The Good Old Days

LONG

Posted By: Joey Stark
Date: 7/10/2006 at 08:03:16

Fairfield Daily Ledger
Saturday, August 25, 1928
Pg. 4 Cols 5 & 6

Letters to the Editor

The Good Old Days

Editor Ledger: We often hear the remark, "There is more liquor sold in Fairfield and more drunkeness today than in the days of the open saloon." But some of our older citizens are inclined to doubt this statement.

The writer can well remember back in the early seventies (sic. 1870s, that is), when the population of Fairfield was about 1,800, there were fifteen licensed saloon in town, a brewery and an indefinite number of "bootleggers," who paid no license. Drunken brawls and fights were daily occurrences, and it was not uncommon thing to see drunken men lying under the trees in Central park their faces covered with flies and other insects.

Circus crowds, Fourth of July celebrations and political rallies were often turned into drunken orgies and the city police force which consisted of Thomas HARRIS, D. W. MASON and Willis STRONG was kept busy quelling riots and carrying drunken men to jail as long as there was room in the building to pile them. As the population of the town increased the drunks increased in corresponding numbers, and the city authorities were compelled to build a calaboose to accommodate the overflow, and that is how the handsome city bastile on Second street came into existence. In addition to the fifteen saloons in Fairfield, there was a saloon in Lockridge, one in Germanville, one in Abingdon, one in Batavia, one in Libertyville, and seven in Perlee.

In the year 1876, the board of supervisors of Jefferson county had a pamphlet published for distribution at the Centennial exposition being held at Philadelphia for the purpose of advertising Jefferson county and Fairfield as a desireable place for homeseekers to locate and for capitalist to make investments. Among the various business enterprises, institutions, etc., enumerated in this pamphlet the following appear: thirteen groceries, two restaurants, two general stores, three boot and shoe stores, two hat and cap stores, three jewelry stores, three book stores, four meat markets, six millinery stores, three stove and tinware stores, two foundries, one woolen goods store, two flour mills, two butter and egg depots, two hardware
stores, four grain elevators, two funiture stores, three harness shops, six tailors, five wagon shops, ten boot and shoemakers, seven blacksmith shops, one gunsmith shop, four barber shops, three lumber yards, one furniture
factory, three livery stables, two bus lines, one broom factory, three banks, two railfoads, one patent medicine manufactory, four private schools, one union school, four hotels, one opera house, three public halls, two musical instrument dealers, three newspapers, three coal dealers, one public library, ten churches, Parsons college, four dentists, fourteen physicians, nineteen lawyers, five drug stores and ten saloons.

How many of our citizens would welcome the saloons back?

W. L. LONG
(sic. William Lincoln LONG; 1860-1929, buried in Old Fairfield City Cemetery, Fairfield, Iowa)

*Transcribed for genealogy purposes; I am not related to the person(s) mentioned.

Note: Transcribed in full text by Richard K Thompson, February 5, 2011