, a size easily matched by many on their teams.  When Cowboy played with Curly Lambeau, the man who would be coach and the man for whom Lambeau Field is named, Curly was just one of the boys.

Wheeler’s athleticism and interests in sports extended well beyond football. During the 1920s he played basketball and was on the Northern Paper Mills team, a team thought to be one of Wisconsin’s finest. He played baseball too , pitching for both Casco and Forestville during the summers before the Packers’ seasons started, and played on Algoma teams after moving to the city.

Cowboy married Thora Rasmussen before beginning his 3^rd franchised season with the Packers and came to Algoma, buying the old Stradling Pool Hall on Steele St. That space in the Busch building was best known as  Weise’s Clothiers to the next generation. The Wheelers were there for a few years and as the country was emerging from Prohibition, Cowboy and Thora began construction of the Wheeler building on 4^th. The dark, red brick structure included a restaurant, tavern  and the bowling alley that was Cowboy’s pride and joy.  It has been said that it was Cowboy Wheeler who made bowling the prominent Algoma sport that it was for so long. Drawing at least 100 teams, his annual bowling tournaments were unprecedented in places as small as Algoma. With his across-the-board interest in sports, it was inevitable that Cowboy was instrumental in the founding of Algoma Hunting and Fishing Club, an organization that remains

Wheeler’s stats with the Packers are posted for 1921, ’22 and ’23. 1921 was the year the Acme Packers of Green Bay were awarded a franchise in the year old American Professional Football Association. Acme was based in Chicago and had bought Green Bay’s Indian Packing Co. a short time before. A year later, the Association became known as the National Football League and eventually the Acme was dropped. Because their buddy was in business in Algoma, other Packers dropped by at his Wheeler's Recreational Parlors.

In pre-World War ll days, the Packers were catching on in Algoma. Maybe those who frequented Wheelers hung on to Cowboy’s stories and wanted to see the likes of Cece Isabelle, Don Hutson and Clarke Hinkle.  Before his death in 1939, the country was coming out of the Depression and gas and tires had yet to be rationed. A young man could take his best girl to the big city and rent a pop case for 5 cents. And why would one rent a pop case?  It was cheaper to stand on a pop case and look over the fence than pay admission at City Stadium, marveling “how about ‘dem’ Green Bay Packers!”

Sources: Family interviews; Wheeler's obit; Commercial Development of Algoma, Wisconsin, c. 2006; postcard in the blogger's collection.