A Book of the Saint Paul Police 1838 - 1912 — 11
On November 23rd, 1903, the police circles of St. Paul and Minneapolis were astounded when Dr. Bal D. Turner and Frederick L. Magee both colored and the latter an attorney drove up to police headquarters and turned over to the police Tony Calderone, the slayer of Salvadore Battalia in a fight with knives on the Franklin Avenue bridge in Minneapolis. Magee defended Calderone who was given a 20 year sentence at hard labor.
About Christmas time of 1903 there occurred a number of burglaries which were traced to a number of men and on January 23rd, 1904 Judge Jaggard sentenced seven of these men to from 6 to 10 years each in the penitentiary.
On January 17th, 1904, William Allen a veteran letter carrier of St. Paul was arrested for robbing the mails delivered to the St. Paul Dispatch containing subscriptions. Allen went to the penitentiary, served a short term and was paroled.
On January 7th, 1904, Genl. George L. Becker, prominent democratic politician, several times candidate for governor, died.
On January 25th, 1904, Albert Gross shot Andrew Mair, a saloon keeper during a row over the purchase of a pack of turnips. Mair recovered and there was no prosecution.
On February 16th, 1904, David Parker a colored boy quarreled with Fred Watson, a white boy in a Midway livery stable. Parker struck the white boy with a piece of lead pipe and killed him. The colored boy served five years at Stillwater for the crime.
On February 4th, 1904, occurred the first serious Selby Avenue tunnel accident, when the brakes of a bobtail slipped and twelve people were more or less injured.
On February 24th, 1904, Theodore Boret, prominent citizen of the city, died of heart failure.
On March 10th, Hiram F. Stevens the famous local legislator and legal light, died.
On March 10th, 1 904,Virginia Arlund, now a famous actress quarrelled with her parents at their home on Dayton’s Bluff near the Indian Mounds because they would not let her marry Atkins Lawrence. The parental objection was to the fact that Miss Arlund was a mere slip of a girl while Lawrence was a gray haired veteran of the stage. Miss Arlund then drank poison and was found just in time to save her life. They were afterwards married but in 1910 became estranged and Lawrence died heartbroken a few days before this history went to press.
On April 6, 1904, the body of Louis Moberg was found murdered in a freight car in the lower depot yards. Joe Lewis and Aleck Stewart were arrested and returned to Milwaukee for trial.
On April 25th, 1904, John H. Allen, a veteran wholesale grocer of the city died.
On April 8th John Regan was taken to St. Joseph’s hospital dying from knife wounds inflicted by John Strong during a fight in C. W. Swanson’s saloon, 248 East 7th street.
Saturday night, April 16th, citizens aided in one of the biggest raids on blind pigs ever attempted in St. Paul. Seven piggers were arrested and later fined and sentenced in court, and a large quantity of liquor was confiscated.
On May 9th, 1904, Benjamin Gibbons, a well known school teacher of North Dakota killed himself in St. Paul by shooting rather than face poverty.
One of the most famous trials for a robbery in Ramsey county was decided by a verdict of not guilty on the 12th of April, 1904, when Anton Zarembrinsky and Joseph Proehl were acquitted. They were charged with a set of highway robberies and there was very little question of their guilt.
On May 17th, 1904, John R. Sanborn, a pioneer lawyer and statesman died.
On May 4th, 1904, Robert A. Smith was again elected4 mayor of St. Paul over F. P. Wright by a majority of over 4,100 votes. The democrats made a sweeping victory, the republicans electing but one assemblyman, two aldermen, two justices and two constables. The lone assemblyman was Herbert P. Keller, who later became mayor of the city of St. Paul. On the eve of the election Col. A. R. Kiefer, a former mayor of the city and former congressman, who was the republican candidate for city comptroller, died suddenly. William A. Gerber was substituted for him on the ticket and lost by only 2,000 votes to Louis Betz. Col. Kiefer’s body lay in state in the Court House and on the 8th of May he was buried with civic and military honors.
On the 25th of May, 1904, a burglar entered the saloon of Henry Jonts, 739 University Avenue, and shot and wounded Christopher M. Brettschneider and Christian H. Froberg. All recovered and the burglar escaped.
The body of a stylishly dressed woman with a silk tie knotted tightly about her neck was found floating in the Mississippi river June 28th, 1904. No trace of her murderer was ever found nor was her name ever discovered.
Because Mary Zitka did not keep an appointment with him June 15th, 1904, Frank Eppel, a well known citizen killed himself by drinking carbolic acid at the City Hotel on July 12, 1904.
Prof. Edward E. Herr, a hypnotist, shot and seriously wounded his paramour Blanche LaMonte at the Empire theater and then turned the revolver on himself. Neither died.
Andrew Brown a well known citizen of St. Paul was drowned at Forrest Lake on July 11th, 1904. He had fallen from a boat.
William I. Stine, formerly Chief Clerk to the General Manager of the Omaha Road, was arrested July 14th, 1904, charged with having stolen eight thousand dollars worth of railroad bonds from the estate of William A. Scott, his former employer. He was later sentenced to the penitentiary.
James Bowe and James Phillips, two young men, engaged in a fight with knives at Como Park July 29th, 1904. Phillips was killed; Bowe was later acquitted.
Stepping from a Great Northern train on September 15th, 1904, Carston Stewart, traveling through the city, shot and killed himself in the Union Depot.
P. P. Maury, a well known traveling salesman, was found dead in his room at the Magee hotel, October 4th, 1904, with the gas turned on. No one was ever able to discover whether it was suicide or not.
On August 22nd, 1904, the city was visited by the worst storm in its history. Six people were killed and nearly 200 injured. The high bridge was torn in half by the force of the storm, and a loss of over two millions of dollars in money resulted. It was the first and only cyclone that St. Paul ever experienced.
On October 12th, 1904, J. T. Putnam, the best known bookkeeper in the Northwest shot and killed himself worrying over ill health.
On October 14th, 1904, Chief O’Connor ordered the strictest enforcement of the curfew ordinance.
On October 15th, 1904, B. M. Scammon, a young inventor of Minneapolis, and a woman with whom he was living, experimenting at the Germania Life Building with a new patent rope fire escape, plunged to their death.
