Wednesday, July 24, 2024 post by the Wabash County Historian on Facebook:
I’m sure you have seen this illustration of the Wabash County Courthouse many times before, but have you looked closely at the picture it does reveal much more. For instance, did you know there was a fence at one time around the courthouse? Look again over to the southwest corner of the courthouse lawn at the octagon shaped building. That was a building very important to carrying out business at the courthouse. It was the public privy also known as a necessary or outhouse. Pretty fancy one if you ask me. It was a “three holer” with three separate doors. They were “necessary” just like today for emergencies when downtown. However, in the fall of 1893, it became the center of unwanted notoriety at the hands of the Wabash Plain Dealer. One fall day in 1893 an unnamed man of German extraction visiting the courthouse on official business found the need to use the facilities. He entered the structure and, fearing that the building might not be clean, struck a match so that he might survey his surroundings. Satisfied, he dropped the match down the vault, and instantly there was a loud explosion. The door he had just walked through was blown into the yard, casing and all. In fact, all three doors were blown from their hinges and out into the yard. “Great seams were torn in the building at the corners.” The man was thrown out of the privy with all sorts of debris falling around him. The minute he discovered he was not dead he started on the run for the gin mill across the street. A witness to the explosion said he was dodging debris “with a wild look in his eye, and the hair on his head pointing toward the heavens, and his suspenders extending in a perpendicular line.” The fence was no obstacle for the man “he jumped over the iron fence surrounding the courthouse lawn like a frightened deer.” He rushed into John Pitt’s saloon “grasped hold of the bar and exclaimed, ‘Give me some schnapps!!’” After that he was able to relate his harrowing ordeal to the men crowded about him. The Plain Dealer described the damage to the privy “all three doors were blown from their hinges and out into the yard. Great seams were torn in the building at the corners, and the side toward the courthouse had to be propped to keep it from tumbling.” Oh by the way, the county commissioners rebuilt the outhouse it was “necessary” to the county business.
Sunday, March 16, 2025 post by the Wabash County Historian on Facebook:
Remember back in 2020 when people all over the country, including Wabash, went crazy buying up toilet paper? People were frantic to buy the stuff. Shelves of toilet paper were emptied in local stores . Even the price went up. It’s an item we don’t much talk about but greatly appreciate. This is a post card from my collection celebrating a day I’ll bet you never celebrated “A Century of Progress” in 1957, of all things toilet paper.
We Hoosiers like to celebrate events. A while back we celebrated the 200th anniversary of the state of Indiana, 150th anniversary of the 1866 incorporation of Wabash, Christmas, a New Year, Valentine's Day, Presidents Day, Columbus Day and soon St. Patrick's day. But somehow I missed this one and its following sesquicentennial celebration in 2007.
The Chinese were the first to use toilet paper as early as the 6th Century AD. However, it was Joseph Gayetty of the U.S. who is credited with the invention of the modern toilet paper in 1857. As this post card shows we Hoosiers used corn cobs (or husks), newspapers and catalogue books before settling on toilet paper.
Gladys Airgood remembers that her family “used Farmer's Guide and Prairie Farmer magazines as well as newspaper. Catalog pages were stiff and slick.” Tina Schultz Sult adds “I remember visiting one of my aunt’s when I was younger and they had Sears catalogs in their two setter back house for personal use and your readings pleasure.”
With corn cobs and newspaper made of rag content the outhouses would quickly fill up. In that case you called on the town’s "honey dipper" who would clean it out for you and dispose of it in Charley Creek near he present day Ferry St. bridge.
And then along came Sir Thomas Craper who improved indoor plumbing for us, but that is another story. And you thought toilet paper couldn't be exciting!
1950s Vintage Postcard Century of Progress Exhibit TOILET PAPER Corn Cob to Roll on ebay.
A century of progress. Corn cobs-newspapers-catalogue-toilet paper on Cardcow.com.
- What Did We Use Before Toilet Paper? at Cottonelle.com
- The Very Absorbing History of Toilet Paper October 5, 2020 at RubensteinSupply.com.
-
The greatest necessity of the age! Gayetty's medicated paper for the water-closet. Read and learn what is in ordinary paper ... J. C. Gayetty N. Y. Barton & son Print, III Fulton street [n. d.]. at The Library of Congress.
- From Seashells to Communal Sponges at History.com.
, but this post is historically interesting!
