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© Copyright 2003 EPICS TCHA Team at Purdue University, All Rights Reserved.
Inspectors in April, 1889, had deemed as unsafe for further use the Main Street covered bridge over the Wabash River. Lafayette Bridge Company had won the contract to replace it with an iron bridge, but missed its Nov. 15, 1889, deadline, and the new bridge probably opened in early 1890.
Elma Whitehead was indicted along with Fred Pettit in the poisoning death of Hattie Pettit in July, 1889. Her bond, like his, was set at $10,000.
Boom conditions prevailed. Construction began on the belt railway. Shortly a new carpet factory was nearly built; the O'Brien Wagon Works, which employed 200 before fire destroyed it in Tiffin, Ohio, moved to Lafayette; a creamery projected to use 20,000 pounds of milk a day was being built at Fifth and Alabama streets; a union railroad depot was being built at Second and South; and construction of the federal building was about to begin at Fourth and Ferry.
Star City Federal Savings Bank was founded.
Purdue University opened its Electrical Engineering Building.
In a match for the U.S. wing shooting championship George Beck, Indianapolis, defeated defending champion Fred Erb, Jr., West Lafayette, 49 to 45 out of 50 released birds. About 400 spectators attended. [In a rematch on May 12, Beck defeated Erb 44 to 43].
Congress allocated $80,000 for a "public building" in Lafayette.
Parker Byers' billiards hall hosted an exhibition by national champion Jacob Schaefer, Chicago, one of Byers' proteges.
Tippecanoe County voters in referendum supported the Belt Railway & Land Improvement Company's endeavors with $100,000 to be raised by a special tax. The vote was 2,174 to 425. This led to a widespread spring campaign to attract factories to the railroad line. Among the possibilities: a second railroad car works, the Monon Shops, a cheese factory, a creamery and knitting mill.
The 1990 federal census counted 35,078 people in the ounty (Lafayette 16,243; West Lafayette, 1,242).
Charter members founded Lafayette Lodge No. 143 of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.
The Lafayette City Council contracted for brick paving of parts of Main, Third and Fourth streets.
On the day set for trial, the prosecutor dropped the murder charge against Alma Whitehead in the Hattie Pettit poisoning case.
The Lafayette Belt Railway & Land Improvement Company put on sale 500 lots in its Belt Railway Addition between South and Main streets between reservoir park and Earl Avenue. The company sold more than 100 lots the first day for $125 to $375.
The Allen Knitting Company announced that it would move factory operations from Michigan City to the empty Lafayette Agricultural Works building on South Third Street, and employ 300 to 400 people.
House painter George Bennett stood accused of murdering John Werkhoff and William Scott near Fifth and Ferry streets. The shooting episode stemmed from Bennett's suspicion that Werkhoff and Scott had cut his paint brushes and referred to him as a "scab" during a labor dispute.
Republicans swept contested Tippecanoe County elections run under a number of new laws, including the use of voting booths, and the division of the county and cities into precincts or wards.
A Montgomery County court, to which the case had been transferred, convicted Fred Pettit of the poisoning murder of his wife, Hattie, and sentenced him to life imprisonment.