Drinking and Driving III

                    

Twice before I have featured posts that documented how frequently beer and liquor companies prior to National Prohibition featured their products in juxtaposition to motor cars.  At the end of the 19th Century in the entirety of the United States there were only 8,000 automobiles.  Over the next 14 years that number exploded to 1.7 million.  Purveyors of alcoholic beverages were quick to jump on the motorized bandwagon.

Among them was James Hanley, a liquor dealer who with a partner in 1876 bought an existing brewery in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.  Several years later Hanley moved it to his native Providence.  In 1901 he issued a calendar featuring an elegant couple out for a ride on their “horseless carriage.”  Note that this vehicle is still being steered with a lever and the driver is sitting on the right side, British style.  The association of the automobile with alcohol is cemented by a picture on the front panel of a gent and a beer bottle.

By 1907 when the J. & M. Haffen Brewing Company of the Bronx, New York, issued its calendar, the steering wheel had replaced the lever and back seats had arrived but the driver still sat on the “wrong” side.  The excited woman with her arms raised clearly in the rear has been imbibing some of Haffen’s brew and is in clear danger of being flipped out at the next corner.  Founded in 1856 by Mathias Haffen, a Bavarian immigrant, the brewery flourished. It incorporated in 1900 and moved into a new seven-story building but faltered with the onset of prohibition and closed in 1917.

By 1911 when the Adam Scheidt Brewing Company issued its calendar, the motor vehicle in the background had a honest-to-goodness steering wheel and the driver sat front left.  The scene is more explicit about the picnic beverage.  A young woman, looking slightly tipsy, is holding out her glass for more beer as her boy friend contemplates opening another bottle from the apparently once-full case and filling both glasses. The brewery began in 1870, run by German immigrant brothers Charles and Adam Scheidt.  With time out for National Prohibition their brews existed for more than 100 years.

The Piels Brothers Brewery was founded by Gottfried, Michael and Wilhelm Piel, immigrants from Dussedorf am Rhein, Germany.  Arriving in the U.S. in the 1880s, the brothers bought a small old-style brewing plant on Long Island, N.Y., then in disuse, and began introducing more modern scientific principles.  Michael was the brewmaster and plant superintendent.  The brewery met with considerable success and expanded as its reputation spread across the U.S. and abroad.  The company provided saloons carry its beer with a painterly looking lithograph of five men driving across the desert and obviously lost, seeking directions from Indian braves on their ponies.  Note the “cow-catcher” on the front   of the automobile.

The quality of the sign may be explained by Michael Piels reputation an art aficionado.  The identification with the brewery is subtle.  Shown here in detail is the cargo riding on the running board.  It appears to be a case of beer with “Piel Bro’s E.N.Y. (aka Brooklyn) Brewery.” In September 1973, Piel Bros. plant was closed down after 90 years of operation. 

In contrast to the subtlety of the Piels’ offering is the saloon sign from the Conrad Seipp Brewing Company of Chicago.  It depicts two couples in an antique roadster traveling on hazardous single lane mountain road — notice the absence of guard rails — only to be stopped by a giant bottle of Seipp’s Extra Pale Beer.  The party also is greeted with graffiti on the clift advising: “You can’t get around it, it’s the pure food beer.”  The company also issued a serving tray that carried the same image with some slight alteration in the colors.

Nickolas “Nick” Herges provided his customers with a pocket mirror that showed him smoking a cigar above a building that held his saloon, the Budweiser Tavern in St. Paul Minnesota.  The name of his establishment indicates a “tied saloon,” one in which only Bud and other Anheuser Busch products were sold. The automobile in the scene appears to be chauffeured.  Herges was an immigrant from Germany, according the 1910 census.  He lived above the tavern with his wife, Susan, born in Minnesota of German ancestry, and their three sons.

For years I harbored doubts whether the ad from the Bock Auto Bar Company of Milwaukee was authentic.  It discusses “dusty roads” making motorists thirsty and prescribes the “Auto Beer Bar” as a remedy:  “Your favorite beverage on tap all the time.  Invaluable in traffic jams or on Sundays.”  The illustration shows a gent gleefully filling a goblet with beer from one of two barrels installed under the dashboard.  From the perspective of the present day this would seem to be a spoof.  Those who have investigated, including me, a former Milwaukeean, have concluded that the evidence is on the side of the ad’s legitimacy.  

