100 years ago

april 4, 1912

The first heavier-than-air flying machine to make a flight in Marion County will be the big attraction of the 4th of July celebration here this year. A contract was closed Monday evening by the Commercial Club with the Young Aviation Company. The contract calls for at least four ascents during the day.

One of J.F. Kelley’s hens laid an egg the other day that measures eight and three-quarters inches around one way and six and one-quarter the other. You simply can’t put one over on Marion County hens.

John Alexander is something of an inventor. He has designed and made, with the assistance of tinner Gibson of Florence, a tin box for use in shaking the names preparatory to drawing the jury list, and has presented it to the county. If this contrivance doesn’t shake ‘em up nothing will.

John Bitner has called friends into his shop to see a library table which he has finished—and it is certainly a beauty, both in design and workmanship. It is made of walnut with the top made of alternate strips of walnut and birch, and as a piece of joining and all around workmanship would be hard to beat. The design was made by his son, Fred Bitner.

Mrs. Fred Collett and little girl were here from Elk for several days the first of the week. The roads were so bad that it took three or four hours to make the trip from Elk.

Ralph Powers and W.H. Carpenter were near Inman on a hunting trip several days last week. They bagged a big bunch of ducks and a number of geese.