USA > Indiana > Vanderburgh County > Evansville > History of the city of Evansville and Vanderburg County, Indiana, Volume I > Part 25
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F
CRESCENT ENG. P.TO. co.
BAKER SCHOOL BUILDINGS
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HISTORY OF VANDERBURG COUNTY
OUR POLICE SYSTEM.
If Evansville is proud of her fire department, she is no less proud of her police, for in no city in this country is there a more thorough system by which each man on the force understands fully his duty and knows that he must perform that duty or he will be brought before the Board of Safety on charges and no matter what the standing or political pull, he will be released at once, and in the detective department this city has been par- ticularly blessed and it is a fact disputed by none, that among the worst criminals in the United States today, the word has always been passed around, "Keep away from Evansville. It is a bad place to go and do any dirt. They 'pinch' you there, before you have a chance to do anything." This is not strange when we take into consideration the fact that the de- tective force especially, and a great majority of the policemen, have been selected from men who have grown up in Evansville, knows every shady character and his reputation and also can detect any stranger who comes here and at the least suspicious action on his part, quietly look into his history and, if necessary, arrest him on some trivial charge and hold him until they can get into connection with larger cities. There is case after case where desperate criminals have come to Evansville, taking it for a "jay" town in their way of speaking and only to find themselves suddenly behind the bars.
Again, escapes have been very few. In fact, they can be counted on one's finger ends, and many hardened criminals are now serving time as the result of his having taken Evansville as an easy mark. Of course this sit- uation is the result of long care and forethought on the part of those who have managed the force. The introduction of the Bertillon system was a great step in the right direction and it is now used on every criminal who is deemed to be of sufficient importance to merit a measurement. By way of introduction I give the following brief anecdote :
Some years ago a series of small crimes were committed in the lower part of the city. They were not of sufficient magnitude to lead the officers to suppose that the men operating were anything but what might be termed minor criminals, but by some chance a conversation between three men was heard and they were arrested just after robbing the till of a bar room. They were brought to headquarters and the examination showed that one of them had about as fiendish a countenance as ever was put on a human being. I was with the present chief, Geo. L. Covey, when he went to the cell door to interview this man and it was astonishing to notice how very sleepy he was. He could barely find time to answer the most trivial ques- tions, but was continually stretching and yawning and treated the matter of questioning as something that was depriving him of his natural sleep. Mr. Covey asked him what made him so particular with his sleep and he stated that he had walked down the railroad from Vincennes the night before. Asked where he had slept the night before, he said that he had no
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money and had slept at the Vincennes police station. Covey soon had him all tangled up in a mass of lies, as the man had plenty of money in his pos- session and his shoes did not show that he had made any long tramps. These things of course did not escape Covey's keen eye.
The next man in the party was a bald-headed, very heavily built little German who at once could not understand anything. He absolutely did not know a word of English, did not know the other men, had never seen them before, etc., etc. Covey, knowing that he was one of the three who had been talking in English, set him down as liar No. 2.
The third man was an Irishman who gave Mr. Covey a most beautiful line of talk. He was a plumber by trade and had come to Evansville seeking work and of course had never seen either of the other two men. For some reason it was decided that a pretty high-class gang had been captured and it was decided to take their photographs and add them to the Bertillon measurement. The late Tom Hutchins was to take the villianous looking fellow down to the photograph gallery. No sooner was he placed in the chair than he began to put his face into all kinds of shapes. He jumped out of the chair and rolled with Hutchins on the floor. Hutchins and his assistant knew at once that he was a dangerous character or he would not object to such a little thing as a photograph. Finally he was forced back into the chair where he drew up his face again and when Hutchins put his hand over his face to smooth it out, he bit at his fingers and then and there Hutchins did exactly the right thing. He banged that villian about four times just as hard as he could, right in the face and then grabbing him by the ears he held him right in position until the photograph was taken. If looks could have killed Hutchins he would have died right there.
Finally they got him back to police headquarters, he vowing all along that he would get even. Of all the criminals that I have ever seen, I never saw such a face as this man had. They were removed to the county jail and in the meantime the wires were put in motion and it was found that they belonged to a desperate gang of burglars. The hero of the photograph was the worst of the gang and was suspected of having killed several men. They were placed in a county jail and by some means, managed to escape, though the Irishman who had been shot when they were captured, up to the very last had limped as if it was almost impossible to place his foot on the ground, but it seems it was no trouble for him to crawl up through some disarranged plumbing and thence on to the county jail roof and thentce down a pipe to the ground. Although there was snow on the ground and they were traced a short distance out on the String Town road, they disappeared as completely as if the earth had swallowed them up. Telegrams were sent in every direction but they were shrewd enough to get away and were never heard of again, until after a series of desperate burglaries in Cin- cinnati, where two men were shot and they proved to be the Irishman and the Dutchman, but of the ring leader nothing has ever been heard. He probably met his just deserts long ago.
