Milroy mayhem and Halleck rememberances

Installation of the water main to bring water from the new water well along Sparling to the water treatment plant has begun. Milroy Avenue was closed on Wednesday as a large trench crossed the street.

 The large metal plates are to satisfy OSHA requirements to protect workers, probably from cave-ins. The directional drilling machine shown below was in Iroquois Park and was drilling from the park to the hole above. Once it reaches this hole, the machine will drill to the west until it reaches the end of Milroy. Then it will drill south until the corn field, at which point the water main will be installed by digging up the ground with an excavator. 

The giant saw on this machine probably helped make the big hole.

A City crew has been busy for several days changing the water lines from the water main that runs under Milroy to the houses. Several of the replaced lines were lead pipes, but others had been replaced since the originals were installed. The new lines are copper.

On Tuesday evening Dr William White gave a presentation at the Jasper County Historical Society about what he found in the papers of Charles Halleck when Halleck was the prosecutor. Halleck was elected prosecuter for the years 1924-26 and for 1928-1934. He had his office above what is now Lafayette Bank and Trust and for some reason a huge box of his records was left there and recently (I am not sure when) were given to the Historical Society. Dr. White spent much of the winter reviewing them and sorting them.

Halleck had a wide variety of cases, some big but most small. A big case involved a robbery of the State Bank of Rensselaer. There were also many letters. Halleck wrote to various authorities seeking advice on cases. He also wrote many letters of reference or recommendation. Halleck was a Republican, and the election of 1932 was a Democrat wave election which he barely survived. After the election he wrote a letter congratulating the Democrat governor and asking him to consider a local man who had worked very hard helping the Democrat cause. It seemed rather strange for a Republican to make such a request, but Halleck was very good at constituent service, something that served him well when he became a congressman.

The onset of the Depression changed the sorts of cases that Halleck dealt with. There were frequent letters about desertion, most husbands deserting wives but some sons deserting fathers. Halleck tried to solve these and other cases without going to court as he did with the numerous bad check cases. Juvenile crimes also increased after 1929. Many were petty thefts of things such as chickens.

The records are sorted but there are a lot them. Someday I may take some time and see what I can find in them.

The program next month for the Historical Society will be on letters that Ralph Fendig wrote home during WWII. (Fendig met his wife while in England and both have had a lasting influence on Rensselaer.)