Newspapers contain a variety of features which appeal to people of differing reading tastes. Some folks turn first to the comics, others the sports, crossword puzzles or cooking columns. Before I learned to read, my favorite newspaper page was the Omaha World-Herald’s picture page. After learning to read, the From the Files column in The Superior Express was a must read and I read similar columns in other newspapers whenever the opportunity presented itself.
As a high school journalism student, I liked to browse the bound volumes of school newspaper and yearbooks of previous years. While I was the school newspaper’s photographer and did not have to write stories, stories I found in the bound volumes often sparked new stories which I wrote much like a freelancer may contribute stories to this newspaper today.
Now in my evenings at home, I like to read back issues of the local newspapers. In the following paragraphs this week I read an auction story published 70 years ago in the Nelson Gazette.
In early September of 1954, a public auction was held in downtown Nelson to clear away the buildings and other items standing in the way of a new building.
According to the story published in the Nelson Gazette on Sept. 9, 1954, when A. H. Kottmeyer, the genial auctioneer from Superior was not having success finding a bidder on the small dilapidated structure he described as the “House of Yesterday,” he agreed to sell it to Vic Scherzinger, a member of the Gazette staff, for 50 cents.
As Kottmeyer was a regular Gazette advertiser, I suspect Scherzinger felt somewhat obligated to accept the offer—at least I would have for I once acquired a web press from an auctioneer I didn’t even know. I had bought other pieces of printing equipment at an auction in York and when I sent to settle up a ticket described the item purchased as “Didde web press and Baum folder.” I knew I bought the folder but wasn’t even near the press when the time it to sell came up. I protested and the auctioneer said, “Yes they sold together, you can sell the press for scrap iron,” and that I did but not before I moved it to Superior and stored it for years while looking for a possible use.
After the Nelson auction closed, Kottmeyer offered to give Scherzinger 50 cents. Scherzinger declined and the next day sold the house for a 10 percent profit.
Wow! He held the property overnight and sold it for a 10 percent profit. That sounds pretty good until you realize a 10 percent profit on 50 cents is 5 cents, enough to have bought a Hershey bar with almonds.
Boasting about his wheeling and dealing skills, Scherzinger suggested his nickname henceforth should be “Sharpie.”
I don’t know what the auctioneer’s commission rate was in 1954 but, if it was 10 percent he wasn’t well paid for his time, expertise and drive from Superior. At 10 percent, his commission was less than $12.
Mrs. Dorsey Worden of Superior paid $95 for the 18x30 frame building which had housed a number of Nelson businesses. A small chicken house was sold to Carl Peterson for $20 and a truck-size refrigerator box went to Jake Hepler for $1.
The main building was built by Jake Helper in 1885 or 1886 and had had seven owners.
It became Nelson’s first filling station when Ed Boshoff, also the operator of a produce business there, installed a gasoline pump at the side of the unpaved street in front of the building. It was once the home of a Nelson newspaper published by Mr. Ellingham. On two separate occasions, it housed a grocery store and at one time a general store. It also housed a pool hall. It apparently was best known for housing a creamery. If built in 1885, it stood for 69 years before being razed.
We tend to think of buildings being built in 1885 as old but do the math. If what I consider to be the “new” Nelson Auditorium was built in 1954, it is now 70 years old and older than the “old creamery.”
And getting back to the auction and the late auctioneer. Kottmeyer auctions were entertaining.
The night he sold the building in Superior across from the newspaper now occupied by Saathoff Construction, he paused the auctioneer’s chant and looked me straight in the eye and said I had better hurry and buy the building for not doing so was costing me money. To back up his statement, he suggested I turn around and look at the newspaper office. The crowd laughed when they turned, and saw the entire crew i had left working was standing in the office peering through the window blinds watching the sale progress.
When bidding lagged while selling a property located below the Champlin Petroleum Company tank farm, he told the crowd, the place came with free gasoline that could be skimmed off the top of the water well.
At a farm sale, he suggested if I bought the farm, he would willingly farm it with his mules.
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