The days of so much news. You read a section and tossed if over your shoulder for someone else to read. Or no one. The bar was silent except for the incessant sibilant rustle of the paper, and the occasional belch of a beer-drinker.

I had computer training today. We're going to a new CMS, or Constant Mess of Shite, or Content Management System. The old one was great. Easy. Elegant. Lovely to look at. We got it from Vox Media, which decided to cancel it and move all their stuff to Wordpress. Everyone else who licensed the software was just plain out of luck.

The new system is okay. It's a bit fiddly. Lacks a few things to which we were all accustomed, but none of them are insurmountable problems. I knew I could figure it out in five minutes, old hand that I am, or have, and of course made a mistake within the first 30 seconds. But after that it was all easy, if not peasy, and I even found a bug!

Took two hours to walk us through everything. I wrote all my sample pieces with as much SEO bait as possible, talking about how Taylor Swift was going to QB the Vikings in record snow, and then eat the best burger. If it had gone live it would have garnered 200,000 hits.

Now I have to write another column, third of the week, and then get ready for two podcasts tomorrow. I'd tell you something exciting if anything had happened. But some days are just meetings and work, and almost-expired Shawarma I mentioned yesterday. Delicious! Didn't even have it on a pita, because that's just a lot of bread.

When you get out of the bread habit, you realize how little it adds to a lot of things, and how fantastic it is when it's absolutely essential. But I'm rambling and WHO cares. On to the next thing.

Our weekly recap of a Wikipedia peregrination. Expect no conclusion or revelations, but if you've been with us since this started next year, you know . . . sometimes we learn interesting things.

		So! How do we get from here . . .
		. . . to there?

We don’t stray too far today.

This cartoon makes complete sense to modern eyes, even if we deplore the treatment of the poor dog.

We still understand the concept of a newspaper. We have baseball. We have beer in bottles, on ice, in a pail.

The image is 120 years old. The artist:

Elmer Andrews Bushnell (July 30, 1872 - January 27, 1939) was an American cartoonist, known for his political cartoons. Historians Alan Marcus and Zane Miller have credited Bushnell with a part in the downfall of George B. Cox.

Well, that’s intriguing. Who? How?

George Barnsedale Cox (1853–1916) was a political boss in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, a member of the Republican Party, and associate of William Howard Taft.

His wikipedia bio is scant and frustrating.

Cox took pride in running an orderly organization. He maintained decorum in city conventions, eliminated multiple voting, and accepted the nomination and election of reform business candidates for mayor, who usually won election. Cox’s coalition was “able to bring positive government to Cincinnati and to mitigate the chaos which accompanied the emergence of the new city. With some justification, Cox boasted of his “achievement of taking the schools, Police, and Fire Departments out of politics” and insisted that “a boss is not necessarily a public enemy.”

On the other hand Lincoln Steffens, a famous muckraker, in 1905 called Cincinnati one of the two worst-governed cities in the country.

There’s nothing in the bio about his downfall, or what Bushnell did. But there’s this:

During his heyday, Cox had influence over all local newspapers save the Cincinnati Post.

It took a while to find when Bushnell’s cartoons started running. The archives are incomplete for 1900, but I found some work from 1901. He doesn’t stint, and no doubt Cox didn’t like it. I'm pretty sure the dictator is intended to be Cox:

The paper had another artist: a fellow who signed his work “Landon” or “Landon Sketch.” He did spot news illos, a job that would be squeezed out by the AI of the day, photography. And also whimsical grinners:

I did find a news story about the train bust-up with an address, and the site is unrecognizable today.

Not a bit of bio on Mr. Landon to be found.

When I do research on newspapers.com I scan the thumbnails, because after a while you can read a small image and know what it probably contains. Once in a while you find a stop-the-presses moment:

He got away with about $200,000, and that’s a lot of hay in 1901. That’s a lot of hay now. Four years later he married a woman in Honduras. He left behind a son, who died in 1909 from appendicitis, or an operation intended to relieve it. After that, the papers lose the story, and there doesn’t seem to be any note of his death.