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This is about the only important escape that ever occurred and it must be remembered that it occurred after the police had turned the arrested parties over to the county. Another incident :
During a circus here several years ago, a well-known gentleman of the city was robbed of a beautiful diamond stud while coming down town on a street car. He did not see the man who took it and therefore could give no description at all. But so strong was the net thrown out that in a few hours every hangeron of the circus was in its meshes and on the promise to the crowd that there would be prosecution if the stud was returned at once, it was forthcoming. In almost any other city it would have been gone for- ever. Our police have case after case o fthis kind to their credit. Give them any kind of a clue and they seem to be able to follow it right up and nab the suspected ones. I do not claim that they are any smarter than the police of any other city, but they simply have some means of quickly ar- riving at conclusions and then they never stop until they make their record. Until the city charter was given and for many years after that time, there was really no police force here. We had a city marshal and constables who served under him and they were supposed to afford ample protection. From 1857 to 1863 Ed Martin, sometimes called one-eyed Ed, on account of the loss of one eye, was city marshal, and a good one. He was a keen reader of human nature and absolutely fearless, and discharged his duties well. In 1863 two policemen were appointed-Philip Klein, who served so long in different departments, and Geo. Bates, and later on four others were added to the force. But still there was no chief of police, as the mayor acted as such. He had no regular beat lay-outs but elected these forces to take in certain parts of the city night after night. In 1865 when Mr. Klein had been elected wharfmaster he was called on by the mayor and council to act as police captain and the force was increased to sixteen men. At this time occurred the hanging of the two negroes to the court house lamp, of which mention is made in the other part of this book and on that night there was a perfect era of riots in the city and inoffensive colored people were chased out of their homes and took refuge, most of them, in the hills below the city. It was never known whether both of these men were guilty or not. It had been claimed that one of them was not really a par- ticipant in the heinous crime committed but he was in bad company and suffered for it. In 1867 Philip Klein was elected marshal but still retained his position as police captain. In 1868 Ed. Martin succeeded him and he in turn was succeeded in 1869 by Christian Wunderlich. By this time the city had grown and it was decided that a better system of police service must be gotten up. This matter was entrusted to the council. They made Philip Klein again chief and increased the force to twenty-two men. The city soon went democratic and Henry Harris became chief. After him came a republican, Mr. Roesner, and his place was filled by Joseph Aft. This crude system was kept up until 1884 when the Metropolitan police sys- tem was adopted. This provides for the appointment of three police com-
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missioners who are supposed to appoint the policemen in equal numbers from the two political parties, thus making the force as nearly even as possible. The first commissioners were Dr. M. Muhlhausen, Edward E. Law and Gus Lemke. After Alex. Foster and Edward Goeke were appointed, with F. Dough Martin, a negro, as secretary. Under the Metropolitan system Frank Pritchett was the first police chief appointed. After him Geo. W. Newitt. Up to that time the force consisted of forty men, and the captains were Charles Wunderlich and Frederick Brennecke. Mr. Brennecke has served on the department twenty-two years and nine months. Mr. Pritchett was again appointed chief during the Akin administration and resigned in favor of King Cobbs, who served for two years while the democrats were in power. Fred Heuke was chief and Geo. L. Covey who had been on the force in one capacity or another for twenty-six years. After him Fred H. Brennecke became chief, he having been chief of detectives during the Hawkin's administration. Mr. Covey was first appointed chief in 1892 under Hawkin and served under him and Mayor Covert. He is at present in his old position of chief which he fills in a splendid manner. It can be said to Mr. Covey's credit that he is a man who has absolute control of himself at all times. He never loses his temper and while examining an arrested man his tone is always the same. No matter how violent the man may become, or what he may say, he meets the same quiet questioning by the chief. Since Chief Covey has taken hold, there has been a change in what is known as "pulling the boxes." For some time one of the rules was that the boxes on a man's beat must be pulled each hour, thus showing that he was wide awake and on duty, but Chief Covey took a common sense view of this matter and made a change. In conversation with him he said, "These boxes are always at the extreme ends of a patrolman's beat and where he is expected to pull them both each hour, it means that he will naturally take the shortest route between the two and pull them, so as to gain the reputation for promptness and reliability. This very nat- urally leaves the rest of his beat unguarded and it is a fact that those who wished to commit crime and knew of these usual visits of the patrolmen, could easily watch him and see when he was starting on his regular trip and then commit their depredations in a part of the beat that he left un- guarded. As it is now, the boxes are only pulled three times before II o'clock and after that only at such times as the officer happens to. pass the boxes." The chief trusts to the fact that if a patrolman so far forgets himself as to neglect the duty, it will soon be found out anyhow and he will be brought up before the Board of Safety and discharged and he deems it better to take these chances than to force the men to make their regular pulls as heretofore. There are at present eighty-one men on the force. For some years Mrs. Mary Roberts has been police matron. Under hier care come all the women who are arrested and her record is indeed a splen- did one. She is, if anything, too good hearted for the position, but she tem- pers kindness with justice and having been in the position for many long
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years, is a great help to the officers. It is safe to say that no matter what political changes may come, Mrs. Roberts can hold this position as long as she chooses.
