130 Years Ago
April 5, 1895
Trouble has been brewing between factions of the saloon men and gamblers lately. Wednesday morning at a little before one o’clock the crisis came. From what we can learn all parties had been indulding in a little too much liquor. The trouble occurred in the saloon of A. A. Weatherspoon & Co., just south of the Bank of Alliance. It seems several were before the bar when some fellow came in and pulling a revolver fired a bullet through the floor. The Proprietor Nate Hart and others proceeded to take the revolver from the fellow. Soon, Wm. Hough claims, he was struck over the head with a revolver by Nate Hart, and that then he (Hough) pulled a revolver and commenced shooting at Hart, chasing him around the room and not stopping until his revolver was empty.
125 Years Ago
April 6, 1900
Dell Doze, whose home has been at Crawford most of the time for the past year or so, was sent to this city Tuesday night from Deadwood, and Wednesday adjudged insane by the board here. Sheriff Sweeney and Miss Jessie as attendant left Wednesday night with Della for Norfolk, where she will be placed in the asylum. Her unfortunate condition is doubtless the result of too much morphine and liquor, and it has been remarked for sometime that she has been acting rather queer.
120 Years Ago
April 4, 1905
Commencing with this issue the Semi-Weekly Times is trying as an experiment the plan of giving to its readers the latest and most important news of the world by telegraphic service. This is done only at heavy expense on our part, and whether or not it will be continued will depend upon the appreciation shown by our subscribers and patrons.
115 Years Ago
April 8, 1910
Wednesday afternoon Justice of the Peace Zurn listened to the airing of the troubles of Jacob Kaper and Joseph S. Kaper, brothers, residents of the northwest part of the county, in Lawn precinct. The latter is charged with going to the home of the former in the dead of night and loading up sixty bushels of wheat hauling it to his place and putting it in his granary. The following morning the plaintiff claimed to have followed the wagon tracks to his brother’s house.
110 Years Ago
April 6, 1915
Chief Jeffers is receiving considerable training in the art of self defense, but he has yet to come out second best. His latest battle was with Paul Urban, a man about five feet four inches in his socks, but who weighs about 180. He has shoulders as broad as those of Jess Willard and a hand like a sugar-cured ham. Urban was arrested Wednesday afternoon after he had succeeded in making a general nuisance of himself and had insulted several women on the street. Chief Jeffers was called and started for the jail with Urban. When near the city hall, Urban asked where he was going. Jeffers told him and the fight was on. Urban caught the chief by the coat sleeve and proceeded to paint the colors of the rainbow on his face. The chief worked him around and planted a left-handed haymaker on the prisoner’s jaw which dropped him like a wilted collar. He then proceeded as far as the jail door where he took occasion to kick Jeffers in the shin. Then Mr. Jeffers walloped him over the head a couple of times and flopped him into the cell. Urban was fined $25 and the costs by Judge Roberts.
105 Years Ago
April 6, 1920
“Lock me up, chief, for I’m afraid if you don’t I’ll get into trouble and maybe get sent to the penitentiary.” These were the words of Harry Leonard, confessed drug addict, as he walked into the police station Saturday night about 8 o’clock and addressed Night Police Chief Reed. “I’m out of ‘dope’ and I’m afraid if you don’t put me in jail I might break into some store or commit some other crime in trying to get some,” Leonard continued. “I don’t want to do anything like that, but I’m afraid I can’t control my desire for morphine and am apt to do anything to get it, so please put me where I won’t do anything rash.” Chief Reed complied with the request and locked Leonard up in the “bull pen.”
100 Years Ago
April 3, 1925
The Postmaster General punishes six employees, reducing them to a lower rank, because of their activity in getting more money for Post Office workers.
95 Years Ago
April 4, 1930
Alliance high school has been chosen to participate in celebration of the two-thousandth birthday of the Latin poet Vergil, according to announcement by H. R. Partridge, superintendent of the local schools.
90 Years Ago
April 5, 1935
A series of theft cases throughout this region may be solved as a result of arrests made in Alliance during the past 10 days which have resulted in three men being held by Scotts Bluff county at Gering. Bits of evidence have been collected from a wide area in western Nebraska in the past three weeks in an exhaustive search conducted by officers in several counties, working with State Deputy Sheriff E. E. Clark. A shotgun, an auto battery, auto tires and accessories and items of general merchandise, all allegedly stolen, are now in the possession of authorities.
85 Years Ago
April 5, 1940
A bunch of kids who spend their evenings playing in the parkway on Box Butte avenue above Tenth street have drawn the wrath of motorists who pass that way of an evening. The young miscreants throw clods of earth, rocks or any other material they can get at cars and then run behind neighboring houses until the motorists disappear. One irate motorist says he is going to come up behind them some evening, cut off their retreat, and administer the kind of punishment their parents have apparently neglected.
80 Years Ago
April 6, 1945
The Alliance chapter of Future Farmers of America will be hosts to the area group of other chapters in the annual convention to be held here April 21. In cooperation with war time recommendations of limited travel, the state has been divided into four areas, with meetings to be held in Norfolk, Beatrice, Kearney, and Alliance.
