our county as well as the neighboring
counties to put on his show.
   At the same time there was great
interest in local dramatics. Shows were
given in such places as Klingholz Hall.
Then we had two athletic organizations -
south side German Turnverein; on the
north side a Bohemian organization,, the
Lovansky lipi - who were the first to
build an Opera House; the south side had
to build their Turner Haus. The Opera
House still stands. It was rebuilt and re-
modeled in 1914-15.
   In those days some of the entertain-
 ment offered was at the Turner Hall. The
 outstanding event of the year was the
 Eagles' Minstrel Show. The Opera House
 would have a visit every year from Lyman
 Howe. He would come to town with his
 motion pictures, which were travelogs. He
 embellished his travelogs with sound
 effects. In addition he had many colored
 films. This wasn't done photographically,
 but the women over in Paris became very
 agile at coloring each individual frame.
 The flower gardens in each frame Lyman
 Howe showed at the Opera House were
 remarkably realistic.
    1910-20. In those days an entrepeneur
 would go to the railroad company and
 buy twenty tickets and get two cars to
 handle his baggage. He could put as many
 people in a passenger car as he could pack
 in just by buying twenty tickets. This
 meant he could carry his musicians, per-
 formers, scenery, costumes, musical
 instruments, etc., - all for the price of
 twenty tickets. There were no unions in
 the theater in those days, and we had
 some very fine musical shows, such as the
 Royal Chef and others. Most played at
 the Opera House. Turner Hall played its
 share, and they had a great character over
 there by the name of Frank Winninger,-
 he had five brothers with him. Charles,
 the last one, played the part of the cap-
 tain in the original stage version of "Show
 Boat"; he also was the captain in the
 motion picture version of "Show Boat."
 The Winninger Brothers would play at
 Turner Hall one year and the Opera
 House the next.
    The movies came in at the old Crystal
 Theater. The Crystal Theater was located
 where the Dempsey Building is today. It
 was a store front theater that did very
 well. Around the corner where the First
 National Drive-in Bank is today and
 where the bank has their installment loan
 office the second movie theater was
 opened, called the "Vaudette."
       Daily Newspapers in 1910-20
    At that time Manitowoc had two daily
 papers. The first paper was organized by
 William Brandt and Oral Nelson. It was
called "The Manitowoc Herald." On the
south side the paper was called the
"Manitowoc Daily News." It ,vas located
where Lulloff's furniture store had their
carpet department. In those days all type
was set by hand. That meant that only a
limited amount of news space could be
filled. Newspapers used to buy
pre-printed sheets; page 2 and page 7 was
a pre-print - also pages 4 and 5. The
newspaper merchant printed the front
page, the back page, and pages 3 and 6.
To this day one can still see the effect of
that format, for newspapers are still pub-
lishing their ads on those particular pages.
Schuette Brothers had the back page.
They still are on the last page. The 0.
Torrison Co., that ran the store that we
now know as "The Mart" was on page 3.
To this day you can see that the stores of
that day are following tradition for they
are still carrying their ads on the same
pages.
   The Herald was the dominant paper of
the town. For many years this paper was
published by Bill Brandt and Oral Nelson.
Then a young fellow named William Ohde
and Ed Mackey came to town. How they
bought it, I don't know; for neither of
them had much money, but they got it.
They started printing the Herald and they
made some money, particularly after
World War I. Prior to World War I most
newspapers were about one step ahead of
the sheriff. Now I'm just a little ahead of
the chronology of events at this point. We
had two German papers - one was called
the "Nordwestern" and the other "Die
Wahrheit." If you know your German,
that meant "The Truth", and the Pravda
is also the truth, and we had "the truth"
printed on Washington Street; around the
corner where the Guest House Inn now is
- about the middle of that block -is
where the Nordwestern was published;
two German papers - and they continued
up until the First World War. Then the
interest in the German papers started to
disintegrate and they passed out of the
picture.
   About 1910, I was a good scholar in
many ways, but I was quite deficient in
one subject, namely, in spelling. My
mother's cousin was the principal over at
Stevens Point Normal, and she said, "why
don't you send him into a newspaper
office to take down type." My father got
me a job over at the old Manitowoc
Tribune, which was the daily paper at
that time - a Socialist paper - and I was
sent in there to take down type. Well,
you never learn to spell when you take
down type. You pick up a line and you
see what it is and begin to distribute the
letters because you are working back-
ward. The Tribune was like all those
affairs that are run by a committee. It
started to lose money, and after the
calendars were sold one Christmas the
carrier boys walked off and there were
two carrier boys left. I was one of them. I
had about three routes. There were not
too many papers on these rcutes, but
that's how printer's ink got into my
blood - by working at the old Tribune.
Well, the Tribune folded, and by the way,
we had some pretty good editors in there
- Upton Sinclair looked in once or twice,
Francis Kadow broadcasting from stage at Mikadow Theater, Nov. 1927