Retrospect: News clippings convey flavor of Olde Lannon
Sussex Sun, Posted: March 26, 2008
As the 1928-29 years rolled in, Lannon was taken up with the effort to incorporate as a village. After a few false starts, it finally succeeded in 1930.
Here are some newspaper clippings (paraphrased) I found from that era.
Dec. 28, 1928
In what might have been a very serious incident at most any other time of the day, about midnight last Thursday night the boiler at the Lannon Garage (today the Lannon Post Office building) blew up. The explosion was so loud it could be heard for miles around. Many fast-asleep villagers thought a dynamite shack at one of the local quarries had blown up.
In fact, though, the proprietor, Mr. Felton, worked late that night and left at 11 p.m. The last thing he did was attend to the fire keeping the boilers going that heated the garage.
Less than an hour later, the heating plant was in ruins and the building shattered. A hole had been torn in the concrete floor, the northwest corner of the building had a gaping hole in it so large a car could have used it for an exit, and the concrete block walls were pushed out of plumb, in some cases by two feet.
This sequence of disasters was investigated by the Lannon Volunteer Fire Co., which discovered that a previous boiler repair had not been properly done or inspected.
A Lannon Fire Co. member said that if people had been present at the explosion, “The result would certainly have been disastrous.”
July 4, 1929
The Lannon Fire Co. held a Fourth of July picnic and dance at Maas Grove. A big open-air pavilion was erected for refreshments, the Nettesheim Play Boys band and dancers. The funds raised will pay for a new 500-gallon Presch pumper firetruck.
Nov. 9, 1928
The proprietor of what was then the Willow Springs Roadhouse at Whiskey Corners (Town Line and Mill roads), Edward Wildisch suffered wounds to his leg and chest. The chest wound was just above his heart, but the police report said a rib bone bent the knife blade upward, saving his life.
The assailant, railroad section hand Charles Tisch, went to the roadhouse Sunday evening and got into an argument with Wildisch, who ordered him to leave. Police took Tisch to the Waukesha County Jail, where he was charged with assault with intent to do great bodily harm.
Sept. 6, 1929
A combination of circumstances, misunderstandings, bad telephone communication, people passing half-accurate information on to others and mangling of the facts in the process erupted in Lannon this past week.
It all began when the driver of a little Ford coupe, possibly under the influence tried to turn his car around in front of the August Gius home, only to end up with his wheels in a ditch. He then went to the Gius home for help. Mrs. Gius called the Lannon garage at 11:15 p.m., but no one answered . She then called the Louis Gissal tavern. It was a bad connection, however, and Gissal misinterpreted the message, figuring it was a car accident and possibly a fire.
Gissal then raced over to the Main Street fire station and rang the fire bell, alerting the whole village. The firefighters responded, and dashed off to the Gius home, only to find the coupe with its wheels in the ditch.
The incident attracted a lot of onlookers, who nearly lifted the car onto firm ground. So many people drove to the scene, including some late-arriving firefighters, that they created a traffic jam that took an hour to clear.
When the little coupe finally returned to the road, its starter would not engage.
Knowing Lannon’s old-time firefighters, I figure that incident gave them a lot to talk about after they got back to the fire station and the village’s many taverns. (Though Prohibtion was still the law of the land, Lannon prided itself in those vendors of “snake-bite remedies.”)