Early Times Capsule

By Jim Zbick

jzbick@tnonline.com

The new year of 1912 was just days old when a cold wave descended over much of the eastern portion of the country.

On Jan. 6, a weather forecaster said that the single-digit temperatures were the coldest weather the eastern portion of the nation had experienced in years. After a slight moderation over a few days, the thermometers again plunged during the second week of the month and this time, there were fatalities.

Years before the airplane emerged during the first decade of the 20th century, ballooning had been the one way to conquer flight.

Before ice hockey teams in the U.S. and Canada began competing for the Stanley Cup, aeronauts were competing in a balloon race with the winner receiving the Bennett Trophy.

In 1911, a writer for the Tamaqua Courier noted how balloon races, despite their slow-motion-like movement, had become very competitive between America and Canada.

By jim zbick

jzbick@tnonline.com

In 1911, a writer for the Tamaqua Courier joked in his column that had one of the "old Puritans" stopped by for Thanksgiving dinner the size of the feast would have been enough to honor "the Lord of Gluttony."

In offering a brief history lesson, he explained how the "purely New England institution" of Thanksgiving had first spread through the Northern states by about 1830, and then down through the South by the mid-1850s.

A writer said the young woman "majored" in horse thievery, once leaving hundreds of pursuers in the dust with her fleet-footed mustang during one caper.

The 18-year-old brunette was also described as being "perfectly beautiful." She was sometimes accompanied by a companion, "a flashily-dressed young man who is also handsome." The pair worked the town of Mount Pleasant and the surrounding area.