Drinking and driving — today anathema — in an earlier time was eagerly embraced by breweries and saloons.  The evidence is here and in dozens of other beer and whiskey ads and merchandise. 

Note:  Some of those other marketing uses of “drinking and driving” are found in my earlier posted articles on the subject:  November 7, 2015, and April 22, 2017.

.

Drugs, Sex, and the Military in Panama

I recently watched the 2012 movie, “21 Jump Street,” about two rookie  policemen who go undercover back to high school in an effort to break up a drug ring.  The movie got good reviews but has the usual Hollywood trappings of a motorcycle and car chase, vehicle explosions, and considerable gunplay.  Nonetheless, the firm reminded me of my own adventure involving an analogous situation in the Panama Canal Zone.

It all began in November 1986 with a seemingly innocuous item in the Commerce Business Daily (CBD), the Federal government’s daily list of contracts being put out for bid.  The notice was from the U.S. military’s Southern Command, known as SOUTHCOM, located in the (former) Panama Canal Zone.  The Command was seeking a contractor to open and staff a secondary school for American military dependent students at a mothballed military base near Colon, a city on the Pacific side of the canal.

It was an unusual assignment but not so odd that the consulting firm for which I was working lacked interest.  The chairman, a New Mexico-born Hispanic, had lived in Panama, went to high school there and later had played on the national basketball team.  In addition, education in Central and South America was a “core” area of our business.  He was keen to find out more — and possibly to bid for the contract.

Since we would be dealing with Americans, my inability to speak Spanish was not a problem and thus, as vice president in charge of international business develpment, I was tapped for the assignment to investigate the opportunity and, if a go, lead the proposal team.  Moreover, I was familiar with the Canal Zone, having made two trips there as a staff member with Congressional delegations in 1962 and 1970.

Both trips had left me with lingering bad memories of the Zone and Zonians, as the Americans who lived there were known.  On the first trip a congressman in the group, a Catholic, at a party thrown for the delegation was subjected to an anti-Catholic slur by a somewhat inebriated colonel’s wife.  During the second trip, a specific mission to review SOUTHCOM,  the U.S. military's Southern Command, a black Panamanian friend and dinner guest of one of the congressmen was insulted by a drunken major in the SOUTHCOM Officer’s Club.  Moreover, during a Sunday boat outing for the delegation, several officers accompanying us were drunk and incoherent by 10 a.m.  Details were reported to the Secretary of Defense upon our return with a recommendation to get SOUTHCOM out of Panama.

In 1977, responding to nearly 20 years of Panamanian protests, President Jimmy Carter and Panama’s General Omar Torrijos signed treaties that replaced the original 1903 agreement and called for a full transfer of canal control in 1999.  SOUTHCOM and other military were allowed to stay until that date but a naval base on the Colon side was “mothballed” as the Zone itself became Panamanian territory.  My pre-trip research revealed that Christobal High School, shown here near the Colon base, had been shut down but appeared to be intact and possibly could be reopened to accommodate the projected school.

In a piece of good fortune I first stopped in Honduras to do some marketing with American officials.  At lunch in the U.S. Embassy cafeteria , I happened to sit at a table with an American Army captain.  We struck up a very friendly conversation.  I was surprised and intrigued to find out that he was head of the military anti-narcotic unit in the former Zone.  When I told him where I was bound and why,  he said cryptically:  “When you get to Panama, look me up. I may have something you will be interested in.”

The Captain’s office was my first stop.  He told this story:   Through an undercover enlisted man posing as a high school student, his unit had broken up a drug ring, one dealing in pot and cocaine, at the American High School in the former Zone.  About a dozen boys, all sons of officers, had been caught exchanging banned substances, readily available in Panama, for “sexual favors” from the wives of enlisted men.  The encounters occurred at the women’s homes during the day while their husbands were on duty.  

That day I met the undercover MP, a handsome young man

of Latino heritage who looked a trifle old to be in high school but had pulled off the impersonation.  He emerged with the names of the boys involved in the drugs-for-sex ring.  Night raids on their bedrooms were conducted at their military-provided homes, sometimes over strenuous parental objections. More incriminating evidence was turned up.

Under the terms of the 1977 treaty that turned the Zone over to the Panamanians,  the juvenile perpetrators should have been subjected to Panamanian law.   Reluctant to submit them to Latino justice, however, the U.S. military alternative was to banish the kids back to the U.S.  In most cases that meant that their mothers had to go with them.  Over time their officer fathers had complained loudly and repeatedly to the Commanding General about not having their wives around.  

