By HAILEY NELSON
Staff Writer
__100 years ago__
Aug. 30, 1923
• A Puxico Frisco train coach cleaner is reported attacked and in serious condition after an altercation with 10 former employees of the railroad.
Sam Riley was at work when the incident occurred. Three were arrested.
Riley was attacked with knives and clubs by men who said he was instrumental in them losing their jobs during a strike of shopmen and other crafts the previous fall. “Since that time, the feeling between the men has grown to a serious state and the climax came unsuspected to the people of Puxico and to authorities.”
• A mother and child narrowly escaped death after being thrown from a wagon near the Goodwin & Jean poultry house on South Fifth street this morning. The large mules were frightened by a Missouri Pacific locomotive, it was reported, and the pair were nearly trampled. They had come to town from their home near the Hargrove bridge to sell poultry.
“The little child’s life was probably saved by its mother clinging desperately to her and endeavoring to protect the child with her own body exposed to the feet of the mules,” it was reported.
The mother was struck in the neck by the mules and the child suffered a fractured ankle, but both were expected to return home the same day.
• A Poplar Bluff youth was injured by an ice pick while children were playing “mumble-peg,” throwing the pick in the air. The ice pick went through the boy’s wrist and exited the other side. He was taken to Dr. Bailey for treatment.
• Citizens of Chicago are running out of the streets and into the safety of their homes in fear of millions of mosquitos swarming the city. The mosquitos were suspected to have come out from the Des Plains river. Many businesses closed due to the severity of the swarm. Drugstores found their shelves wiped clean of mosquito repellent and itch relief antibiotics. The only ones out in the streets seemed to be the firefighters who were lighting smudge fires through the streets.
__75 years ago__
Aug. 30, 1948
• A 14-year-old Roy Adams of Chicago kills an 8-year-old Nancy Schuler while they were playing together. Reports said they argued over a comic book. He was sentenced to 14 years in juvenile detention.
• Goodyear Service, 421 Vine St., phone number 2117, offers a 10-day sale on tires. Reduced to $10.95 plus tax, from $12.95, the shop overed an entire set for $1.25 per week and “liberal trade-in allowance.”
__50 years ago__
Aug. 30, 1973
• School lunches have taken a major hit this year due to the beef shortage, rising food prices, and a cancelation of the federal milk subsidy. The price of a hot lunch went up 5-10 cents through schools across the nation, with the average going from 40 cents to 45 cents a day for lunch.
• Poplar Bluff schools report enrollment for the 1973-1974 school year of 5,714. This includes: Eugene Field, 466; Oak Grove, 232; Lake Road, 215; J. Minne Smith, 252; Wheatley, 203; Williamson-Kennedy, 276; Kinyon, 302; Mark Twain, 479; O’Neal, 556; junior high, 975; and high school, 1,758.
Editor’s note: This is part of a regular series looking at today in Poplar Bluff’s history through the pages of the Daily American Republic and its early predecessors.