On this date one hundred years ago a massive horse sale was held in Bloomington. Hundreds of horses were sold and buyers and sellers came from all over the country. There were buyers and sellers from as far away as Montana and Pennsylvania noted in the paper.
One name that stood out was that of L D Young, a seller of Percherons in McLean County. Further investigation revealed that he was Leander Dooley Young, a farmer born and raised in McLean County from his birth in 1854. A review of all the articles in the Pantagraph that featured Mr. Young gives us an interesting view of life in McLean County over the years.
Mr. Young was a prominent farmer and at this sale sold four horses on the date in question. He specialized in draft horses and although he had a farm in Old Town, in 1916 he was living at 604 Jefferson Street with his wife, Lida Goodrich. Over the years he would lose horses to various causes, including a lightning strike in 1896 and a barn fire in 1899 that killed 8 of his horses.
In 1912 he suffered an injury of his own. While cleaning out a barn, he stepped on a rusty nail and the next morning noticed a stiffness in his jaw. He reported to Brokaw Hospital where he was treated with a serum and kept on bedrest for several days. Of course no details are given on the serum that he was treated with but in 1910 a German doctor had successfully used injections of magnesium sulfate in the spinal column to cure lockjaw. A review of modern medicine indicates that magnesium sulfate is still used to control the spasms of lockjaw today. Even earlier, an antitoxin was developed from the white blood cells of horses exposed to tetanus. (1890) Leander's wife had travelled to Rock Island to visit his dying aunt, but she rushed back to his sick bed.
In 1915 Young was elected president of the Top Notch Farmer Society. That year he brought in 196 bushels of corn per acre.
While living in Bloomington, the Youngs provided lodging for two high school teachers at their home on Jefferson Street. As well as being a convenient location for high chool teachers, the elderly couple would have provided a respectable and safe place for the teachers to live.
Although Young was a stock raiser, he did not hesitate to purchase an automobile when they were available in McLean County. In 1910 he was noted to be the owner of an automobile, namely, a Warren Detroit. It was this automobile that caused him to be the defendant in a personal injury suit brought by Mrs. Mattie Stevens in 1911. The jury in the case decided that Mrs. Stevens had walked into his car rather than his car running into her. In 1916 he had a five-passenger "American" car that caught on fire when he was travelling away from Bloomington.
Especially interesting was the part he took in a picnic at the "Mackinaw Dells" in 1911. As indicated in a recent post about the "Meridian Highway," it was not always easy for motorists to find their way about the state. Young's part in the picinic was to leave a trail of confetti from Market Street that would lead participants all the way to the picnic!