Today -100: May 20, 1910: Of big booms, wet in Denver, and no country for really old men

At a barracks in Cuba, a carpenter tried to repair a case of dynamite by hammering in a nail, resulting in 35 deaths and 145 wounded. The carpenter’s head was found a quarter mile away.

Headline of the Day -100: “Athletes to Form New Body.”

The chair of the press committee of the NY State Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage, the impressively named Mrs. Barclay Hazard, writes a letter asking how suffragists explain the fact that Denver, despite having women’s suffrage, just voted itself wet.

I just looked at that sentence again, and it seems to have a double meaning I didn’t intend. “Wet” of course means that alcohol may be sold.

Denver also elected a woman election commissioner, Ellis Meredith, the first woman ever elected to a city office in Denver.

The Census Bureau investigated Noah Raby, who claimed at the time of his death to be 131 years old, and says he was actually 92 (Wikipedia says 81). It further doubts that anyone had ever reached 110 years of age.