Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 141, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 June 1910 — Drunken Chicago Toughs In a Riot at Cedar Lake. [ARTICLE]

Drunken Chicago Toughs In a Riot at Cedar Lake.

Monon Park, Cedar Lake, was the scene of a riot Sunday, when the first summer excursion was run from Chicago. An officer was badly hurt and several rioters were injured. Robert Mercer, head of the park’s special police, was so badly cut about the head that he had to be taken to Crown Point to have his head dressed. Two arrests were made by the sheriff’s deputies and the men wert jailed at Crown Point. The affair took place where so many of its predecessors have occurred at Monon Park, the Monon railway’s pretty park on the west side of the lake where several coach loads of picnickers came out from Chicago to spend the day. The picnic was given by one of the painters unions in Chicago. A drunken brawl started the melee. Two men engaded in a fight and Mercer sought to bring an end to the hostilities. Then a wholesale battle started in which the unfortunate officer was maltreated, a swarm of picnickers hastened to the rescue of x the men Mercer sought to arrest. Mercer was stripped of his gun, club and star. Several men took his part and the conflict became general. Mercer was surrounded and badly beaten. His head was laid open with a beer bottle and a number of the rioters were beaten up pretty badly. A number of officers of the law then got busy and Sherriff Grant’s deputies made several arrests. Mercer was taken to Crown Point, where "Dr. W. F. Houk was called up to dress Jiis wounds. The arrested rioters were jailed .and will have a hearing before Judge Nicholson.