Thus was hatched the idea of opening a special boarding school for the drug-dealing over-sexed boys, a place where they would be under supervision but inside Panama, with families semi-reunited and Mama back home. Tucked away on the Pacific side of the country, the miscreants would be out of sight and, it was hoped, out of trouble while getting an education.  This clearly was a military solution:  The costs involved apparently were not a consideration.

The scheme may have seemed like a good idea at the time to the Army brass, good enough, in fact, to warrant a formal announcement in the Commerce Business Daily, but my presence in Panama seeking more information appeared to panic the population.  At the American High School, shown here, the civilian principal emphatically denied to me that there were any drug problems at the school and feigned complete ignorance of the projected high school in Colon.

A series of phone calls revealed that no military officer of any authority was willing to talk to me. There were firm denials about the Colon school plan -- until I read from the CBD notice.  After a few semi-frantic calls it was decided that a female Army second lieutenant from public relations would meet with me at SOUTHCOM headquarters.  The interview lasted less than five minutes.  She suggested that military secrets were involved and, over my objections, we adjourned.

Adding to the excitement was my decision not to rent a car.  During earlier visits taxicabs had been ubiquitous in the Zone so I had decided not to hire a car and driver.  In the new era, however, taxis were virtually nonexistent. I was forced to beg rides, even hitchhike, from office to office.   The personal sense of adventure involved in that strategy evaporated by afternoon when I got caught in a driving rain squall while walking a half mile to my final appointment, a meeting with an Army psychiatrist whose relevance to my inquiry I cannot recall. As my suit dripped on his carpet, he was pleasant but as unhelpful as the others.

That night, as I stood in my hotel room watching the sun go down over the skyline of Panama City I was struck how changed it had become since my earlier visits.  High rise buildings were to be seen everywhere with cranes busy constructing others.  Most of those high rises were empty I had been told, built as a way of “laundering”  the millions of dollars in narcotics money that flowed through Panama.  Then I sat down to write my report of findings. In summary:  “This procurement is crazy.  Forget about bidding.”

My visit apparently set off alarm bells not just in SOUTHCOM but likely all the way back to the Pentagon. Before I had even returned to my office, the Colon school procurement notice had been rescinded without explanation in the Commerce Business Daily.  How much heartburn, I wondered, might that have caused some of the officer corp at SOUTHCOM.  But on the other hand, score one for rationality.

DISTILLERIES IN 3-D

Foreword:  This post results from my recently finding an article done years ago for a limited circulation publication that since has ceased publication and deciding that the images were interesting enough to warrant a reprise as a post for this blog.

This article is devoted to the depiction in three dimensions of whiskey distilleries, real and imagined.   That so much attention has been paid to distillery buildings is in itself puzzling since they normally are utilitarian structures and not very attractive.  Despite that, a number of whiskey makers have chosen to memorialized their buildings with replicas in ceramic.  Other distillery replicas come from the imaginations of those who provide kits for model railroad buffs. They often do resemble the rustic wooden buildings where much of America’s early whiskey was made.

The Old Taylor Distillery,  marked by the castle that served as its administrative headquarters, created a ceramic bottle that held a fifth of its bourbon.  The turret at right ends in a cork and can be removed to pour the whiskey.   Located in Frankfurt, Kentucky, Old Taylor also reproduced its architecture in a metal bank. The money inside could be retrieved by using a key to open a metal panel on the base.

The Ezra Brooks whiskey people also put their product in ceramic distillery bottles.  One shown here was issued in 1970 Featuring a smoke stack, it was colored in green, black and brown, with gold highlights.   Like the Old Taylor jug, the top of the factory screwed off to allow the whiskey to be poured.   Ezra Brooks also issued a mini version of the distillery, this one all in gold.  Made by Heritage China, this bottle featured a cork in the base that could be removed to access the small amount of liquor.

Abe Bomberger of Pennsylvania Dutch stock rebuilt andexpanded the still house, shown here, as well as the warehouse and the jug house. With these facilities the Michter distillery increased production substantially.  As a National Historical Landmark designation states: His complex “represents the transformation of whiskey distilling from an agricultural enterprise into a large scale industry.”

