Anniversaries in Years Ending with 3
This year we celebrated the centennial anniversary of the Lincoln Highway
A. What else of note happened 100 years ago
in 1913?
Construction:
1. First Masonic Temple building completed on corner of 23rd Street.
Matching half on south side was
Hibbard building
Actually started construction first
2. The third part, the south wing, of the normal school was completed
3. 1st Christian Church building at 2nd & Highway 30 was completed.
B. Go back 10 years to 1903 (110 years ago)
1. The economy improved; population
increased by 1000 in 1903.
No new buildings had been built in
downtown Kearney 1893-1902
Old dilapidated shacks were
disappearing and plans being made for new ones
2. Placing of Normal School
3. $10,000 donation from Andrew Carnegie for construction of a library
Construction began in late 1903,
completed in 1904
4. Dec. - Rep. Kinkaid introduced a bill for appropriation of $135,000
for construction of a federal building in Kearney.
Mar. 1906 – Sen. Millard’s bill for
$100,000 passed Senate.
Kinkaid’s
bill was still pending
July 1906 – Bill finally passed for a
new post office in Kearney [federal offices upstairs]
1908 – Building on corner of 23rd &
Central, presently occupied by KGFW, renamed Federal Annex
C. Go forward 10 years to 1923 – 90 years ago
1. Prohibition began
2. League of Nations established
3. Lincoln Highway roadbed east from Kearney reworked [10 years old]
When it settled it would be graveled
The Lincoln Highway the entire width
of the county would then be graveled.
4. Kearney’s 50th anniversary
City of Kearney incorporated in 1873
– 140 years ago
Would celebrate its Centennial (100)
in 1973
Will celebrate 150th anniversary in
2023
D. Go forward another 10 years to 1933 – 80
years ago
1. Mid-depression - April 1 – Kaufmann &
Wernert Department Store and Kaufmann & Wernert Five & Ten Cent Store,
located next door, combined into one store by moving the 5 & 10 into the
department store.
2. Heat & drought - June 6 – Temperature reached 102° , Omaha set a
record of 107°
Heavy dust storm came up at dusk in Kearney
3. King Kong was showing at the World Theater
4. June – Congress legalized 3.2 beer. Wyoming and Nevada allowed it but
Utah, between them, did not. Beer was manufactured in Wyoming and
shipped, legally, to Nevada. But not all of it got there.
E. Ten Years later in 1943 – 70 years ago
1. Feb 4 – Air Base began operations with
arrival of B17s
6 crashes of planes from air base in
1943 –
Two in Kansas
One in Texas
Wood River (crew); 2 miles east of base; north of base
April 2 – Kearney Air Base News started
2. August – Gladys & Merwyn Henderson married – active members of BCHS
3. December – Platte Valley State Bank opened
Passion Play performed for 2nd year in June 1933.
The Passion Play was performed on
Memorial Field while the audience sat on hill in front of present-day
high school.
Two men were in charge of the lighting the various scenes. They
needed a small lamp in order to read the cues for the big lights.
The light, of course, attracted a swarm of bugs.
One man spotted a toad near them, caught it and set it under the lamp
beside the cue sheet. The toad did not move except for quick
zzzt’s of his tongue.
The bugs soon disappeared.
[A 1933 bug zapper??]
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