Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 38, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 September 1905 — Cedar Lake A Tough Place. [ARTICLE]

Cedar Lake A Tough Place.

- Taking the recent murder and suicide at Cedar Lake as a text, the Crown Point Star thus sums up the past events and present conditions of thing at that noted resort in Lake county: That the devil has lurked around Cedar Lake the past twenty years, and seems to be getting a stronger hold with each season, there is hardly a doubt. To speak plaiu'y there has been more iniquity pra cticed there and the laws broken more frequently than at any other spot with the number of inhabitants in Northern Indiana. The drownings in twenty years will ikely number thirty. Some were simply carelessness, but a majority were the outcome of intoxicants, in many instances sold without a license. This last sad calamity of murder and suicide calls to memory the murder and suicide of Pauline Dolezal and Barnej Elwanger, the fatal accident that occured to Emil Bloomquist, the beer driver, the burning to death of Wm. Potter and a Mrs. Guernsey in a saloon, and a jockey that was thrown from a horse and killed, all on the same road iu a short time. Last year a man shot himself at the pavilion through some love affair and expired soon after, many have been slashed and shot at the picnicgrounds in the meantime, and foi all the public vice going on then our authorities seem to have kept their eyes closed and their ears stopped, and persevt re in doing so Slot machines run rampant, Sun day is the banner day for wide open saloons, and without the as sistance of prosecution it grows from bad to worse.

With more than twenty saloons in a territory with less than 300 regular inhabitants shows con clusively what breeds many of the fatalties at that place —one of the beauty spots made by God when Lake county was added to the globe. |The saloons and elements ot vice carried on there have gradu ally worn out the value of lots and and parcels of land to a mere song that otherwise would yet bring high prices and be covered around the shores with summer residences —ornaments instead ot d isgrace.