Volume 12 , Issue 46

Sholtz Butcher Shop Incident

Have you heard this story of Bill Sholtz, who was a butcher and had a shop near Snyder's dry goods store?

One day Bill Sholtz, after having done all of the butchering for the community that he deemed necessary, concluded he would try it on himself. Back of the big, tall ice box reaching the the ceiling in the middle of the room, he rigged up a rope and putting about his neck swung himself off. Sholtz's swinging body was discovered and cut down, but too late to save his life.

There was one negro about town by the name of Bill Franklin, who did just about anything. Franklin was a porter, janitor, scrubber and man of all work for everybody.

A few days later, the owner of the Sholtz meat shop building hired Bill to scrub it out. Claud McCrory, Clark Hudson, Roy Stafford, Frank Shelley and a number of others, gained access tot he rear entrance of the building. They fixed up a dummy and hung it up by a rope in the same place where poor Sholtz had hung.

The next morning Bill Franklin came in with his bucket of water and scrubbing outfit and was busily engaged about his work until he came in back of the ice box and was confronted by the swaying figure. Frklin gave two wild whoops and started for the front door.

The sidewalk was covered with sleet and ice and the street was full of mud and water, and when Franklin struck the sleet the ice he did not stop until re reached the mud and water into which he rolled, to the intense merriment of the sacrilegious onlookers. That day somebody else scrubbed the shop.

How cruel can a few grown men be? I hope today (21st century) that the citizens of Alva, Woods County, Oklahoma have grown beyond these sacrilegious pranks of our founding fathers in the northwest Oklahoma Territory.   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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