I Want That Cow
The Leader Senatorial Guessing Game - A Chance to get a cow.
– The Leader and Weekly Edition | Jan. 1, 1893

Whomever names the senatorial nominee, the ballet upon which he will be nominated and the number of votes he will receive, can secure a cow from the Leader.  The guesses will be received until January 11, 1893.  The cow is the gist of our enterprising city engineer, Mr. Chas Alderman.  The lively interest which the people of Wisconsin are taking in the election of United States senator from this state has induced the LEADER to offer a premium of a cow to the person who will name the man or who comes nearest to it. Who will receive the Democratic caucus nomination, giving the ballet upon which he will be nominated and the number of votes he will receive.

Competition will be open to all, and each person will be permitted to vote as often as he chooses, using the LEADER blank provided below.  The guesses will be received until January 11, 1893, and the name of the successful person will be announced when the nomination is made.

Fill out this blank and mail to Political Editor of the LEADER.

Chad's Take: I want that cow!

I think we were all glad to see the 2008 Presidential race finally come to an end.  Even the most diehard political junkies suffered from exhaustion from the long drawn out process, yet this article has given me my second wind for elections simply because I could have won a cow.  Now I try to do my part and vote in local, state, and national elections, and I like to think I do it because I believe in the process.  However, if I was alive in 1893 you can bet that the only reason I would have filled out this card and voted would be for that damn cow.  It’s not like I would really even want to win the cow, it’s just that the contest is so cool I would have no choice but to participate.

This contest is pure marketing genius as you could fill out as many of the ballots as you wanted as long as you bought the newspaper as well.  I know radio stations, newspapers, and even Volume One give away a lot of cool prizes to their customers, but I don’t recall any of them giving away a free cow.   I realize that in today’s world most of us would not even know what to do with a cow, but that is beside the point.  So this is my challenge to the Chippewa Valley businesses, step up and give away a cow for a prize and you will garner my support and money.

  With the holiday and shopping seasons finally ending I thought it would be only fitting to share with you a few of the ads that ran in the December 20, 1894 edition of the Eau Claire newspaper. Most of us think of advertising as a recent phenomenon dreamed up by clever ad executives who sole agenda is to lure us into their stores to spend our hard-earned money on stuff we really don’t need. The truth is that marketing has been around in many forms for quite some time. P.T. Barnum, the greatest showmen to ever walk the earth, had mastered advertising throughout the 1800s with his genius use of the newspapers. Thanks to Barnum newspapers were filled with stories of Fiji Mermaids, Wild Men, Tom Thumb, and other dime store human novelties all set up to entice thousands of visitors to his New York Museum.  

  In honor of Barnum go ahead and take a good look at these Eau Claire ads and I think you will agree that they are simply terrific. I love the tobacco ad where they made no effort to hide the advertising agenda of the Climax Plug, the tobacco that every lover needs. It even has a drawing of a couple shown in a loving tobacco embrace. Also check out the Elkhart Carriage and Harness ad where for only $37.50 you could get yourself a brand new four-wheeled buggy for your family. You could also pick up a large farm wagon for only $43, but if you wanted a simple bicycle it would set back a whopping $55. Keep in mind that the average yearly income of a family in 1894 would have only been about $275. 

  I hope you enjoy these ads and that your holiday season was filled with gifts of linen goods, handkerchiefs, and fancy goods. If not, I at least hope that Santa left you some of his soap in your stocking.

  Keep an eye out …
 

Did Spooks Do It
Or Was it Spontaneous Combustion – A Remarkable Case on Broadway.
– Eau Claire Leader | Dec. 20, 1905

Mr. O. J. Arnstad, the carpenter, a brother of Ole Arnstad, the contractor, is up against it, or rather was up against it Saturday night. How could his cellar stairs and cellar way take fire without his knowing it? O.J. wishing to bring a bottle of his celebrated Juniper beer from the cellar, lamp in hand descended. On his way down he noticed in the wall a rubber brush, a small mirror and a few other articles of toilet.

