Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 132, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 June 1915 — Crown Point Busy as a Marriage Mill This Month. [ARTICLE]

Crown Point Busy as a Marriage Mill This Month.

Lake County Star: Hardly a day passes that Crown Point doesn’t get into the Chicago papers, more especially through out “marriage mill,” which perhaps averages fifteen couples daily. In Wednesday’s Chicago Tribune the following notice appeared which is but a fair sample of our free advertising: “In Chicago June Ist was a holiday for no one but the landlord. In Crown Point it was everybody’s holiday—the opening of a rush season in the line which is Crown Point’s specialty. Twenty-one couples from Chicago eloping and -just going prosaically away to get married for the fun of the car ride dropped more or less unobtrusively into Crown Point, saw the marriage license clerk, saw the jeweler, saw the confectioner, saw the justice of the peace, saw the menu at the leading restaurant, and went on their way, men and wives. The first couple reached Crown Point on a motorcycle. There were Ernst W. Mead, a Chicago motor repair man, and Miss Irene Delaney. Both had been to the Indianapolis races. Then came the Crown Point special from Chicago, carrying five couples or more. Though all the world may love a‘ lover, nowhere is he more welcome than in the peaceful county seat, and old “Doc” Clack was at the station with a handshake and his creaking bus. Within the courthouse so many couples were lined up for marriage licenses that the county clerk himself hastened to the asistance of his clerk. As fast as the precious papers were obtained the edger ones scurried across the square to where the benevolent justice, Harry B. Nicholson, sat in his swivel chair. Hastily, they repeated after him the words of law, he pronounces them man and wife, and they kiss to make way for the next couple. One of those who made up their minds in a hurry were Albert Bailey, of Moline, a carriage painter, and Miss Anna Hesh. In Chicago, at the county clerk’s office 131-couples obtained licenses to wed. Chicago is about 1,000 times larger than Crown Point, and at the same ratio of marriages as in Crown Point would have had 21,000 during the day.”