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© Copyright 2003 EPICS TCHA Team at Purdue University, All Rights Reserved.
Purdue University instruments recorded the coldest temperature ever experienced in Lafayette at minus-33 degrees.
County commissioners inspected the nearly finished courthouse, adding Elias Max as an inspector. Final payment went to contractor Charles Pearce on Jan. 31. Total cost was nearly $500,000, double the original estimate. County offices all moved in from their temporary space by mid-February.
Mark Twain and Southern novelist George Cable, touring lecturers, entertained at the Grand Opera House. A newspaper described Twain as "droll" and Cable as "witty." Twain commented on the "very striking courthouse, very striking indeed. It must have struck the taxpayers a very hard blow."
The bitter winter continued with a snowstorm whipping 15-foot drifts along the Monon Railroad. Temperature fell to minus-19 degrees at Purdue; trains stranded 160 people at Monon, Ind., 40 at Crawfordsville. On Feb. 12 temperature reached minus-23 degrees.
From a U.S. Express wagon, grocery clerk Charles Schilling opened a package addressed to him near Main and Kossuth and found the remains of a dead infant. Later the package was claimed, legally, by another Charles Schilling, a medical student who lived on Hartford Street.
James Whitcomb Riley recited his "humorous dialects" at the People's Rink, one of several rollerskating arenas becoming popular. Newspapers also mentioned a Palace Rink and a Mascotte Rink, and said "colored people" used Pythian Hall for skating, novelty acts, bicycle stunts, polo games and races. [An unusually adept skater, Earl Reynolds, lived in Lafayette during this time, and later starred in vaudeville as "Skater" Reynolds. Card games called "baseball" and "traveling euchre" were also popular this season.]
Republican James Caldwell won election as mayor over Democrat John S. Pettit, secretary of the Merchants Exchange, 1,822 to 1,556.
In one of Lafayette's few lockjaw fatalities, Thomas Bresnehan, 19, died. He had crushed a finger May 16 in a machine that shaped crackers before baking in the Ruger Bakery.
The City of Lafayette built a memorial arch at Fourth and Main streets honoring President Ulysses S. Grant after his death. The Journal published a special edition, flags flew at half-staff and a parade took place.
Newspapers mention a "city park" with a rollercoaster, as well as a "Linnwood Park." And on the 16th a "riverside park" opened and people could ride to it on an excursion steamboat from the public wharf. [The latter may be present-day Shamrock Park off Wabash Avenue.]
BACKGROUND: The Journal described a Purdue University farm's research on varieties, fertilization and soils for growing wheat.
John A. Stein, 52, attorney, legislator, secretary of the Purdue University trustees, died after a 10-day illness. Surviving family included wife Virginia Stein, son Orth Harper Stein, daughter Evaleen Stein.
Curran Lodge 111, Knights of Pythias, organized with, perhaps coincidentally, 111 members.
Bowing to temperance advocates and the effects of their boycotts the past two summers, sponsors reopened the annual county fairs without allowing sale of beer from a tent.
The temperance movement turned violent when 40 women vigilantes smashed and burned a "dive" on North 16th Street called "The White Hat" while its woman proprietor was in jail.
Edward T. Jenks, 72, died. He had been county coroner, sheriff, a school board member, justice of peace, and proprietor of a soap and candle factory on Wabash Avenue.
Orth Harper Stein introduced his short-lived but fascinatingly advanced, illustrated newspaper, The Comet. It folded in April, 1886, when Stein fled to St. Louis in disgrace.
Lafayette newspapering peaked with introduction of the Star, the 18th in business at the time. Among others were the Comet, daily and weekly Journal, daily and weekly Courier, daily and weekly Call, Home Journal, Sunday Leader, Sunday Times, German-American, Purdue Monthly, and perhaps also the Bulletin, the Saturday Noon, the Public School, and Dispatch.
Lillian Russell starred in Polly in two Thanksgiving Day shows in the Grand Opera House.
Temperance forces formed a Law and Order League to enforce local liquor licensing laws.
John B. Ruger became postmaster succeeding Robert Sample.
J.F. Kinsey and J.E. Pauley began publishing The Echo for the Indiana State Musical Association, from an office on South Fourth Street. [Fire destroyed the offices and ended the life of the monthly paper in 1899.]
Florence Claspill filed suit in Circuit Court for return of a 30-foot strip west of the Monon Railroad on Fifth between Main and Columbia streets. It had been deeded to the City of Lafayette for a public Market Space by Florence and her late husband Aaron on April 19, 1847. She claimed that contrary to terms of the deed Market Space operations had ceased in 1876, so ownership should revert to her. (Her claim eventually was overruled, or else settled, for the Market Space has been retained.)