Everything was calm and still and quiet. Having secured his bottle he ascended, but no sooner than he arrived in the kitchen than his little son Johnnie, aged 11, exclaimed; “Oh, Pa, I smell smoke!” The whole family rushed to the cellar door and to their horror found everything in flames.

The rubber brush, towel, and other articles were blazing on the floor. Mr. Arnstad luckily had his shoes on, so he jumped on them putting them out. Mrs. Arnstad and Jonnie ran with pails of water and soon it was discovered there was no need to run to the box at the corner of Sixth avenue and Broadway.

Some of the neighbors feel satisfied there is and had been for many years a ghost on that cellar. It must be either that or else a clear case of spontaneous combustion brought about by the rubber brush colliding with the towel and both getting mixed up with celluloid back comb which was also close by.

Chad's Take: What an adventure!

One main drawback to finding these great old articles is that they are really just a snapshot in time, and the article can not possibly cover every other element that is involved in the story. Such is the case with the current article. I just felt like there was something more lurking around outside of this story, so I decided to try and dig up some additional information.  However, this time my curiosity led me on a wacky adventure through Eau Claire’s past. Luckily for me the newspaper article gave out few starting points to begin my investigation with. First the paper listed the man as O.J. Arnstad and also stated that his profession was carpentry. With this little bit of information I was able to find out if Mr. Arnstad was listed in an 1884 Eau Claire City Directory under carpenters. He was. The directory had him listed, and I soon found out that O.J. Arnstad’s full name was Ole J. Arnstad. The directory also provided Ole’s address at 434 Hudson St.  Now that I had the man’s name and address I started hoping that just maybe his home was still standing in Eau Claire. The article was from 1905, which meant that even if his home was brand new when the article was written, it would be over 100 years old today. I headed down to the Eau Claire County Courthouse to visit the Register of Deeds to see what information I could gather about the property. It turns out the original home was constructed in 1880, and that the home is currently being used for several college apartment rentals.

Now that my interest in the home was fully peaked, I decided to drive down to Hudson St. to try and locate this mysterious house numbered 434.  In a matter of minutes I came upon a standard looking two-story home with the numbers 434 attached to it. The home had been split into several different apartments and looked like it had undergone renovation several times over the years (I did not check the building permits at City Hall to confirm this) but I noticed that the outside rock of the basement looked like it might have been the original rock foundation. Could it possibly be that the notoriously haunted basement of 1905, where rags spontaneously combusted, was still there and intact?  It was pretty dark outside so I really could not confirm that the outside stone continued down to the inside basement. Well I figured that there was only one way to find out. Ok fine, there were several ways I could have found out, but I picked the easiest and quickest. I simply got out of my car and walked toward the porch light and knocked on the downstairs apartment door. A young college girl opened the door and asked if she could help me. I awkwardly asked her if the address was 434 Hudson, and when she confirmed that it was, I asked if her apartment had a basement, and again she answered “yes.”  I then asked what was possibly the weirdest question of the night, when I said “could I come in and checkout your basement?” As you can tell by that last statement the experience I have gained from thousands of witness interviews has really paid off for me.  Not surprisingly she looked at me strangely and said “um why?” Now over the years of paranormal investigating I have learned that when it comes to the strange and bizarre, vagueness often pays off. With that I simply told her that I was doing some historical research on the home (true) and thought that the basement might be the home’s original foundation (also true).  I thought I had given her enough information to convince her that although I might have been weird, I was not a threat. I must have been right as she then escorted me into a small locked room where a large brown piece of plywood covered the ground. As she was lifting up the board’s handle she informed me that she and her roommates had never went down into the cellar, but that I could feel free to gone on down and explore. Now I have been in some of the world’s creepiest places so I wasn’t expecting much from this basement, but I was more than pleasantly surprised to find that the little cellar had some eerie character to it. The low basement ceiling was only about 6 feet off of the floor and the entire room was really no larger than 20 feet by 20 feet. I could see that the wood stairs had been replaced a few years back, but the rest of the place, including the dirt floor, looked like it hadn’t been touched in years. The best part was that one of the side stone walls had a small tunnel carved into it that ran underneath the house. Unfortunately I did not have a flash light or any mining equipment with me to investigate the tunnel.

