Letters to the editor for Saturday, Nov. 16, 2013

140 Years Ago

All sorts: The Knickerbocker Engine Company is having a ball to be given at the Odeon Hall in Dayton. The Genoa Free Masons are having their dedication ball. Jim Haines remarked that the ball would be a “rouser.”

130 Years Ago

Hunting: A party of hunters left here for a week’s field sport. At ten o’clock they were back having forgotten their dogs. At four o’clock in the afternoon, they were back in town again for their guns.

120 Years Ago

Letters from the Columbian Exposition (Part V): My little pet chameleon purchased at the Florida exhibit died this morning. It had licked the green paint off its sides and not being used to paint for breakfast had been unable to digest it. They are selling by the thousands for a dollar apiece and the mortality among them is very great. This morning Major Frank McLaughlin and myself went out in a Venetian gondola and shot a fine string of ducks on the lagoon and also bagged a couple of swans. S.D.

70 Years Ago

Songs: Two war theme songs, “On to Berlin” and “Shangri-La” will be heard over KFRC, San Francisco. They were written by Marjorie Adams Chatin and her husband, John. Chatin was employed by the Nevada State Highway Department and is now associate engineer stationed at Camp Stoneman, Calif.

50 Years Ago

Flying saucer: A Carson City resident testifies that she saw a disc shaped object,“tremendous” in size, hovering in the skies southwest of Carson. She reported seeing the object as it hovered above the clouds at 4:45 in the morning. Other people reportedly called police in Reno to report “a glow in the sky” southwest of Reno.

Sue Ballew is the daughter of Bill Dolan, who wrote this column for the Nevada Appeal from 1947 until his death in 2006.