Bushmills Irish whiskey, a replica of its distillery shown here, claims a long heritage of distilling.  When the original building was destroyed by fire in 1885, the company built a new one. It is still in use and the model for the replica the company issued several years ago.

While the previous structures were constructed from metal or ceramic a third group of distilleries were made of wood, meant to be part of model railroad layouts.  Many come in kits ready for assembly.  They carry signs on them for Jack Daniels, Jim Beam,  and other popular contemporary brands.   These models have a rustic look, appropriate to an Old West layout for a Lionel steam train.  Here are examples:

For a long time, it seems, among manufacturing facilities, the distillery, has sparked considerable interest and imagination in three dimensions.  My hunch is that the product that flows from these mundane structures is what catches the interest of those who make the models and those who buy them.   In other words, it is the hooch and not the hutch that ultimately holds the appeal.

Memories of a 1979 Asian Refugee Crisis

On May 20, 1979, more than 30,000 Cambodians, armed Khmer Rouge soldiers with their wives and children and assorted civilians, crossed into Thailand near Aranyapathet, shown on the map here, in flight from attacking Vietnamese troops.  At the time, as the head of USAID’s Asia Bureau, I was on my way to Pakistan on a mission visit.  But not for long.

The refugee crisis had caught world attention. Henry Kamm, a New York Times reporter who specialized in Indochina refugee problems wrote two op-ed pieces criticizing the Carter White House for not taking immediate relief efforts.  The President promised to send his wife, Rosalynn, to the scene but first ordered that I abort my trip and fly immediately to Thailand to make an assessment of the most pressing needs and offer assistance.  With another USAID official, Dennis Chandler, we flew to Bangkok and by car drove 250 kilometers to the camp.

My first impression upon reaching the scene was of a sea of small plastic tents, closely packed on a huge sandy field, shown above.  Most tents held a Khmer Rouge solder and his family.  It was traditional for Cambodians in a military force to bring their wives and children with them as they maneuvered.  As I knew from my 1970 mission in Cambodia, this custom had proved disasterous to the Royal Khmer army as it earlier had fought the Viet Minh.  Now it had afflicted the Khmer Rouge.

Although personally antagonistic toward the Khmer Rouge for murdering so many of my contacts in Cambodia, one could only be deeply touched by the camp scenes going on all around us.  Many of the children, as well as adults,  had arrived in Thailand malnourished and severely sick or wounded. The death toll in the camp was registered at some ninety per day.

Shown above is an American missionary doctor who is tending to a sick child.  Other doctors had set up a makeshift operating tent and were engaged in surgery on those wounded in the fighting.  As shown here, other volunteers were feeding children.  U.S. Embassy personnel, including U.S. Ambassador Mort Abramowitz and his wife, were on the scene bathing babies and providing clothing.  

As shown below, food was being trucked into the camp daily by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR)  whose representatives were in nominal charge of the camp.  When the shipments arrived hundreds of refugees surrounded the trucks, looking for their daily allotment of food.  Even though many were hungry they were remarkably disciplined in waiting their turn, likely kept in line by the Khmer Rouge hierarchy many of whom had managed to lose or hide their military ranks but were well known to the refugees.

I photographed members of our team as we discussed how best  USAID could provide assistance to the camp.  At left is Dennis Chandler, next a Thai USAID employee, and Jack Williamson, an American in the Thai USAID who was highly valuable because of his experience in Indochina and his fluency in Thai.  Jack had briefed our group on the long road from Bangkok, a group that included Bill Garrett, managing editor of National Geographic.  Here we are talking to the UNHCR deputy camp director, an American named Schweitzer. 

The most pressing need, Schweitzer told us, was for water.  Humans can live for a time without food but access to potable water is essential, especially important in the heat of the Thai day.  At that time water was being trucked in by the tank load, barely enough to meet camp needs.  Even larger crowds than met the food trucks welcomed the arrival of the water.  As shown below, the precious drops were carried away in a variety of containers.

I immediately inquired about the possibility of digging wells and was assured that preliminary hydrological studies indicated that there was a usable water table under the camp that could be reached by drilling.  Remembering that at least two of the Asia Bureau’s missions were currently involved in well-drilling projects, I assured Schweitzer USAID could have the expertise — and as needed the equipment — on scene in a matter of days.  We transmitted the word back to Washington.

