Harold Melott Drowned 1920

MELOTT

Posted By: Connie Swearingen- Volunteer (email)
Date: 7/19/2018 at 13:13:54

Sioux City Journal
11 March 1920

Boy Drowns In Perry Creek
8-Year-Old Harold Melott Is The Victim
Playing On Cake Of Ice
Latter Becomes Loosend and Two Little Lads Are Thrown Into The Water, but One Is Rescues – Body Is Not Recovered.

Harold Melott 8 year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. J. Hugh Melott, of 810 ½ Bluff Street, was drowned in Perry Creek at 4:30 o’clock yesterday afternoon when a large cake of ice in which he and a playmate were standing, broke away from the bank and careened the two into the water.

Young Melott’s playmate, Everland Grant, 12 year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. G.C. Grant of 713 Bluff Street, succeeded in reaching the bank and assisted by other playmates, was rescued.

Melott submerged and was swept out of sight.

The body was not recovered. Police conducted an exhaustive search for several hours last evening to no avail. It is thought that the body may be lodged in the giant conduit at the Fourth Street intersection of the creek or may have been swept on into the Missouri River.

Brother Witnesses Drowning

The drowning occurred in a George under the bridge connecting Bluff and Summit Streets between West Eighth and Eleventh Street. Young Melott, his brother, Raymond, 11 year old and three other playmates, Everland Grant and Kenneth and Arnold Adams, sons of Mr. and Mrs. J.R. Adams, of 1422 Douglas Street, were playing near the bank.

The Adams boys were perched on the bridge.

Below Harold Melott and Everland Grant pranced in boy fashion on a huge cake of ice which protruded from the bank. The other two boys were standing on the bank spurring them on. Suddenly the ice cake broke loose from the bank and began to float to the middle of the stream.

Both boys lost balance and fell into the water, young Grant finally reaching the shore and clinging to herbage and tree roots was finally rescued.

Playmates Are Powerless

Melott’s playmates were powerless to assist him. Dashing along the bank and screaming their warning to passersby above on the bridge, who telephoned the police, they followed the body, all of which submerged save the face, until it swept out of sight around a turn.

The accident is one of several that have been reported between Seventh and Eleventh Streets along the creek. ON Monday evening a small boy named “Roy”, so his playmates asserted yesterday afternoon, fell in any only by a miraculous assistance of a playmate was rescued from drowning.

Mr. Melott, father of the drowned boy, is a teamster in the employ of the L.C. Everist Company. All five boys were pupils at the Bancroft School and were on their way home from school when the drowning occurred.

Sioux City Journal
12 March 1920

Boys Body Not Found
Search for Harold Melott Is Conducted All Along Creek

A search of the banks of Perry Creek from Eleventh Street to the Missouri River yesterday failed to reveal the body of Harold Melott, 8 year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. J. Hugh Melott, 810 ½ Bluff Street, who was drowned late yesterday afternoon while playing with boy friend’s on a small ice George under the bridge crossing the creek at the connecting point of Bluff Street and Summit Street, between West Eighth and Eleventh Streets.

The police searched along the entire banks of the stream, which has receded about two feet since the boy was drowned. Dynamite was used in an effort to dislodge the body in the event it had caught on a snag below the surface of the water.