Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on December 20, 1935.
Kouts Has Tree, But Holiday Garb For It Seems Unlikely; Fire Chief Wise Sets Record
(BY ROBERT ALLETT)
KOUTS, Dec. 20.ーKouts has a Christmas tree, but unless the American Legion decides to do something about it at their meeting tonight, there won’t be any lights on it this year. The tree, which might be used, is located in a park owned by the Pennsylvania railroad. No public observance of Christmas is planned for the community, which hasn’t celebrated the coming of St. Nick with anything special in the past five or six years.
The town board at its meeting Monday night turned down a suggestion that it buy a tree and trim it, for two reasons. In the first place town board members think the merchants should sponsor such a project and in the second place they remember that the last time a tree was decorated it stood in the downtown district until the middle of summer!
Of course, the Holidays will not come and go unnoticed here. Individual merchants have spread the cheer in their business establishments, J.G. Benkie’s Drug store with an attractive old English display in its windows, and Henry Dux, Fred Perry, Roy Wandry, Rasmussen’s, Quirk’s, Walk’s, Denison’s, Lee Murray, and Lee Fleming all having tinsel and festoons, or setting up brightly colored trees both in and outside their establishments.
Today at the high school which [illegible from water damage] a two week’s vacation, pupils were entertained with programs and treated to gifts. Grades one and two, three and four, five to eight and the high school held separate parties. Dramatics, music and surprise packages were headliners on the various programs.
Santa Claus will appear Tuesday night at Walt’s grocery and at Quirk and Co., distributing free candy and trinkets to several hundred children.
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Even if the fire didn’t amount to much, Chief Si Wise thinks he hung up something of a record in responding to an alarm Thursday morning at 10:20. The siren screamed while Si was up on a ladder in front of a local grocery store where he was decorating a Christmas tree.
Si jumped to the ground, made a hundred yard dash to the nearby fire station, broke the glass in the key box when he found the door locked, and unassisted drove the engine to Jim Herring’s Tavern, scene of the excitement. It was merely an overheated chimney burning out and when Jim shut the draft off the fire died down.
Nevertheless, Si had come and gone with his apparatus before other merchants in town, who had heard the siren, could get outdoors to see where the fire was. At least that’s the story.
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The last 1935 meeting of the town board, held Monday night, marked the farewell appearance of William Salzer, clerk-treasurer, Chris Daumers, president, and Carl Peters councilman from the fourth ward Emil Hofferth and Fred Perry remain [illegible from water damage] board for another term and new members who will make take over their duties after Jan. 1 are Gust Rosenbaum, who replaces Daumers, Oscar Maxwell, who replaces Peters, and James Griffith, who is the new clerk-treasurer.
