Barney Oldfield: The Man Who Taught America to Go Fast

 

(The Atlanta Journal. September 25, 1910)

Barney Oldfield was probably the most famous race car driver in America when most Americans didn’t own a car.

 

That was part of the fun of it.

 

Oldfield raced anything that moved and some things that probably shouldn’t have. He started with bicycles, moved on to motorcycles, then climbed into racing cars that were little more than giant engines bolted onto skinny wheels. 

 

He smoked cigars while he raced, got himself suspended more than once, and never seemed terribly concerned about what the people running the sport thought of him.

 

For twenty years, Barney made a pretty good living scaring the hell out of people.

 

As a teenager in Toledo, he worked odd jobs until he saved enough money to buy a bicycle. Bike racing was big business in the 1890s. There were tracks all over the country, newspapers covered the races, and expert riders could pick up prize money and sponsors. Oldfield turned out to be pretty good.

 

He was also pretty good at promoting himself.

 

He called himself the “Bicycle Racing Champion of Ohio” and sometimes raced with a bottle hanging around his neck that looked like it contained whiskey. He later said it was vinegar, which may have been true. Either way, everybody noticed the bottle.

A Murder in Dixon, California

Susie and Lewis Belew (San Francisco Examiner. November 14, 1897)

The small town of Dixon, California, had a genuine murder mystery on its hands at the beginning of November 1897. Two of its most popular residents, Louis and Susan Belew, died suddenly after suffering terrible stomach pains. Their hired hand, Bruno Klein, just scraped by. For several days, it was touch and go. The doctors weren’t sure if he would make it or not.

It was supposed to be a time of celebration. In two weeks, Louis was to marry Cara Ferguson and Susan Charlie Ehmann. 

They had dinner with their brother Frank the night before they died. Frank got sick and said he vomited, expelled his meal several times, then had a headache. Susie gave him some headache powder and sent him home shortly after 7 p.m.

Charlie Ehmann arrived at the house at about 9:30 p.m. He remembered locking the kitchen door when he came in.

Everyone was fine the next morning. Louis and Susie sat down for breakfast. Louis walked down to the livery stable so Bruno could go to the house and eat breakfast. By the time Bruno finished eating, Susie was vomiting all over, so he went down to the stable to send Louis back. Bruno found Louis was as sick as his sister when he got there.

Stonewall Jackson At The First Bull Run

General Thomas Stonewall Jackson (Century Magazine. 1884)

By noon, the Confederate left was falling apart.

Union troops had crossed Bull Run that morning and hit them hard. Men who had marched onto the field expecting a quick fight were suddenly stumbling back through the woods, bleeding, exhausted, and scared. Officers tried to stop them. Some did. Plenty kept going.

 

The fighting rolled south toward Henry House Hill.

 

General Barnard Bee had been in the middle of it for hours. His command was chewed up. Regiments had lost their shape. Men were scattered through the trees and along the road. Bee rode through the wreckage trying to pull something back together.

 

Then he saw Jackson.

 

Thomas Jackson had brought his Virginia brigade onto Henry House Hill and planted them there. While men from other commands streamed past, Jackson’s Virginians stood in line waiting for the Federals to come.

 

They did.

Jesse Pomeroy: The Boy With The White Eye That Stuck Out

 

Jesse Pomeroy, age 12

The “boy with the white eye that stuck out” dominated the headlines around Boston in 1872. He beat and mutilated six young children between February and September, disappearing into thin air after each attack.

His first victim, Tracy Hayden, age 10, told Marshal Drury that “a boy with a white eye that stuck out” enticed him to follow him up Powder Horn Hill on February 21, 1872. When they got to the top, he locked him in an outhouse.

“Strip at once, or I’ll kill you,” he screamed.

Once the boy’s clothes were off, the attacker took off his belt, lifted his victim to the rafters, and made him cross his wrists while pinning him there. And then, while the boy dangled in midair, he beat him across the back with a fence post.

“If you cry, make any noise, or kick,” the boy cautioned him, “I’ll kill you.”

The attacker untied the boy and let him fall to the ground when he finished. “Stop inside here all night,” he said. “If you move out, I’ll kill you.”

Iowa At The Crossroads: A Blueprint For The Future

 

Something new for me. Don’t let the title throw you. It’s not political. It doesn’t tell you how to think. Just gives you something to think about. You can pick up a copy  on Amazon.

Who’s deciding Iowa’s future… and are Iowans part of the conversation?

Across the state, billion-dollar decisions are changing Iowa.

Farmland is becoming data centers. Rural hospitals are closing. Cancer rates remain among the highest in the nation. Young people continue leaving while many communities struggle to survive.

None of this happened overnight. And none of it happened by accident.

The choices being made today will shape Iowa for decades. They’ll determine where jobs are created, where families can build a future, and what kind of state the next generation inherits.

Yet many of these decisions happen with little public debate. By the time most people hear about them, the deals are already done.

A Murder Mystery in Aledo, Illinois

 

Allie Dool

In September 1902, Aledo, Illinois, found itself plunged waist-deep into the biggest murder mystery the town had ever encountered. Marie Antoinette Dunlap (Tona) stood accused of killing her best friend, Mary Alma Dool (Allie), to get her $4.00 a-week job as a clerk at Felix’s Store.

At first, the authorities considered Allie Dool’s death an unfortunate accident. The coroner’s inquest said the same thing. It was accidental poisoning.

A few days later, suspicion centered on Tona Dunlap. 

State’s Attorney Will J. Graham questioned the decision of the coroner’s inquest and began looking into the details of Allie’s death. He tried to question Tona but met a brick wall. Every time he asked a question, she said her attorney advised her not to say anything. 

Then Dr. Carter, the pharmacist at Craig’s Drug Store, told Graham Tona bought five cents worth of strychnine on Sunday, August 3. 

That gave the state’s attorney the ammunition he needed to go after Tona Dunlap. The next person he spoke to was Margaret Miller. She told him about her shopping trip with Tona Dool the day Allie died.

The Murder of Cherry de St. Maurice At The Mysterious Cherry Club

 

Cherry de St. Maurice

Someone strangled Cherry de St. Maurice, the mistress of the mysterious Cherry Club, in her room on July 8, 1913. Cleo Sterling, a girl in the resort, discovered her nude body face down on the floor at 5:45 Tuesday afternoon. Maxine Meyers, another resort girl, heard a scream at about 8 a.m. but ignored it, thinking it might be the creak of a door.

Police Inspector Koening determined Cherry put up a desperate struggle for her life. She had bruises on her arms and shoulders, and the strangler’s fingers discolored her pretty pink neck.

Cherry always wore expensive jewelry and kept valuables in her room, so the detectives supposed the motive was theft. Newspapers reported she lived in constant fear of robbery. 

In 1911, her piano player, Jack Palmer, teamed up with another man to steal Cherry’s jewels. In between sets, Palmer piled a stack of jewelry and other valuables by a window in Cherry’s room. Unfortunately, his accomplice’s timing was off. He crawled through the window while Cherry came through the door. Both parties ran away.

Later that year, an “insanely drunk” Japanese man named Iwasaki shot it out with six patrolmen during an attempted robbery. No one got hurt in the incident, but the papers had a good laugh poking fun at the lawyers and businessmen who fled the club half-dressed.