As we were leaving the camp for the long ride back to Bangkok, I spied and photographed a scene that reminded me of something George Orwell had written in his book, “Animal Farm.”  There Orwell compared the egalitarian claims of a communist organization like the Khmer Rouge with the reality:  “Some are more equal than others.”   As I was passing by one shelter I was struck by a mother bathing a fat baby boy, a far contrast from all the emaciated children I had seen earlier. Then I caught a glance of the boy’s father, still in the uniform of a Khmer Rouge commander.  The reason for the contrast became clear.

Continuing on to my initial overseas destination, it was two weeks or more before I returned to my office in Washington, DC.  Waiting for me there was the news that our USAID well-diggers had arrived in Thailand and were busy drilling down to the water table.  It would only be a matter of days before the water trucks no longer would be necessary.  Moreover, the death toll steadily was declining.

Despite continuing unrest and sporadic firing along the Thai-Cambodia border, Mrs. Carter visit the camp in early November, accompanied by Henry Kamm. He reported to the Times that the First Lady knelt next to the mats on which the sick were lying in the sand and declared at the end of her visit, “It's like nothing I've ever seen.”  Four decades later I can say the same.

Note:  The impulse to publish this memory and my photographs came as the result of contemplating the misery that COVID-19 is afflicting on human beings around the world, including in the many refugee camps, and thinking back on that heart-rending scene of sickness and death in Thailand.

Half a Million Hits and Two “New Finds”

                    

Foreword:  This post marks the point where this blog has reached just over 500,000 “hits” over its lifetime.  By comparison with many other websites that is a paltry number but “BottlesBooze…” from the beginning has been idiosyncratic, “about more things than you can shake a stick at,” and has not been geared to attract legions of followers.  From time to time I have used it to introduce “new finds” in collectible bottles, and just in time for this half million milestone two such have recently come  to light.  

The first is an under-glaze transfer jug that figured in a trans-Atlantic debate I carried on thirty years ago with the leading British expert on ceramic bottles, Alan Blakeman.  At that time I was convinced that most, if not all, of the fancy whiskey jugs were made in Scotland or England and shipped to our shores.  Alan disagreed. He argued that the U.S. must have had pottery firms with the capability of designing and executing even intricate transfer designs. Alan was right.  

I saw the proof for myself in 1998. It was a small stoneware butter crock, likely a salesman's sample issued by the Sherwood Bros. Pottery of New Brighton, Pennsylvania. The crock is drawn with an elegance and precision equal to anything the “Old World” could produce. Ad copy on the item offers to provide underglaze transfer printed items of equal perfection to Sherwood Brothers clients.

The crock was part of a private collection of Sherwood Bros. ceramics that I had driven 280 miles to see in New Brighton.  The collector who regularly dug at the site of the former ceramics works, shown above, had  found a shard that indicated a similar pattern might be found on a whiskey jug.  In the 32 ensuing years I have looked for such an item without result —until last month.  Seen below is the jug as it appeared on eBay in March, advertised as “very rare” — almost an understatement.  Attracting five bidders, opened at $125 and ultimately sold for $305.

In tandem with the Sherwood Bros. jug, the same seller listed a second  container, this one from the Fulper Pottery Company of Flemington, New Jersey.  Year ago I identified this ceramic works as the source of a distinguishable variety of whiskey jug.  Since then I have compiled a list of some 135 different examples of Fulper products, a list I make available upon request.  I had never, however, seen this particular example before.  It advertised “Imperial Club Pure Rye” and was issued originally by the William Page & Company of New York City.

Because these jugs essentially are decorated over the glaze and are more than 100 years old, they frequently show wear on the gold lettering and design, particularly on the lower half that typically has a dark glaze.   As shown here, this jug shows some minor wear but in general has its decoration intact. I am particularly impressed with the elaborate gold crown at the center of the label that seems utterly intact.   Despite its appearance, this item, offered at $95, failed to attract single bidder.  Unfortunately these ceramics often do not fetch more than $50. In good condition, as this whiskey jug is, I think they are undervalued.

W.W. Denslow: The Wizard of “Bird’s Eye Views”

After the Civil War, a radical shift in artistically depicting vistas emerged, with farmscapes, landscapes, cityscapes and buildings often were shown from a bird-eye perspective, as one observer has put it, “rendered with maplike precision.”  Currently experiencing a revival of attention in the art world, such drawings often were done by itinerant self-taught American artists.  W. W. Denslow, shown above, was by contrast an accomplished artist, best known for his later illustrations for “The Wizard of Oz.”  Nonetheless, Denslow adopted the simplistic technique to accomplish a series of 100 plus lithographs of more than passing interest.