75 Years Ago
April 4, 1950
Two teenage youths admitted to Alliance police Saturday that they were involved in thefts from cars in the city during the past months. The boys admitted taking articles from a car parked near a local automotive store and also admitted the theft of gasoline from several cars and trucks in Alliance.
70 Years Ago
April 7, 1955
An article in the April issue of American magazine is of special interest to Mr. and Mrs. William H. Fredrick, 510 Yellowstone. Their son, C. W. (Bill) Fredrick, is a Coast Guardsman on one of two ships mentioned in the article entitled, “They Crack the Ice for Mastery of the Arctic.” The ships, Coast Guard and Nave icebreakers, currently are exploring the treacherous, ice seas of the Arctic Ocean from Alaska to Labrador.
65 Years Ago
April 7, 1960
Doctors Center, a corporation, has let a contract to Walter Mischnick, Alliance contractor, for the construction of its new medical building at 920 West 10th Street. A spokesman said today that the modern structure of brick will be in the shape of an “H”, with one wing for the physicians and the other for the dentists and optometrist.
60 Years Ago
April 8, 1965
An oil and gas lease between Donald E. Turek of Hemingford and the Sinclair Oil and Gas Co. was filed in the office of the Box Butte County Clerk today. The lease is on land 19 miles west of Berea. It provides that if there is no drilling on the 480 acres by March 30, 1966, the lease will be terminated.
55 Years Ago
April 7, 1970
The Alliance Rural Fire District unit, manned by six volunteer firemen from Alliance, assisted three other rural fire departments Monday afternoon in controlling a grass fire that blackened an estimated three sections (about 1,900 acres). It is believed that the origin of the fire was near a Panhandle Rural Electric line northeast of the Frank Messersmith ranch buildings on Long Lake Route.
50 Years Ago
April 9, 1975
Vandalism in the past few days has caused over $2,000 in damage to property, and a report issued by the Alliance police department Wednesday shows that 54 vandalism incidents reported in March resulted in some $5,021 worth of damage. Four new vandalism incidents that apparently occurred overnight were reported to police Wednesday morning, and the total damage by these acts was around $900.
45 Years Ago
April 8, 1980
Local and state Civil Defense (CD) officials met in Alliance last week on a fact-finding mission in preparing an information-resource guide for the Alliance-Hemingford area. The guide would be used by the local area Civil Defense Director, city and county officials in case of a nuclear attack on this country. “The guide is a new philosophy that officials back in Washington D.C. have tested with and proved to be most effective if an attack is conducted against this country,” Shirley said.
40 Years Ago
April 8, 1985
Great Western Gets New Name: John Howard, Account Executive with Curtis J. Hoxter, Inc. a public relations firm working for Tate & Lyle, Inc., announced today that Tate & Lyle signed final papers with Great Western sugar on Friday. The final closing makes the sale official and give the company a new name, Western Sugar Company.
35 Years Ago
April 6, 1990
The City of Alliance is supporting a proposal to restore Essential Air Service to the City of Sidney after that southern Nebraska Panhandle community lost its airline service late last year. The federal government discontinued providing Sidney with EAS subsidy at the first of the year, forcing GP Express Airline to discontinue service to the community.
30 Years Ago
April 7, 1995
The Burlington Northern Railroad will be adding four new receiving and departing tracks to the south yard of the Alliance complex. Under the current system train cars which need to be repaired are being stored on track that could be utilized for incoming and departing trains. After the south yard project is completed the trains will complete a loop.
25 Years Ago
April 5, 2000
AHS Senior To Spend Year In Peru: Thumbing through her Spanish textbook, Erin Hansen ponders life south of the border. This summer, Hansen will utilize years of Spanish classes when she travels to Peru for a year as a Rotary exchange student.
20 Years Ago
April 9, 2005
The featured exhibit for the month of April at the Alliance Public Library will be a quilt collection owned by Kristin Kestersen of Alliance. Each of the quilts in her collection are hand-made by either herself or friends and family that have given them to her as gifts. Her collection started when she was a young girl with a quilt given to her by her great-grandmother with butterflies sewn on each block, which is still her favorite to this day.
15 Years Ago
April 9, 2010
State Veterans Cemetery Administrator Allen Pannell was the keynote speaker at the DeMolay soup supper on Thursday evening, offering a slide show about the progress of the first Nebraska State Veterans Cemetery, through all the challenges, and ultimately, successes. So many aspects of the construction “required a lot of precision,” said Pannell of the placement of the crypts, an d the soil variances that made excavation a challenge.
10 Years Ago
April 8, 2015
For the second year, Newberry’s will become home to a game show, and local residents will take on celebrity personas, for some rounds of Hollywood Squares.
5 Years Ago
April 8, 2020
Box Butte General Hospital has further restricted the visitation policy effective Monday, April 6. Box Butte General Hospital will no longer allow visitors in the facility, including the Greater Nebraska Medical and Surgical Services Clinic. For the safety of patients, visitors and hospital employees, there will be no support persons for patients with a pending COVID-19 test, or with a confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis.
*Compiled from The Alliance Times-Herald Archives by Christine Melcher