End of Year Bits

Note From Bryce Erickson – October 4, 2011
        In 1912 his grandparents, John and Mary Harmon, and their daughters Frances, Esther & Alma,
left their Iowa farm and moved to Kearney so the daughters could go to the Normal school and become teachers.

        John Harmon had a wagon & team of horses and ran a dray service.

        Frances, the oldest, graduated in the spring of 1913.  That fall [school year 1913-1914] she taught in a rural school in north west Nebraska.  The next year [school year 1914-1915] she taught a rural school South east of Miller Nebraska.  During school year 1915-16 she taught at Riverdale School.  Here she met Bryce’s father,  Albert Erickson, a farm boy in the Riverdale area.  They were married on March 8, 1916.

        Bryce ended his note by saying, “We owe a lot to our college in Kearney for our growth and Progress over the years.”

Facts Gleaned from Kearney City Directories
Consumers Public Power District became NPPD in1971

Central Avenue Upstairs – 2nd & 3rd floors

Generally speaking

There are 2-36 rooms/apartments upstairs per building – 2 & some 3 story buildings
In 1960 most were used as professional offices and residences
In 1994 most were vacant

Some specifics

2004 Central – 1960 – 14 apartments, 4 vacant – residential

                      1994 – not listed [unused commercially]

2102 Central – (north half of the former Schwesers)

        1960 –  Street level – Hawthorne Jewelers

                    Upstairs, 2 floors - 36 rooms, 6 vacant
                    2nd floor lawyer, insurance, real estate offices; 3rd floor residential
        1994 – Upstairs – not listed [unused commercially]]

2116 Central – Redman Shoes street level

        1960 - 9 upstairs rooms used by dentists, chiropractors, & insurance
        1994 – Still Redman’s but upstairs not used

2201 Central – 1960 – Ayer’s Clothing; upstairs 19 rooms all offices, about ¼ vacant
        1994 – Lungrin’s Men’s; upstairs not listed

2223 Central – 1960 – Platte Valley State Bank Building

                                  Included KGFW on street level
                                  Kearney Beauty Academy in basement
                                  6 apartments upstairs
                       1994 – KGFW

                       2011 – KGFW occupies street level and 2nd floor

                                  3rd floor unused, remnants of apartments indicates there was one central cooking area

                                  Basemen unused, scraps from buety school remain

2300 Central – 1960 – Paul’s Broiler at street level; 9 apartments, one vacant upstairs 2 floors
                      1994 – Valcom Computer at street level; nothing upstairs on either floor

2313 Central – 1960 – Gregerson’s Jewelry & Dee’s Food Mart at street level
                                  Upstairs: Wort Apartments – 17 apartments, only one vacant
                      1994 – Jerry’s Barber Shop at street level

                                  Upstairs:  Wort Apartments – 9 apartments, one used as a storeroom, other 8 occupied

Other Buildings Discussed

       
Yanda's - former Baumgartners

        Baumgartners used second floor for sale of school text books for rural school districts

        Yanda's uses it for music related activities

Masonic Lodge Building

        World Theater in part of street level

        Business offices on second floor

        Masonic organizational use of 3rd and 4th floors

Car Licenses

1917-1918 – Men who came into Kearney from towns in the county to get their car tags were reported in the Personals column of the Hub.
 

Hub March 3, 1919 - Last Year Tags

Auto Owners Warned to Get License Tags for This Year.

        The state department is on the trail of owners who are still operating their last year car license. It is charged that several thousand cars are carrying a 1918 license. The 1919 license were ready for distribution in January but the department gave a few weeks grace in order that all might secure the new tags. Hundreds were issued during the year, but there are still thousands who are “sneaking by” on last year’s tags. The police will be ordered to round them up, which means a fine.

Hub Classified Ads July 1921
Found--Car license No T22170. Owner may have same by calling at Hub office and paying for this ad.
 

[Car license numbers were issued in consecutive order by the state.  This license tag would have been for the 22,170th car registered in Nebraska.]

Hub November 26, 1921
        In 1922 the car licenses were to begin the new numbering system using a hyphen and a number for each county. Also a car was to have a tag on both the front and back so it is easier for “speed cops” to get the number of “fleeing motorists”

[The article gave the impression that the number assigned to each county was based on the population of the county. Other sources have said it was based on the car population, not the people population.]

Also in state news in the same issue – In Lincoln the block had been cleared of 120 trees, leaving 3 large pines in the northeast corner, in preparation for construction of the new state capital. Work would begin in the spring.

Interesting Fact
 

Archives record of 1886 Buffalo County Bar Association listed 32 lawyers practicing in the county. [and that was before the Boom really got under way.]

Current  2011 phone book – yellow pages – 50 attorneys with offices in Kearney
        This was not counting those lawyers holding public office, working for private industry, and other circumstances for not having an office.

        Most were listed again according to their specialty – bankruptcy, divorce, criminal defense