Small Town Is Home To Big Things

STL Today reported on Casey, Illinois – a very small town that likes very large things. –

Welcome to Casey. The locals pronounce it more like “Kay-zee.” It’s a town of about 2,700 people just south of Interstate 70, about halfway between St. Louis and Indianapolis. It has a small Main Street, which, like those in many small-town USAs, has seen better days.

But just this summer, the Casey City Council voted to reduce the speed limit on a stretch of Main to 20 mph because so many pedestrians were walking through the town, gawking.

Because just in the past four years, Casey has these new things: the world’s largest mailbox, golf tee, knitting needles, crochet hook, wooden shoes and pitchfork. That’s in addition to the rocking chair and wind chimes.

Continue reading STL Today HERE.

BigThingsSmallTown.com

Man Had Turn Signal Lever Embedded In His Arm For 51 Years

From Fox2Now –

Fifty-one years ago, Arthur Lampitt of Granite City, Illinois, smashed his 1963 Thunderbird into a truck. This week during surgery in suburban St. Louis, a 7-inch turn signal lever from that T-Bird was removed from his left arm. Dr. Timothy Lang removed the lever Wednesday during a 45-minute operation. Lampitt, now 75, is recovering at home. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the accident broke Lampitt’s hip, drawing attention away from the arm, which healed. A decade or so ago, his arm set off a courthouse metal detector. An X-ray showed a pencil-sized object, but since it caused no pain or hardship, Lampitt let it be.

Continue reading HERE.

Photos from the wreck HERE.

 

How A Drip Coffee Maker Works [video]

Bit Of History – 1986 Shuttle Disaster

I just uploaded four newspaper pages from the the day that the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded on take-off in January of 1986. The crew member who is most remembered is teacher, Christa McAuliffe. Also added a few odds and ends of local news. Of particular interest are tech-related stories from 1971 that feature the picturephone and bootleg 8-track tapes.

Challenger disaster HERE

1971 Tech stories HERE

Local odds and ends HERE and HERE

Homepage of my classic newspaper site HERE

 

Woman Fights $105,000 in Parking Tickets

The ChicagoTribune reports –

Jennifer Fitzgerald has been fighting more than $100,000 in parking tickets on her junk car after she says it had been abandoned by her former boyfriend for three years in an employee parking lot at O’Hare International Airport.

Continue reading HERE

 

Classic Newspapers – The Big Snow of 1982

Most St. Louisans (at least the ones who are 40 or older) remember the snow storm of 1982 as the ‘Big One’ that virtually shut down the city. A week after the storm, the Post-Dispatch published a special section covering the event. All 12 pages of that section have just added to HotMeatloaf.com.

View the Big Snow section HERE

Check out other papers at HotMeatloaf.com HERE

 

 

More Classic Old Newspapers

A few more pages have been added to my classic newspaper site, HotMeatloaf.com. I’ve added a new section for local news. Local, in this case, is the St.Louis suburbs of Madison and Granite City, Illinois, and the newspapers are the Granite City Press-Record of 1960 and 1970, and the Granite City Journal of 1977. There is nothing earth-shaking, just small town news. If you are a history buff, are familiar with the area or just want a look back to the good old days, check out the Local News.

HotMeatloaf.com  Local News