The Cook County herald. [volume] (Grand Marais, Minn.) 1893-1909, 1901-01-26
TOBOGGAN GONE OUT.
Once Popular Winter Sport No
Longer In Favor.
The nunnerlesa sleds Are Seldom
Seen Even ON the snOw-Cla1
Hills of the North-Discard-
.s 2, ed by Society.

Reliable reports come from Mime
sofa and other far north states where
they have hills and things that they
can slide on when there is enough
snow that the toboggan is dead
one!" The long fat board with the
turned-up nose which used to fly
down the steep frozen deciyities with
the speed of cannon ball will fly no
more, at least for the present. 1t has
been relegated to the walls of dens
and clubrooms, where it sticks silent
~ an alleged article of decoration of
the relic pattern:
Society went back on the toboggan,
and when society goes back on bit
of sporting goods the goods might as
well hunt for it's sarcophagus and
crawl in and let society seal on the
capstone. Time was when the erst-
while toboggan was the warmest VIM
ter favorite that ever cavorted among
the frozen hills of the northern states,
but it has gone the way of all other
favorites that have reigned with too
much popularity. But few short
years ago winter without the tobog=
gan in the billy country would have
been like a Fourth of July without
p fireworks. The season would have
been nought but bitter patch of mel
ancholy. In those days the young
folks would have gone into spasms Of
Indignation and vexation if they had
been deprived of the privilege of to-
bogganing. But now the toboggan
has gone: down the slide, and there is
no evidence that it is going to come
back up, says the Chicago Chronicle.
A few winters ago the 'toboggan
Juror that reigned in the parts where
the sport had any show whatever att
tracted the attention of the entire
country. The daily newspapers, the
weeklies and the magazines displayed
long, profusely illustrated articles on
the sport, and the popular indulgence
in it time and again and people who
had no more prospect of ever seeing
toboggan than they have of seeing
the north pole, talked of the runner
less sleds and their awful flights with
breathless interest. Stamped in the
mind of every reader is the picture
of the long snow and ice embank-
ment, with torches down the sides and
in the middle of the slide, the big to-
boggan filled with boys and girls fly
ing down the declivity at the rate of
q mile minute. When the reader
saw this time-honored old picture for
the first time he always held his
breath and calculated. in low, smoth-
cred tones: "My, isn't that just
awful?" and at the same time he had
a secret longing to- be on the spot and
| try one whirl down the chute.
long persuasion to induce the extreme
~ timid to ever board toboggan, but
after they had once taken trip they
:hungered for more of "the' same"
with greater avidity than anyone else
on the hill. When the sport was at
the height of it's popularity in St.
Paul and Minneapolis it was we'll
worth a trip to the Gopher cities to
see the amusement in full blast on a
cold winters night. Everybody owned
toboggan Or belonged to toboggan
club. At night the frozen hills and
snow and ice-covered entertainments,
built sometimes especially for the
sport, were lighted up with great
torches until they were as bright as
day, and swarming about on every
hand were men and women, Young
and middle-aged, dressed in their fam
tastic red, white and blue blanket cos
tunes and streaming from their
heads were the long points of the
knitted caps that were pulled down
over their ears like nightcaps.
And the great slides prepared for
the use of the toboggan meant mile
a minute ride down a steep incline,
every foot of which was fraught with
peril. Many wild tumbles ensued.
many ears and noses were frozen, and
yet the toboggan dropped in popu-
larity with as sudden and hard a thud
as the roller skate. just as in the
case of the roller skates, when the to-
boggan was at it's height, the sales
made by sporting houses were enor-
nous, considering the size of the cit
les. One firm alone in the city of St.
Paul sold in a few months in the
neigh borhood of $4,000 worth of to-
boggans.
The advent of the toboggan brought
skis into high favor. The first ones,
made Of Norway pine, had monopoly
for awhile. but American ingenuity
and inquiry speedily disposed of the
absurdity of sending all the way to
Norway for skis. Some genius discov-
cred that Georgia pine was just as
good for the purpose, and that wood
is now used almost exclusively for
the manufacture of skis in the Unit
ed States. From the peculiar charac-
ter of the Georgia pine snow will not
adhere to it.
Auburn HAIR i'm Politics,