In 1876 Denslow was hired to provide a portfolio of sketches for the centennial celebrations held on the Fourth of July at Chambersburg, Franklin County, Pennsylvania.  The author, I. H. M’Cauley,  wrote a brief history of the region and provided information on each sketch, barely mentioning the artist.  Nevertheless, still struggling to make a living from his drawing, Denslow likely was happy for the commission although it must have consumed considerable time visiting and recording the sites.  My assumption is that the artist could profit additionally from individual sales of the lithographs.

For example, I would assume that Adam Kieffer of “Rock Dale” outside St. Peters, Pennsylvania, would have purchased at least one picture of his domain.

The farm in exquisite detail is shown in prosperity, with a three-story stone house, a large barn with an ample hay stack, a thriving orchard, and pictures of hogs, cows and horses.  The surprise feature is a railroad train running right through Kieffer’s spread, towing both a boxcar and a passenger car.

The Price farm above appears even more well-to-do, with two sizable barns in view and a variety of outbuildings.  Here the emphasis was on the large orchards on one side and the fields of grain on the other.  Except for the horse and buggy, no livestock are visible, likely shut away in one of the barns.

Somewhat less impressive is the farm of James K. Andrew.  Although the barn is of the usual scale and livestock are evident, the farmhouse appears to be more modest and the number of outbuildings limited to two.  Note that this farmscape is bifurcated by a road through which a team is pulling a Conestoga wagon. As was his custom Denslow has signed the lithograph in the lower right corner with his initials.

Denslow also provided illustration of rural enterprises.  His landscape of the Antietam marble works, sawmill, and home of Henry Walter leaves no doubt that the primary products of the site were cemetery monuments and tombstones.  The work of cutting the marble and planks in the sawmill was facilitated by the diversion of the stream.  The region is drained by the east and west branches of Antietam Creek, a south-flowing tributary of the Potomac River.

Among my favorite Denslow illustrations is that of Hopewell Mills.  Here the sharp edges of other sites have been softened by some gentle curves, including the hill known as Bare Knob behind.  The view looks northward from a stone arch bridge over the east branch of Antietam Creek.  While the buildings and bridge no longer exist, the two roads do.  The one with the wagon today is known as Fish and Game Road.

A third rural enterprise sketched by Denslow is of a thriving whiskey-making operation.  After John Durkin’s death Oscar Good had purchased from his family the three-story stone distillery with the smaller bonded warehouse at the left.  The artist emphasizes the activity of the facility by showing a worker rolling one of many barrels to where sales are being made to horse-drawn wagons coming and going.  The slopes behind the distillery are the Blue Mountains, a beautiful low Appalachian range that extends for more than 100 miles through the southern Pennsylvania countryside.

The next illustration takes us from the profane to the sacred.  Robert Kennedy Memorial Presbyterian Church, also known as Welsh Run Presbyterian Church, is a historic place of worship in Franklin County, Pennsylvania. Built in 1871, it is a 1 & 1/2-story frame Italianate-style building. Still standing, the church features a Tiffany stained glass window dated 1934.  The church is named for Rev. Robert Kennedy, who served the congregation twice during the period 1802 to 1843.

Denslow also was commissioned to illustrate buildings in an urban setting, including the Indian Queen Hotel, located in downtown Chambersberg.  It was a two story brick building with a center hall.  The ground floor on one side held the bar and on the other a parlor.  Rooms were upstairs.  As might have been noticed earlier, no attempt was made by the artist to provide perspective: the man in the buggy is smaller than the figures on the sidewalk beyond.  In this he was imitating the self-taught itinerant artists of his time — a style many people had come to expect and liked.

W. W. Denslow would go on to illustrate many books, particularly those for children.  His renderings for “The Wizard of Oz” in 1900 would bring him fame and fortune.  With his wealth he bought an island off Bermuda, lived there as a recluse and ultimately drank himself to death.  His legacy remains in the many charming drawings he made — including, I believe, the lithographs for the

Chambersburg centennial celebration.

Note:  This is the second article I have posted on this blog about W. W. Denslow.  He was, in fact, the subject of my first post way back on April 30, 2009.  For my “Pre-Prohibition Men” blog I have written a biography of O.W. Good, the Franklin County distiller, dated April 6,2012.