The Owosso times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1897-1926, 1918-06-21

the hardware stores, In the way OF
snowshoes and skis-which aren't
entirely popular in the milder south
Michigan towns-canthooks and peav-
les and other lumbermen's tools. Other
exceptions you see on the streets fire.
quently; big, bronzed giants, with
hobnailed boots and stag pants" the
cutoff trousers showing a bit of bright
red or rough gray "Mackinaw socks"
Every street Is wide much wider
than the average city street Every
one of these thoroughfares is paved
or macadamized, and the main street
has row of five-lamp, ornamental
iron boulevard lights up its middle
that put those in most any metropolis
to shame. Another highway, which
few years ago was blazed trail
through the woods, is beautifully boule-
varded.
Modern and Prosperous.
Every hOuse-and there are some
pretentious brick and stone struc-
lures has a wide lawn, carpeted with
green velvet. There is big, shining
new brick and stone high-school build
ing, occupying, with its Fairgrounds
and lawns, two ordinary city blocks;
smaller, frame ward-school and a
handsome courthouse and sheriff's res
idence. The latter buildings face
municipally-owned park with as much
natural beauty, save water, as Belle
Isle, Detroit. And there are churches.
and parsonages, and store buildings Of
brick where frame structures former
ly stood, and plentiful sprinkling
of private garages back of the resi-
dences, and every other evidence Of
thoroughly modern, prosperous town.
Newberry today boasts $500 inhabi-
tants. exactly $500 more people than
lived there before the railroad came
and showed the possibilities Of Glover
land. Luce county has approximately
5000 citizens, and more are coming
every year, attracted by the rich farm
lands. Besides it's chief industry, the
village has one of the largest hard
wood flooring mills in the world. The
Newberry State Hospital Is situated
a mile south.
The people will never allow the
memory of the family to which they
owe the existence of their village to
lapse. The streets are named in hon
or of various members of the New
berry family, such as John, Helen,
Harriet, Parmalee, Phelps, Robinson,
and Charles, and it is forcible re-
minder of President Roosevelt's cabi-
net member to stand on Truman"
boulevard, between Handy" street and
"Newberry" avenue.
The Founders Don't Forget.
There are other reasons. too. for the
perpetuation of the family name in
Newberry. One of them is the Pres
byterian church, donated to the village
by Mrs. Helen Newberry, widow of the
late John S., and mother of Truman
Handy Newberry. Then there's the
story they tell In the village of the
time when one of the churches was
$3.50 in debt and in need OF modern i'm.
provements, such as a steam-heating
plant One day, the distracted and des-
perate minister, so the story goes,
punched" all the money he could
scrape together and went down to De.
troit. When he came back he had with
him check for $1,000, signed by Tru.
man II. Newberry, and the next Sun
day there was an elaborate "burn-the-
mortgage" ceremony in the house of
worship.
Another reason exists in a big tract
Of land, with deliberately planned build
ings, just on the outskirts of the town,
known to this day as "The Newberry
Celery Gardens" II was here, as the
headquarters Of a chain of four vast
farms-the others were located at
Seney, Dollarville, and Sage, up and
down the railroad-that experiments
costing thousands of dollars were car.
rfed on thirty-fve years or more ago.
Experiments for what?" the citizen
repeats as he tells the story. why.
the experiments carried on by the
Newberry family and their associates
to prove TO skeptical world that the
wilderness of the upper peninsula
would produce practically any product
Of the earth that you can mention.
The big farms, the big crops and the
big loads of produce that 60 through
Newberry to the railroad shipping
dock almost every day, in season.
prove the experiments were not based
on wild dreams"
And thus Newberry, Michigan.
stands today as the justification of
those visions of public welfare that
grew and were nurtured In the minds
of the elder Newberry and his fellow
pioneers as they literally burrowed
their way through the jungle of the
north. The village sits, smiling and
content and waxing fat and beautiful.
in the midst of far-hung fields of green.
She thrives and expands under the
stimulus OF her furnace and sawmiIl
and chemical and flooring plants, and
under the mighty strokes Of her lum-
berjack sons