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Pages of History
Pages of History
A book published by Lieutenant Carroll W. “Cal” Stewart of Hartington was starting to appear in bookstores throughout the country. The title of the book was “TARGET GERMANY — The Story of the 8th Bomber Command’s First Year In Operation Over Europe.”
Born and raised in Belden, Cal Stewart began his newspaper career as a teenager working for the Belden Progress. In 1938, at the age of 19, he joined the staff of the Cedar County News where he worked his way up to managing news editor.
In January 1942, Stewart left the News to enlist in the Army Air Corps. By December of that year, he was stationed in England where he worked as a radio operator and also edited an army newspaper called “The Liberator.” In addition to his regular duties, Stewart also wrote articles which appeared in daily newspapers and magazines in the U.S.
From his post in England, Stewart began gathering the information that appeared in his book. “I wish I had a staff of 20 reporters to help gather the data I am trying to do single-handedly,” he remarked in a letter which appeared in the Coleridge Blade. Somewhere in this writer’s collection of local historical material, is a copy of Stewart’s book.
After the war, Stewart returned to Nebraska. In 1962, while managing three weekly newspapers in Lincoln, he wrote a book about the bombing of the oil fields of Ploesti, Romania. Stewart passed away in 2007 and is buried in Lincoln. He was inducted into the Nebraska Journalism Hall of Fame in 2007. Also in December, 1943, more than 200 Cedar County farmers signed a petition asking President Roosevelt to lift rationing restrictions on pork. The problem was that the government had asked farmers to produce as much pork as they could in 1943. And so producers raised more hogs than they could sell and produced more pork than the government would buy. Thus the producers, who did what the government asked, were losing a lot of money.
This often happens when the government tries to run things. Cedar County, incidentally, was the number one producer of hogs in the State of Nebraska.
Frank Kuhl was making so much money with his livestock that he decided to expand his business. Kuhl’s livestock was bees. Kuhl said he planned to add 500 additional swarms to his already large operation. In December he bought the old Fairmont Creamery building on the Burlington tracks north of Laurel and remodeled it to house his honey business. The building would be used to process honey and package it for shipping.
The building was built by the Fairmont company of Sioux City in 1928. The creamery prospered for a while, but when business fell off the building was closed. Kuhl said the building was well constructed and well-suited for his operation. Kuhl was in the honey business in Laurel for about 10 years. The building has since been torn down.
Although Cedar County had been struck by a severe blizzard in November, the year 1943 was the driest since 1931 and the month of December was one of the driest ever recorded.
In another case of the government interfering in free markets, the Office of Price Administration (OPA), increased the maximum price that could be paid for yellow corn from $.90 a bushel to $1.00 a bushel. This was to try to get more corn on the market.
Due in part to the fact that 1943 had been very dry, the corn crop was shorter than normal. Under the new regulations, farmers were not allowed to sell corn to anyone for more than the official government price.
