Friday Facts: Abe Beats Chuck, Budget Fun, The Old Condor

:: 565-acre Pratt Park disappeared into a sinkhole on this day in 1905.

::  Number of people who showed up for the ceremony and forum commemorating Abraham Lincoln’s 200th birthday at Bowman House (the city’s longstanding Republican club): 470

:: Number of people who showed up for the ceremony and symposium commemorating Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday at Watson University’s Liechner Hall (NatSci building): 75

:: Number of times Abraham Lincoln visited our city: 3 while alive, 1 while no longer alive

:: Number of times Charles Darwin visited our city: 1, lecturing to the Gentleman’s Philosophical Society at Bowman House in 1871

:: Due to budgetary issues, trash collection will only be done every other week, effective March 1. Recycling will still be done on a weekly basis, due to the terms of various grants funding the program.

:: Percentage cut Mayor Cosgrove and her deputy mayors have taken in their salaries for FY 2009 and 2010: 20%

:: Percentage by which all city departments will be forced to cut their budgets across the board, by June 1: 15%

:: Mayor Cosgrove has asked the library system to explore the possibility of auctioning off or selling certain  rare books and art in its collections in order to make up budgetary shortfalls.

:: A popular “sport” within city limits in 1893 was colloquially known as “The Old Condor,” and involved spooking cart-bearing horses into the path of oncoming trolleys. More than forty young men who had participated in the cruel, traffic-congesting sport were arrested that year, including the youngest son of Mayor H. Lorimar Glasgow and a svelte, blonde-haired European youth who gave his name only as “The Commodore” and escaped police custody mysteriously after three days.

:: Honus Wagner was fined for accidentally spitting on a policeman’s horse in the Central Corridor & Downtown area in 1936.

:: Number of local businesses with “Snow” in the name: 17, including “Snow Fun” skiing equipment retailer and “Snow Problem” residential snowplow service.

:: Number of local business with “Sun” in the name: 14, including “Sun Fun” surf and beach equipment retailer and “Sun Problem” clinic for victims of melanoma.

:: An unexpected cache of fourteen live, World War II-era torpedos was discovered in the basement stockroom of the old Woolworth’s on Bravefoot Ave and 3rd Street in 1979.
– Jonathan Morris, RJ White