Livery Stable Livery Stable
Constructed for Walter Schimmer. His farm was located just south of today's Hall County Park.
Stuhr's Railroad Town has long honored the memory of horse-drawn transportation with its livery stable, veterinary infirmary.
Horse-and-mule power once reigned on Hall County farms, six to eight head of working stock on each it was once estimated. Percherons and Belgians were among the most popular breeds of draft horses.
In the spring of 1886, personal property assessor S. J. Bateman found 575 horses and 63 mules in Grand Island, one head for every 10 residents. Only the sewing machine, total 562, challenged the horse in Bateman's tabulations. Bateman also counted 426 carriages and wagons in the city.
Horses and mules took on an added significance in Grand Island shortly after the turn of the century. A livestock dealer from lowa, Tom Bradstreet, pioneered a horse and mule market in 1903 that grew to be balleyhooed as the world's second largest. Sale barns and pens once stretched over six acres along East Fourth Street, convenient to the railroad tracks of both the Union Pacific and Burlington for shipments.
The Grand Island market peaked when more than 60,000 head were sold in 1916, the second year of World War I which had begun when the horse was still king in the military. Buyers from the British and French armies were wheelin' and dealin' to acquire the huge numbers of horses constantly needed on the Western Front.
One might be tempted to conclude that the more leisurely pace of life in the era of horse drawn conveyances resulted in safer traffic conditions on the streets of towns.
Alas, slower does not always guarantee safety. The first traffic laws did not come with the automobile and motor truck, they came with horse-and-mule traffic.
The shouts of "stop 'em" could send a chill down a town street, those afoot sent scurrying for shelter. Runaway teams of horses were an awesome sight, especially for those in harm's way.
Horses could be spooked, often by the slightest provocation. In 1888, a Grand Island woman had a narrow escape while driving a buggy. Her hat blew off and frightened the horse, whose panicked flight threw her on the shafts behind the animal where she held on in a very perilous position until the horse was finally stopped.
Leaving horses unhitched and unattended, and fast, reckless driving were serious problems that prompted the Grand Island city council to pass ordinances in the 1870s and 1880s aimed at regulating horse traffic. Scarcely a day passed that mishaps, too often fatal, were not reported on the pages of the Grand Island Daily Independent.
Take the tragedy that unfolded on June 9, 1885, when a farmer left his team untied in front of Sam Wolbach's drygoods store, southwest corner of Third and Pine Streets. The team became frightened and dashed east on Third. At the corner of Third and Sycamore Street, the runaways and wagon collided with another farm team and wagon driven by Henry Ahrens. Ahrens' wagon was turned over and he was hit on the head by a flying wooden box. His skull was fractured, a fatal injury.
"The council should provide an ordinance at once preventing the recurrence of such a sad affair," preached the Independent. And the council acted on June 17. Drivers who left teams unhitched could be hauled off to police court.
An earlier city ordinance, passed in 1877, attempted to curb fast and devil-may-care driving on Grand Island streets, but too often citizens felt that justice was not carried out.
On July 8, 1888, a 3-year-old girl was run down and killed by a team of horses while she was trying to cross a street near her home in southwest Grand Island. The driver was pulled from his wagon and sent to jail, it being alleged that "he had been driving at quite a rapid pace" and that "he had been drinking to excess," the Independent reported. But a coroner's jury failed to find sufficient evidence to hold the driver criminally liable.
Like the age of motor vehicles, strong drink was frequently behind the irresponsible behavior of man in the handling of horses.
In November of 1886, an Alda man was fined $15 and costs in Grand Island police court after riding a horse down a sidewalk and chasing pedestrians into snow drifts that lined the street. The culprit "was pretty well loaded with budge at the time," noted the Independent.
At times it was the horse that needed protection from man. By city ordinance, it became unlawful to leave a team of horses uncared for in Grand Island. "It is a shame that some hackmen and farmers who come in and fill up with bug juice, allow their animals to remain standing in front of saloons, very frequently until after midnight, without being blanketed or sheltered in any way," editorialized the Independent.
But you just couldn't pass city ordinances to cover every possible misadventure involving horses and the spirit of man, as the Independent noted during a January cold snap in 1886.
"The young man who took his best girl and a couple of hot bricks out sleigh riding one evening this week was later compelled to rescue the young lady from flames, which for a time promised to envelop the cutter and occupants. Next time the man has determined to take out a red-haired girl and leave the feet warmers at home."