Here’s a sample of what readers of the Star-Telegram read on January 1, 1916.
The Star-Telegram noted some firsts of the new year, including first marriage license issued, first court proceeding held, and first guests registered at various hotels, including the Westbrook, Metropolitan, and Terminal, the latter two built by Winfield Scott. Note the “Stop Haynes on the interurban.” The newspaper often gave locations relative to interurban stops, which often were named for a nearby street. Haynes Avenue is three blocks east of Ayers Avenue on the East Side.
Early in the twentieth century prank phone calls on New Year’s Eve were popular among merry mischief makers. At 5:25 a.m. Ollie Warren phoned his boss, city tax assessor and collector James S. Bradley, who answered the phone in his nightie.
A jitney was a free-lance taxi or bus. Northern Texas Traction Company, which operated the interurban and city streetcars, hated jitneys because they were competition, charging just a nickel a ride. In 1916 Fort Worth would get a Ford factory branch, the first of three auto-assembly sites to open here between 1916 and 1918. Note the telephone numbers: L for “Lamar” and R for “Rosedale.” Fort Worth began its system of phone exchanges in 1910.
As Europe entered the second full year of the war, the United States was still fifteen months away from declaring war on Germany.
Parker sold a self-filling fountain pen.
The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 was passed, in part, to regulate patent medicines. But sales of such concoctions remained healthy. If you started the new year in 1916 suffering from salt rheum, you might take a swig of Hood’s Sarsaparilla. Like many patent medicines, Hood’s contained alcohol (18%). Likewise Foley’s Honey and Tar Compound (7% alcohol). La grippe was influenza. Dr. Bell’s Pine-Tar-Honey also contained alcohol. Its maker was once fined for fraudulently claiming that the elixir cured croup, whooping cough, incipient consumption, catarrh, and diphtheria.
On the other hand, note that this discreet little ad says not a word about what Chichester’s Pills would cure. Chichester’s Pills were sold as a “female regulator”—a remedy for menstrual problems. But the open secret was that Chichester’s Pills were used as an abortifacient, even though the American Medical Association in 1911 had cast doubt on the likelihood that such pills could produce such a result.
A Chichester’s Pills box from the early 1900s.
The Federal League existed as baseball’s third major league during the 1913-1915 seasons. Teams included Chicago Whales, Pittsburgh Rebels, and St. Louis Terriers. Notable players included Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown, Charles Albert “Chief” Bender, a member of the Ojibwe tribe, and Joe Tinker, who as one-third of the Chicago Cubs’ Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance double-play combination would be immortalized in the poem “Baseball’s Sad Lexicon.”
J. Frank Norris of First Baptist Church often preached sermons to men-only audiences.
By 1916 Fort Worth was served by ten passenger railroads, including Texas & Pacific, Katy, International & Great Northern, and Rock Island.
Railroading was a dangerous line of work.
The comic “Bringing Up Father” comic ran in newspapers from 1913 to 2000.
Patrons of the Majestic Theater enjoyed “vaudeville of quality.”
The year 1916 was a leap year, and the Star-Telegram held a contest for poems about leap year. This poem alludes to the previous fashion of hobble skirts and the new fashion of “wide fluffy skirts.” (Postcard from Wikipedia.)
