Rio History: Moments in time, August 17-19

Curated by Steve Hathcock

Editor’s note: The following articles are taken from local newspapers of years past. 

KATY MAIL CAR ROBBED

Nine Packages, Including Registry Mail, Taken by Two Men at Houston Heights.

Houston, Tex., Aug. 16.-Mail Clerk A.L.Meitzen on the Katy Flyer, leaving Houston at 8:35 o’clock was held up by two masked men at Houston Heights, a suburb of Houston, tonight, and nine packages, including the registry mail, were taken. 

The two men entered the side door of the mail car and covered the clerk, took the packages, and chucked them into a sack. As the train was leaving, they jumped from the car.

None of the passenger cars were entered and no passenger was bothered, though it is the opinion that the men rode the baggage car to the first stop. The values of the packages cannot be told tonight. 

Clerk Meitzen wired the officials in Houston from the Katy, advertising them of the hold up. The Houston officers started a search at once. (San Antonio Express Aug. 17, 1911)

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PREMONITION OF COLORADO MAN IS TRUE-KILLS WIFE

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.

Aug. 19-David Reese, a restaurant man, had a premonition a month ago that he would kill his wife. He told the police, asking them to lock him up to protect her. Four days later he was released at his wife’s request. Yesterday he shot her and threw the body from the second story window. He then turned the weapon on himself, dying instantly. His wife died in a hospital. They had five children. (By the Associated Press Aug. 19, 1921)

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TOO MUCH LOVING AT COURTHOUSE, CHARGES

Lovers are spending entirely too much time spooning on the courthouse grounds and step, and it is particularly bad these moonlit nights,” complained County Clerk Joseph Webb today. “Why sometimes at night when we have work to do here, we have to climb over them to reach the entrance to the building.”

The clerk said he had asked several if they were waiting for the marriage license clerk to appear but failed to elicit satisfactory replies. A suggestion that he place signs announcing the office hours of the marriage license clerk was taken into consideration by the genial county clerk. (Brownsville Herald August 19, 1921)

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Laguna Vista Eligible for National Flood Insurance

In a letter of Col. Hale, secretary-treasurer of the Village of Laguna Vista, the department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has authorized the sale of federal flood insurance for residences and businesses in the village. (Port Isabel Press, August 19, 1971)