Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1903-03-03
CINDERS.

On beautiful, hazy Indian summer s
day in the September of 1869, some car.
penters were putting the finishing
touches to the building that for more
than thirty years stood as house OF
Pleasure, at the corner of Third and
Washington streets, known as jacob
Kplter's Music Hall.
The town of those days was raw and
uncouths t. Il degree ineomprehensible
10 the generation of today-Kolter was
laughed at for his 'hindsightedness
in putting his Opera House so far
out of town The boys used to say,
You can't get anything wet at Jake's,
he's too far from the river" In the
block opposite the Court House were a
couple of small buildings owned by
Mr.. Farnham, aad where the Rohde
store stands now, was the little home
of hlack>m th Air. Pareher's house
was tire one mansion IN the place, and
hr was on thss edge of a raging wilder
ness; 10 the east, the site of the Wash
lington school about marks the Iine of
the black and forbidding shadow of
the pines forest primesal, deep, dark
and dangerous.
The streets were humpy and bumpy
and always muddy aud the blackened,
chopped or splintered pine stump was
as much in evidence as the telegraph
pole on our streets of today.
We had no railway trains to bring u
daily reports of The narrowing ups aud
downs Of the markets-we had no need
to sqnabble over what disposition to
make of some plutnerat' offer, of
S2J, 900 for public library wants
were small, and our hopes were none
too rosy We were little band of
pioneers set down at the edge of an
empire rich, vast aud mighty.
Que had but to go out into The night
when the stars We're shining, when the
wind was soughiug through the pines
of that black Pail in the east, and the
river was moaning in the west, to have
the sense of AN almost overcoming lone
illness pressed home with tremendous
powcr-the music of the wilderness
was always good and heavy
But the afternoon of that long Sep
tember day wore on to twilight.
1t was the new Halls opening night
The kerosene lamps were lighted early
and early, too, came the little band of
musicians, whose ability to m IKE dance
music, we wont expatiate OF, at length,
as some of the members of that remark
able orchestra are still doing business
at the old stand The society element
of Wausau 90 had been on tipt0e tor
weeks and as soon after supper as we
could git the. paper collars buttoned
around our necks we started for the
party. Men, women and children in
all kinds sof clothes, but with clean
hands and faces and a slick chair
comb.n some dogs and maybe wolf or.
wi Feat paid their respects to the new
building and the proprietor that night
The men inspected all the depart
ments" thoroughly, the women gossiped
as only women can on extraordinary
occasions of this kind and the children
fell asleep or got lost. Two or three of
the W. men folks had pretty big hoop
skirts for these parts and they were
tremendous swells. One beautiful
young damsel Ga grandmother now,
whose sanity face we see not infre-
quently on our streets we remember
distinctly as the belle of the ball. But
all good things come to an end and so
this night.
Money Musk, Old Dan Tucker and
Virginia Reel, with once or twice a
"polky" kept the feet flying until early
morning and with the last good night
and the last light out the Hall was
started on its long journey ofthirty odd
years of pain and pleasure, prosperity
and poverty through Youth, Maturity
and Decay TO demolition. 1t seems
strange 10 stand at the corner of Third
and Washington now and think of that
opening night. Where have all the
years gone to? Where is the record OF,
all the events that have transpired be-
meath its hospitable roof Where is the
history of all the lives that have found
surcease from the everlasting struggle
thereg And what was the purpose of it
all MILES ANGUISH.