As with the firemen, the police have pension and at present they have some $8,000 surplus which is put out at interest. This is a splendid idea and will be a great help to many an officer when old age comes on him and he finds himself no longer able to walk his beat. Some of the men on the forces have been there for many years and a peculiar fact is that they are not a rough kind of men, but the men who exercise judgment. The merit of the policeman is not ganged by the number of arrests that he makes in these days. There is such a thing as a useless arrest which is simply a hampering of the wheels of justice. Back in the old days before the police recognized that good judgment and a little mercy were sometimes a good thing, some of the policemen were inclined to imagine that they wore crowns and never hesitated to show them. A case comes to my mind. One night there was a party of about six young men, who were walking together and two of them got into a friendly skuffle. There was not a bit of bad blood between them. They were just active young fellows who felt like wrestling, and across from the Acme hotel they proceeded to see which one could throw the other. One of them succeeded and they had gotten up and shaken hands and were freshening up their clothes, when up came a superanuated policeman who really had no business on the force and who wanted to know what was the matter. He was told that there was nothing the matter at all, when he replied that he seen skuffling and he wanted to know what it was about. The entire party tried to pacify him and told him that there had been no blood shed and the dignity of the city had not been outraged. He was about pacified when up came a superior officer who had been in the army a short time and imagined that he put down the re- bellion and had the big head so badly that there was hardly a hat in the de- partment large enough to fit him. He at once got into action and wanted to know why somebody was not arrested. He was told the same story as the other one, but would not listen to anything and remarked, "For two cents I would arrest the whole d- crowd." A gentlemen who had never been arrested in his life and was an upright honorable young man in every sense of the word, put his hand on the policeman's shoulder and said, "You cannot arrest anybody here, for no one has done anything." At this the Dutchman flew clear off the handle and said, "Well, I will just arrest you. You come along with me," and snatched at the gentleman's arm. Indig- nantly the gentleman jerked up and said, "You have no right to pull me along like a common criminal. I will walk to headquarters with you." Once there word was sent to the mayor who immediately replied, "Turn tliem all loose and let them appear in the morning." And now to show you how strangely things worked in those days, the very officious officer, the Dutchman and another patrolman who had not been seen there at all, all swore that the inoffensive man who had taken no part in the matter at
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all, had the first man up against the fence choking, etc., etc., and that his yells for help had brought him to the scene. When the judge who hap- pened to be Judge Menifee, asked the gentleman what he had to say for himself, he simply remarked, "Just put me down for whatever you see fit. I would not waste time telling my story against such liars as you have here. That Dutchman and these two others." Of course the superior of- ficer at once tried to fly into a rage again, but he was called down by the mayor. He lasted about two months and the next seen of him he was driving a wagon of some kind. So much for pomposity. It is a bad thing at times. Another thing about the force is that through the efforts of some of the officers, they are well-drilled and can execute many very beautiful and complicated maneuvers and there is hardly a parade of any kind in the city for which they are not called on to take part, and they always reflect credit on themselves.
PUBLIC PARKS.
Within a very few years, Evansville will be known as the City of Parks. Steps are being taken in the right direction to make this name a matter of absolute correctness. While it is to be regretted that for so many long years our people seemed to fail to understand how necessary parks were to a city, it is all the more pleasant to know now, that the pressure that has been continually brought to bear on the public by men who looked ahead beyond the present day, is producing results. Soon there will be plenty of breathing spots in every direction. Today the most important park in the city is Sunset park, which offers almost unlimited possibilities. Many re- member it as a little straggling piece of the river bank with an old sycamore tree, the roots of which extended over the top of the bank, with a lot of fishing boats and other boats full of the lowest class of people, with posts driven into the ground where coal barges and steamboats fastened as they pleased and when they even made fast to the old sycamore if they cared. The easiest way to realize how much has been done is to notice where the old sycamore now stands, clear this side of the center of the park. How hard it is to realize that all that solid earth extending from the street to the river has been filled in load by load with the refuse of the city ash heaps and the soil caused by the making of streets placed on top!