I walked around awhile and took a few pictures as I tried to imagine the basement as it must have been like in 1905, complete with ghosts and items that spontaneously combusted. I climbed out of the cellar and slowly lowered the plywood back into place. I made my way towards the front door and stopped to thank the young woman again for letting a weird stranger traipse around in her house.  The woman then asked me if I had found what I needed, and she also wanted to know the history of the house. I paused for a second and asked myself if I should really tell her the truth and possible ruin a nice apartment for her, or should I continue with the vague answers. I started off telling her about the Ole Arnstad’s rags that burst into flames in the basement. I then warned her that the rest of the story might be a bit more bizarre, but she assured me that it was ok to continue. As soon as I told her that the neighbors of the area called the basement the “haunted basement” she politely screamed for me to stop saying “Ok, I don’t want to hear anymore.” Of course I could understand where she was coming from so I stopped the history lesson and thanked her once again. As I headed for the door, I thought to myself that if she was afraid of ghosts that she was lucky she stopped me before I could tell her that the former owner of the house, Ole Arnstad, also hanged himself in his barn which was now their backyard. But as I said before, vagueness is sometimes the best option.

Poisoning Must Stop
Ninth-Ward People Highly Indignant Over This Malicious Work
– Eau Claire Weekly Telegram | Dec. 8, 1905

A Ninth Ward resident writes that George Meriman’s shepherd dog and Chas Benner’s valuable water spaniel and other dogs and cats in the Ninth Ward have been poisoned; that two persons are suspected of having “gone into the business of poisoning dogs and cats;” that “they can’t compete for the president’s prize who is a great advocate of children and domestic animals; and are too morally depraved to keep domestic animals or too stingy to pay a dog tax and are jealous of their neighbors who do.”

Chad's Take: The article had potential

I really thought this article had some great potential. It started with the bizarre accusation that someone was poisoning dogs and cats in the Ninth Ward of Eau Claire. At this point I was all ears and ready to find out just who was behind these terrible acts, then the article went completely berserk. The writer lost me when they brought up plots of jealously over an animal tax and the competition for the president’s prize. By the end of the short article I had absolutely no idea what was causing the deaths of the animals.  If you did follow this story and want to do some community animal protection patrols of the Ninth Ward, it mostly includes the area surrounding Luther Hospital.

Keep an eye out ...

Fought A Vicious Buck
Eau Claire Man’s Terrible Struggle, Which May Result Fatally
– Eau Claire Weekly Leader | Dec. 1, 1898

Rice Lake – Fred St. Clair, of Eau Claire, fought for his life in the deer pen of Greenwood Park the other day, with a vicious buck. A barn in being built in the park for the deer quartered there, and St. Clair was sent to the park to measure some lumber.  After being once knocked down by the animal St. Clair grabbed the buck by its horns and for several minutes the struggle went on. At times St. Clair would be under and at times the buck, but the animal had the best of the struggle until help arrived, and the buck was killed. St. Clair was gored several times and may die.

Chad's Take: Happy Hunting

With deer hunting fever finally over the Chippewa Valley I thought I would share an inspiring story for all of you hunters that made it back to safety with your kill. Unfortunately former Eau Claire resident Fred St. Clair wasn’t quite as lucky as you were, because when Fred came face to face with a giant buck he wasn’t armed and ready. Actually Fred wasn’t even hunting. Fred simply made the mistake of trying to grab some lumber from the deer pen and was attacked by a large unprovoked buck. 

Sadly I was not able to discover the fate of Mr. St. Clair, but every person who goes out deer hunting in the Chippewa Valley should try to even the score for Fred. As for Greenwood Park, it is still located right off Highway 8 outside of Ladysmith, but if you decide to visit make sure you take Fred’s advice and watch out for the deer.    

Keep an eye out ...