Almanac: This week in south Lake County history

• Reprints

100 years ago

February 16, 1912

Since our last report very little has been found out concerning the man found frozen to death in the Binyon Barn at Cedar Lake, a week ago last Monday. The last trace of him was at about noon, the Saturday before found, when he went to the Binyon Point saloon and paid a nickel for a drink. It is quite certain that he spent nearly all of the $3 he was known to have on the west side of the lake for underwear, etc., and from Saturday until Monday morning, when he was fund frozen with bruises and scratches on his head and body, it is not know where he was. The matter still remains a mystery, but many think he was carried and put in the barn after engaging in a fight.

The “Krimbill lot,” owned by Mrs. Walter Tompkins, south of the Dietel place, on South Main street, which was offered for $400 a few years ago, was sold this week by Henry Junkers for $1,000. The lot has 132 feet front, and was captured by a Chicago party. That is about the increase in price that all Crown Point property has made in the past few years.

A straw vote was taken in this place recently for President with ten loafers present, and it counted out Roosevelt nine and Taft one.

A large sleigh load of youngsters came from the north to this place, last Monday evening, to try their luck at roller skating.

75 years ago

February 19, 1937

Ushered in by a three-hour program of historical reminiscences by county officials on Sunday afternoon, Lake county’s hundredth birthday on Tuesday, February 16, was marked by commemorative programs in the schools and by a centennial banquet, sponsored by the Old Settlers and Historical association, prime-movers, likewise of the Sunday observance. County Recorder Frank Borman, president of the sponsoring association, presided for the afternoon recollections in the Lake circuit court here. Mrs. Joseph E. Brown, general chairman of the banquet committee, as she was Crown Point’s centennial celebration in 1934, was hostmistress for the dinner and program.

The little seasoning of regret found in all satisfying things was furnished today in the form of a letter to Mr. and Mrs. Frank Knight from Muriel Bagby, daughter of Rev. George Martin and Georgia Ball Martin, telling of her inability to come to Tuesday’s Centennial banquet as a recent letter from the Knights had urged her to do. That, in itself, Mr. Knight though sufficiently regrettable but there in a single sentence of her note lay information that would have meant so much to the pioneer descendents at the Centennial dinner Tuesday night: “It happens that February 16 is grandpa’s birthday.” Grandpa, of course, to Mrs. Bagby, is the Rev. Timothy H. Ball, who did invaluable work in setting down the earliest history of the Lake county, whose birthday is Lake county. His birthday is also on February 16. On Tuesday Mr. Ball would have been 111 years old.

50 years ago

February 16, 1962

Crown Point high school’s “Marching Bulldog” band, which Carl V. Smolik directs, has been invited by Philip Maxwell, director of the Chicagoland Music Festival, to appear as the featured marching band at the Festival August 18 at Soldier field. This enviable honor is given to one marching band each year and bands from all over the United States have appeared in past years. Last year’s high school band was the nationally known Hialeah Thoroughbred Band of Miami, Florida. The festival, one of the nation’s outstanding musical events of the year, annually attracts from 80,000 to 90,000 music lovers. Drawing talent from over the U.S. and Canada, it features contests, with vocal, piano, accordion, choral, and concert groups. Invitations are extended to a featured marching band and to stars of the theater, the Metropolitan Opera and other nationally know professional talent. Past shows have presented such entertainers as Bob Hope, Gladys Swarthout, Bing and Bob Crosby, Roberta Peters, Liberace, Patti Page, Gordon McRay and Hoagy Carmichael.