100 years ago

june 26, 1913

The excavation preliminary to the paving of Main street east from the stone arch bridge was begun this week. The street east from the Hoch blacksmith shop corner will be 28-feet of brick in the center and five of concrete, including gutter, on each side.

How do you explain it? There are people who will sit in the park, take advantage of the seats and swing provided without any expense to them and enjoy lounging there where grass and flowers and beauty generally have been brought about by other people’s care and money — do all that and then scatter paper and trash around and go off and leave it to mar the looks of the place — when trash cans have been provided and it would take only a few steps to put the stuff in them. Out of what sort of stuff are some folks made, anyhow?

Less than 10 years ago people were congregated on Main street examining a strange concern, then called “a horseless carriage,” which Jerry Forney had bought in Kansas City. It was Marion’s first automobile. And a crude, rattletrap it was compared to the splendid machines which now throng our streets. Yes, this is a progressive age.

Elmer Healea, Marion’s alert Marshal, is mighty unpopular with peripatetic pedestrians, more familiarly known as hoboes. They hardly alight from a passing freight train, or blow into town in any old way, before Healea is on hand with a polite but persuasive request for them to move on. And they move.