On this page we will look back at life in the city during the war years. Here we will provide the visitor with the stories making the news, what was happening in sports and entertainment, city politics, the social scene and the prominent people at the time. We will also recount the events occurring in the war on that day. So, check back often for new updates.
To share your family or neighborhood stories, please email PhillyWWIyears@gmail.com
TODAY IN PHILADELPHIA – THURSDAY, JUNE 24, 1915
There will be cloudy skies over the city today and tonight. The high today will reach a mild 74° and the low tonight will be about 54°. The City Treasury reported today that counting receipts received over the last 7 days there is now a balance of $12,710,361.29 in the City’s account.
Algot Lange, the Swedish explorer, has written Warden Robert McKenty (shown below), the “Innkeeper” at Eastern State Penitentiary for help. The explorer wants to organize an expedition to the Amazon. He says that he needs iron-nerved, steel-willed, fearless men to accompany him, men willing to face pestilential fevers, venomous reptiles, insects and jungle beasts. And Mr. Lange says he has not been successful in finding such men so far. So, he has asked the Warden if he could spare a few inmates for the trip or perhaps suggest a former inmate to go along.
But Warden “Bob” McKenty would have none of it. The Warden is very protective of those in his care. The Warden wrote in reply “If you want to cut your way through the jungles and flounder around in the swamps of South America and then come home and write a book about all the queer things you saw there, it’s all right with me; but I don’t let any of my boys go off on any such vacation. Think of one of our carefully nurtured inmates beating about in some nasty, wet, monster-ridden tropical waste – I should say not.”
The big event in sports tonight is the 50 mile bicycle race at the Point Breeze Park Motordrome, 26th Street & Penrose Avenue. The best bicyclists in the country will be competing, including Bobby Walthour, Clarence Carman and Menus Bedell as well as French champion Leon Didier. Also at the Motordrome tonight there will be 4 motorcycle races and one five mile side-seat car race.
In baseball at Shibe Park the A’s continued their losing streak dropping another game to the Yankees. Today’s match was not as disastrous as yesterday’s beating in the 2nd game. The A’s held the Highlanders even until the 9th, losing 7 to 6. Things were also bad for the Phillies up at the Polo Grounds where the Giants exploded for 13 hits, beating the Phillies 13 to 5.
WAR NEWS
On the Western front, the Germans are bombarding Arras in an attempt to slow the French advance. One shell struck a hospital killing a number of nuns. In Alsace, the French continue their advance along the Fecht River toward Munster and Kolmar. In the east, a German army under General von Linsingen has crossed the Dniester River between Halicz and Zuravno in Galicia. Reports are that the Czar has hastened to Poland to visit the troops defending Warsaw.