Probably lived it up just fine.

It’s another Boonville - this time in Missouri. Over seven thousand souls, so expect a bit more than last week's Indiana Boonville, perhaps.

Wikipedia says "The community derives its name from Nathan and Daniel Morgan Boone, who were the sons of Daniel Boone and established their salt business near the community in the early 1800s, delivering their product from salt licks to St. Louis."

Probably not a lot of salt-lick trade these days.

I have no dates on this, so I don’t know if this is now . . .

I suppose I could go back and look . . . yes, the second one is the most recent.

I’m not a great fan of murals on the sides of buildings, and this is why.

They fade, and look forgotten.

Pink! Why not. At least the remnants of the old window are still there, or at least implied by the wood that inhabits the space once filled with glass.

Why did they take out the glass? Who wants less light?

As basic as they get, but its unadorned style gives it a unique sort of self-possession.

The ancient memorial of things passed and forgotten . . .

Like the Battle of Boonville.

The First Battle of Boonville was a minor skirmish of the American Civil War, occurring on June 17, 1861, near Boonville in Cooper County, Missouri. Although casualties were extremely light, the battle's strategic impact was far greater than one might assume from its limited nature. The Union victory established what would become an unbroken Federal control of the Missouri River, and helped to thwart efforts to bring Missouri into the Confederacy.

I’m sure it was a good idea at the time, a way to make office space out of disused retail space, but it’s clumsy and banal. Fancy doors! Not really.

A bank? Seems likely, given the columns and corner location.

Interesting design decision: two doors instead of one main entrance. Perhaps one door goes upstairs.

The basement entrance has the effect of squeezing the main window, diminishing it.

Nice. Faded, the way they should be. Please, no one restore them.

“Sold Everywhere.” Well, yes, I suppose. Did anyone look at the ad and think “I’d like a Coke, but dang, where’s a fella supposed to get one?” You just knew.

Put that cheating faithless flour right out of business:

"That’s a lot of awning, Bob”

“I want folks to know there’s free shade if they want it, and lots of it.”

I’m guessing it had an automotive function - those look like bays, and the protrusions make it look as if they protected the building from some dang fool running his car into the bay frame.

Oh just paint the whole thing and get it over with already

Original windows on the ground floor, perhaps exposed after a renovation was removed. The side wasn’t bricked up, since those windows look original as well.

It would benefit from some sandblasting, but this will do.

Here’s a peculiar thing, though. This style does not match the rusticated stone.

Is that a face? Some 1920s modern bas relief?

The Corinthian columns don’t look like they belong with the rustication or the two-square ornamentation below the columns’ base. Odd.

Again, we kindly request: leave it alone. Don’t restore it.

This is how it looked when built, I think. Glass blocks and vitrolite for modernity’s sake!

And herein lies a tale, no?

What was the reason for the third floor’s lack of windows? Note also the balcony with the door - an amenity for offices, or part of a meeting hall? Apartments?

I’d love to know the story behind the one on the left, and why it’s so high. Or low. Is it two stories, or three?

If it’s three - and I think it is - why is its neighbor so much taller?

It’s like a name for a 1950s Marvel “Where Creatures Roam” monster. Really!

Its website says:

Herman Zuzak opened  Zuzak's Wonder Store on Main Street in Boonville, MO, early in the 20th century, selling everything from 5 & 10 cent curiosities to home furnishings.  The "dimestore" idea caught on and the building housed a Woolworths for the next 40 years.  One of Sam Walton's Ben Franklin stores followed, as his idea of a mega-dimestore matured into an even larger reality.

Wait, Walton’s Ben Franklin stores? Yes, he ran a string in his early career.

Our last stop is a beaut:

Makes you wonder how many other such storefronts were covered up or denuded.

By the way, this is just half of the Boonville trip. More next week. Will it be better? Worse? We’ll see.

That'll do! This year's Urban Studies updates continues, with Main Street postcards.