From The KDDK Advantage - October/November 2007

From the KDDK Archives

It wouldn’t have been surprising if Harry Dees questioned the wisdom of moving to Evansville in 1935. His first winter in the city was the coldest he ever experienced. “The temperature for several days stayed below zero, and this was the last time the Ohio River froze over,” Dees wrote in a personal accounting in 1993. “It had not frozen over since 1917, and hasn’t frozen over since. In 1936, people could walk across the river. I am sure that winter is still a record.

“Not to be outdone, the next summer, 1936, was the hottest summer Evansville has ever experienced.” Add the 1937 flood that covered much of the city, and Dees later remarked that “It was miserable living from the time I got there in 1935 until about 1940.”

Even getting to the office was a challenge. “... I lived at 3rd and Mulberry, which is seven or eight blocks from Citizens Bank, and to come to work in 1935 through 1938, I literally walked through a cloud of smoke.

“At that time all of the homes and apartments in Evansville burned soft coal for heat. The humidity was high and sometimes, in the winter, you could hardly see your way more than a block or so. The smoke would be real heavy and many times when I got to the office my nostrils would be black from breathing the smoke. It was a terrible situation, and the entire town had the same problem. It got so bad that finally the City Council outlawed coal-fired furnaces, which meant that practically everybody had to convert to gas.”

KDDK will celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2008. This excerpt was taken from a KDDK history written by Bill D. Jackson. The history will be published in early 2008.

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