Millennium moment: Feb. 16, 1912

[Jason]

Millennium moment: Feb. 16, 1912

Tuesday, February 16, 1999

Story last updated at 8:03 p.m. on Monday, February 15, 1999


By Bill Foley
Times-Union senior writer

The Killarney Girls were grounded, but the daring young men got to fly.

Black Patti was shut down, but it was OK to jump out of a balloon.

Thirty dainty dancing darlings, including the famous Yama Yama girls, were locked out, but young men got to play guns.

On Feb. 16, 1912, Charlie Leach and Tom Delcher had had enough.

The managers of the Orpheum and Duval theaters, respectively, embarked on a course of civil disobedience.

The City Council had just enacted, and Mayor W.S. Jordan endorsed, a bill forbidding dramatic productions on Sunday.

The ordinance affected vaudeville and two Jacksonville theaters, the Orpheum and Duval.

The Four Killarney Girls were told to go home from the Orpheum on Sunday. The voice of Black Patti was stilled at the Duval.

Yet aviators Theo Lillie and Max Kantor drew hundreds to a Sunday air show at the fairgrounds. Three men jumped out a balloon at the Florida Ostrich Farm. Harry Six high-dived into a bucket of water at the Broad Street carnival. The Kilties Scottish band was coming to town, and Miss Mabel Hackney and her Dancing Horse. The Kalem Motion Picture Co. was filming the entire local militia recreating the Battle of Tripoli...

Leach and Delcher took exception to the majesty of the law.

Bring on the Killarny Girls, they said, and Black Patti and the Yama Yama Girls, and hang the consququences. And sure enough at Sunday performances in defiance of the law the local constabularly appeared and led Leach and Delcher away, beginning a legal battle that would last in various guises over the years.

The Florida Times-Union likened the affair to Gilbert and Sullivan's Mikado. Delcher and Leach, the paper reported, ''were taken to the city jail by a set of curious chances.''

The Mabel Paige stock company arrived home in Jacksonville for a well-earned lay-off after a strenuous tour of matinee and evening performances throughout the South.

Detective W.B. Cahoon arrested one of two men accused of flim-flamming a tourist out of $165 by betting him he could not open a pocketkinife.

City police Lt. Fred Roach arrested self-described showman P.E. Toot on a variety of charges after he allegedly attempted to induce a 17-year-old woman clerk at a downtown hotel cigar store into leaving town with him to join a Wild West show.

A New Jersey man told police his pocket was picked of a wallet containing $470 on the street car to the Florida Ostrich Farm. The victim said he took out his wallet to pay the car fare and missed its weight when he took his seat.

Source: http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/021699/mom_MilFeb16.html

[Jason]

Millennium moment: Feb. 5, 1908


Friday, February 5, 1999

Story last updated at 7:52 p.m. on Thursday, February 4, 1999


By Bill Foley
Times-Union senior writer

Inclement weather prevented aviators Lincoln Beachey and Capt. Jack Dallas from dropping money over Jacksonville from their flying flying machines.

A number of checks totaling $100 and passes to the Mid-Winter Exposition, at which Beachey and Dallas are appearing, were to have rained from the sky, but real rain rained instead.

Also postponed at the exposition were Old Settlers Day, All Jacksonville Day and People Named Smith Day, all of which, and the flights, were rescheduled for the following Saturday.

Exposition spokesman E.J. Stokes said he especially regreeted postponing Smith Day, as a number of people named Smith already had registered for a variety of prizes and contests, despite the stormy weather.

Stokes also announced the Counsel II, the clever chimpanzee, had been relocated from his Dixieland Park quarters to the exposition's Palace of Industry.

''Since the reading of Counsel's hand by by Dr. Silverfriend, as recently published, with illustrations, in the Metropolis, the great chimpanzee has been the cause of countless questions, study and investigation, and that he now has been placed where he can readily be seen by every visitor of the exposition is an announcement that will interest everyone.''

Also booked at the exposition after their run at the nearby Dixie Theater were the Lewis Trained Dogs.

''In the presence of a good crowd of people at the Florida Ostrich Farm and Zoo, Mr. and Mrs. Adolph Tupperwein of San Antonio, Tex., and J. Howell Hawkins of Baltimore, the celebrated marksman, produced a revelation of the wonderful possibilities of modern arms and ammunition in the hands of experts.''

Col. Frank McDermott, ''lover of good horse flesh and one of the most enthusiastic race horse men in the business,'' said Jacksonville was ideal for winter training headquarters. McDermott said he wanted to hear from Jacksonville men interested in a race track here.

Kansas temperance crusader Carry Nation, who said she had foresworn saloon smashing and hatchitation in the cause of abstinence, was expected in the city for a week of public apppearances.

Source: http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/020599/mom_MilFeb5_.html