The holiday season has never been especially bright for our feathered friends of the turkey variety, but the situation in Chariton during 1901 was especially dire, as reported in The Chariton Herald of Dec. 26:
"Two hundred Christmas birds that might have graced the tables of hungry families yesterday were doomed to a more ignoble death, on account of the very sudden cold snap that visited Chariton last week.
They came to the Swift Poultry Company here, in an open car, and there was no place to put them but to leave them in the car all night. The poultry house was filled with all that it would hold, and some poultry was put into the railroad company's round house for the night.
But the turkeys had to be left out, and in the morning two hundred or more of them were stiff and stark in death."
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Although the season had not been a joyful one for turkeys, it had turned out well for the merchants on the square. The Herald also reported:
"Last Saturday was undoubtedly the best day for the Chariton merchants that they have ever had. The bad weather preceding it had a tendency to keep people at home, although the trade was good all week. On Saturday the clerical force in nearly ever store in town was increased, and in some stores was doubled and even tripled. Yet the trade was so heavy that it could not be handled. In one store where there were 12 or 13 clerks, no one of them got a bite of dinner because the rush was so heavy that they could not get away for a minute."
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