An illustration from the Lima Republican-Gazette on New Year’s Eve 1922 showed sports figures who could be making a comeback in 1923. In the lower right corner is Babe Ruth who, in the eyes of sportswriters, had a subpar season in 1922. Ruth hit .393 with 41 homers in 1923 after batting .315 with 35 homers in 1922. Locally, sports talk that New Year’s was focused on the first-ever basketball matchup between a city parochial and public school. Central beat St. Rose in the game.
A century ago, as Lima residents prepared to mark their third New Year’s Eve without a legal drink, Lima’s Republican-Gazette newspaper insisted the holiday would be a success nonetheless.
“Lima simply WILL have its New Year’s celebration. It may be wet only in spots, but it will be jolly, as a whole,” the newspaper wrote.
The rival Lima News struck a similar note. “Even though supplies of ‘joy water’ are smaller than at any time since the advent of prohibition (on Jan. 17, 1920), there are many indications that practically every gathering and many of the smaller ones too, will have their ‘damp’ spots,” The Lima News wrote Sunday, Dec. 31, 1922.
In addition, The Lima News noted, “Police will not wage a particularly strenuous war against the pocket flask, Chief T.A. Lanker says, as the force is much too small to patrol every party and peer beneath each table in the hotels and clubs. Accommodations will be provided, however, for those who are not able to ‘carry’ their New Year’s spirits in the proper manner.”
There apparently were enough “damp” spots and pocket flasks that the Republican-Gazette reported on Jan. 2, 1923, that 28 people were arrested over the long weekend of celebration, most for drunkenness. One drunken man was arrested after squeezing off a few celebratory New Year’s pistol shots into the air at the corner of Main and North streets.
Those who didn’t draw attention to their drunkenness with gunfire or go public with their drinking in other ways paid for their sins in private.
“Other Lima folk who danced and drank away the old year yesterday paid the diverse terms dictated by the fiddler,” the Republican-Gazette wrote. “Despite the laws and all that, scores awakened with aching heads. The scowling face of prohibition forebade any open violations, but in out-of-the-way places the flowing bowl oft tilted.”
The Republican-Gazette added, “Other hundreds, who accepted the inevitable ‘drying up’ of Lima, contented themselves with quiet celebrations in homes, awoke with normal feelings and were able yesterday to celebrate the daylight portion of New Year’s Day. They found entertainment at the YMCA and K of C, where open house was held, and at various theaters and dance halls which drew large crowds.”
At the YMCA, which had been in its new home at the corner of West and Spring streets since 1917, The Lima News estimated Jan. 2, 1923, that nearly a thousand people attended the annual New Year’s Day open house and “taxed the gymnasium and natatorium to capacity” to “view the well arranged and varied program of music, drills and exhibitions.”
In the natatorium, the crowd was treated to an exhibition of various swimming strokes and life-saving techniques, as well as acrobatic diving. In the evening, the basketball teams of the YMCA industrial league played exhibition games in the gymnasium.
“The Lima Locomotive five defeated the Garford Motor quintet in a hard-fought game by a 27 to 15 score as the initial contest of the evening,” The Lima News reported.
Meanwhile, the New Year’s Day open house at the Knights of Columbus Hall on West North Street, which included dancing and bowling, could also have included a brazen armed holdup if the would-be robbers hadn’t been nabbed for another robbery several days earlier.
According to a report in the Republican-Gazette on Jan. 2, 1923, four young Lima men planned “to raid the building in typical wild-western fashion, intimidating attaches and patrons by a fusillade of shots and a reckless display of firearms, herding those in the structure into a secluded part of the center and performing the robbery in a thorough fashion.”
The robbery, which police told the newspaper was planned for the night of New Year’s Day “at the height of activities” at the hall, was nipped in the bud when one of the four, all of whom were in custody for a Kenton jewelry store robbery a week earlier, decided to spill the beans and “confessed that every detail of such a plan had been perfected.”
The city, of course, was also working on plans for the new year while reviewing accomplishments of the year just past.
Lima’s first year with a commission-manager form of government was 1922. In an article he wrote, which was published on New Year’s Eve in The Lima News, city Manager C.A. Bingham listed the separation of the city streetcar operation from the light and power company as a major accomplishment. The new power company “with unlimited power at its command” meant “Lima may never again have to lose factories because of a lack of power,” while the city trolley lines under new leadership would see new rails and roadbed in 1923.
The year 1922 also saw final approval for a viaduct on South Metcalf Street over the 11 tracks of the Lake Erie & Western railroad.
“This important proposition has been under discussion for many years,” Bingham wrote, “but this Commission has been able to bring the matter to a final close.” Construction on the viaduct began in 1923.
For Justice of the Peace E.M. Botkin, 1922 was a record year. “He did the honors in not less than 73 marriages during the year closing at midnight December 31,” The Lima News reported Jan. 2, 1923.
An editorial in the same day’s The Lima News noted a trend when it came to marriage.
“Divorce and marriage license records of Allen County disclose a startling state of affairs,” the newspaper wrote. “It is alarming to note that for every three licenses to wed issued in Allen County, one divorce suit is filed.”
That part, Botkin noted, was out of his hands.
“I can tie the knots but cannot guarantee that they stay tied,” he told The Lima News. “Not with the courts working overtime on divorce cases.”
In sports, the Republican-Gazette wondered if Babe Ruth of the New York Yankees would return to his 1921 form after a sub-par 1922. In the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day, the University of Southern California defeated Penn State, 14-3.
In local sports, Central High School’s basketball team, “playing like a well-oiled machine,” swamped the Gomer High School team 44-16 in a New Year’s Day game at the Central gym. The talk, however, was all about an upcoming matchup.
“The biggest game on the week’s program and one that is expected to attract much attention is the St. Rose, Central encounter scheduled for Friday night,” the Republican-Gazette wrote on New Year’s Eve. “Much enthusiasm is being manifested among students of both schools in this encounter inasmuch as it is the first time a Lima parochial school team (St. John’s and St. Gerard’s being the other parochial schools) has battled with either of Lima’s two public high schools (Central and South).”
Central prevailed, 41-25.
SOURCE
This feature is a cooperative effort between the newspaper and the Allen County Museum and Historical Society.
LEARN MORE
See past Reminisce stories at limaohio.com/tag/reminisce
Reach Greg Hoersten at [email protected].
