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Pages of History
With the war over and the boys returning home, plans were announced to organize a baseball team. This would be the first town team since the war began in 1941. The plan was for Laurel to join a new league comprised of eight nearby towns. The proposed Cedar County League would include Laurel, Coleridge, Hartington, Menominee, St. Helena, Pleasant Valley, Constance, and Bow Valley. It was agreed that no hired players would be allowed on any of the teams.
At a meeting in the light plant, it was decided Earl Rimel would manage the team and Earl Miner would pitch.
Miner was recognized as one of the top pitchers in the state. He pitched his first game for Laurel in 1927 at the age of 15. He pitched his last game for Decatur in 1956 at the age of 44. In 1938 he was recognized in “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not” column for striking out thirty Crofton batters in a game that lasted twenty innings. Miner turned down an offer to pitch for the Cleveland Indians stating that he could not support his family on the $60 a month salary they paid. In 1975 Miner was inducted into the Nebraska Semi-Pro Hall of Fame. Robert Earl Miner passed away in Laurel’s centennial year of 1993 and was buried in Tekamah where he had lived since 1954.
The Advocate of April 3, 1946, reported a somewhat less-than-daring heist of four places of business. Burglars first broke into Harold Macklem’s liquor store and made off with five or six cases of whiskey and Macklem’s shotgun. Possibly fortified with liquid courage, the burglars next entered Breezie Kint’s cafe and ran off with a carton of cigarettes. From there they headed east on Main Street to the Holmquist Elevator office where they stole Art Chederquist’s revolver and some postage stamps. They finished their crime spree at the Minneapolis and Omaha depot where they stole more stamps.
Sheriff Ralph Clements was called in to assist Marshal Frank Curtis in the investigation of the great postage stamp robbery. No arrests were made and the case remained unsolved. Sheriff Clements said the Laurel burglaries were similar to others reported in neighboring towns.
The annual village election was held on Tuesday, April 2. There was so little voter interest that the election judges and clerks had trouble staying awake. Only 31 votes were cast for three seats on the village board. Jess Truby got 30 of them; W.W. Leinbaugh, 28; Art Chederquist, 20.
It was the same story in the school board election where only 32 votes were cast. Ralph Gailey received 31; Dr. R.P. Carroll, 30; Harold Tuttle, 20. A crowd estimated at 250 was on hand for the dedication of the new Archer landing strip on the Isom and Briney farms northeast of Dixon. Two planes and pilots were present to give rides. It was announced both planes and pilots would return every Friday to give flying lessons and rides. The goal was to organize a chapter of the Flying Farmers. But before that could happen, enough farmers had to learn the difference between driving a tractor and flying a plane.
A new bus line begin serving Laurel on April 13. An Arrow Stage bus would leave Laurel every morning at 8:00 a.m., arrive in Omaha at 11:15, and Lincoln a little after noon stopping at towns along the way. The bus would then leave Lincoln at 5:45 p.m. and return to Laurel at 10:30. The driver would make his home in Laurel.
As railroad passenger service to Laurel had been discontinued on the Wakefield branch in 1942 and on the Burlington in 1943, the new bus line was welcome. “This is a fine improvement and will give us the outlet to the south that we have needed for some time,“ said the Advocate.
A sample of city water was tested by the state and pronounced fit to drink. The main problem was finding water. Several test wells were sunk in different parts of town in an effort to bolster the town’s water supply. Too much water was the problem when Laurel was founded in 1892. Too little water has been a problem in recent years.
The national news section of the Advocate reported that an amendment was tacked onto another bill that would increase the federal minimum wage from forty cents an hour to sixty-five.
In one of his last “The Safety Valve Pop-Offs” columns, Editor Allison wrote a curious editorial: “There is a group of warmongers in these here United States that ought to be taken out and shot. They did all they could to shove us into World War I. They repeated it in World War II. And now they are doing their darndest to push us into another one. The reason? They wax fat on the spoils of war. They clean up more money than most of us know exists in the world, and they do it at the expense of bloodshed by your sons and mine. There is not one drop of patriotic blood in their whole bodies, but they wave the flag and invite the rest of us to fight an absurd war that has no rhyme or reason.“ Allison did not identify the people who allegedly pushed America into two world wars in order to get rich at the expense of the lives and welfare of ordinary Americans. Let’s hope it doesn’t happen again in ‘26.
Happy New Year from the Tryons.