The first agitation on the subject of changing this into a park began in 1879. It was afterwards taken up by the editor of the Evening Tribune. A petition was circulated and a band stand was built and two rival bands agreed to play there on separate nights. It was after these bands began, that thousands of people commenced going to the park on band evenings, and the public at last woke up and seemed to realize that here was a lovely spot being fast washed away, simply because they were either too igno- rant or too lazy to take care of it. The subject of making a park soon be- gan to take root. Friends of the park that were interested, went before the council, men paid money out of their own pockets to drivers to get them
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to dump over the bank, but even then the city, which yearly threw away thousands of dollars for foolish positions to men who put in about an hour a day of actual work, could not see its way clear to hire even one man to place the dirt in position as it was hauled there. Time after time those in- terested in the movement almost lost heart. It seemed as if we had city officials who cared absolutely nothing for the appearance of the city, but the change came at last and by the aid of one most estimable lady who pos- sessed both money and influence, a new lease on life was taken. It soon became a common thing for the council in letting out contracts for street improving, to use the excess dirt to be hauled to Sunset park. Prior to that time, this dirt was claimed by the city or the teamsters and the man who really owned the dirt-that is the man in front of whose property it lay- had very little to say, and it had been given away to anybody who wanted it. The condition of affairs was very lax, and it was when this movement began that the friends of the park put in their best work. They would go to a man who had, say 100 feet frontage on a street to be improved, and ask him for the dirt, if he did not care for it. Invariably he would donate it. Then they would ask him to give them the power to state where he wished the dirt hauled, and of course it was hauled to Sunset park. From that time to the present, the city has always kept men there to place all ashes and refuse of that kind in certain places while the broken brick and stone taken from walks and streets that had been condemned, were all placed on the outside so that gradually a strong sea wall is being built. It was thought at one time that James A. Hemenway would see to it that a stone sea wall was built but like many other political promises, this was a promise for the time being and never fulfilled. The chances are now that the government which has appropriated so much for locks and dams, will never build a sea wall and if any is built, it will have to be done by the city.
With the tearing down of the old water works and the purchase of the old E. Q. Smith dwelling, a great new park was added to the old one. This reaches to Chandler avenue. Both at this point, and this side of the water works, the city owns still more property and the proposition now seems to be to build a boulevard and open up a road reaching along a sea wall from the foot of Locust street clear to the water works. While this is being writ- ten, the subject of tearing down the old Barnes property is being consid- ered by the council. If the building is modernized and painted white with great porches extending around three sides, it can be made very beau- tiful, but if any attempt is made to leave it in its present condition with sundry repairs, the park would be far better off with the building torn down and taken away. In that case, there would be an uninterrupted view from Chandler to Locust street. The subject of trees in this park was quite a vital one. At first'a large number of Carolina poplars were planted but it was found that while they were of very rapid growth and soon made a beautiful shade all over the park proper, in a very strong windstorm they
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were liable to be snapped off, sometimes close to the ground and some- times in the very center of the tree. To provide for the future and at the same time give plenty of shade during the present, a large number of very strong young trees of slow growth but able to stand any kind of a storm, were interspersed all over the park. This was the work and forethought of Mr. W. H. McCurdy. Nearly all of these trees are now living and as fast as they die, they are replaced, so that for all time to come we may look for delightful shade in the now modernized Sunset park. It was un- derstood that just in the rear of where the E. Q. Smith residence stood, there is to be an artificial lake. This is eminently proper, for it could be made a perfect garden of lilies and would add much to the beauty of the park. There is a space further up which might be utilized in the same way.
The oldest park in the city is Cook's park which has been referred to in another part of this book. It was formerly the old Salt well, not being dig- nified by the name of park. Many years ago it was purchased by Hon. Fred W. Cook, who at once put up a beautiful club house and theater and transformed it into quite a modern affair. He also had an artificial lake built. The place today is beautiful, as it contains the old trees that were there when Evansville was first founded. The ground is rolling and it is indeed a beautiful spot. Whether it will be retained as a park or sold to make room for growing Evansville is unknown, but it seems to be an accepted fact that as a money investment, it has never been a profitable one.
Another park in the lower part of the city is the Franklin Street park, which reaches from Franklin to Illinois and from Wabash to 10th avenue. This was formerly the unsightly resting place of great stacks of lumber. For some time there seemed to be a doubt as to whom the land really be- longed, but that was finally settled and it is now filled with beautiful trees and is a delightful rest for the toilers of the West End during the summer months.
John Law park is where the first brick school house in Lamasco stood. It was in the middle of an open common, as nearly as I remember, but after it was acquired by the city, the building was torn down and it was named in honor of Judge John Law, one of our pioneer statesmen, whose resi- dence was very near it. It runs from Fulton avenue to Fourth avenue and from Franklin to Michigan street.
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