Remember When: Kankakee, the Babe, Jesse Fell were here

Whatever DID happen to Kankakee?

That was the name of the statue of a Native American lady gracing the ornate water fountain on Wilkes-Barre’s Public Square through the 1920s.

Yet today, no one seems to know what became its fate.

I wish I could go back in time long enough to see where the city crew took it once the decision to remove it was made.

In fact, there are quite a number of local events I wish I could have been present for. From the puzzling mysteries to the merely interesting, here are some of them.

Flame of inventiveness: When Jesse Fell saw that the fireplace grate he’d designed could burn anthracite coal, did he shout “Eureka” like Archimedes did when he discovered the principle of buoyancy? Or was it something more American like “Dang, this thing really works”?

Actually, even if Judge Fell had jumped up and done some air punching, that wouldn’t have made a bit of difference. But the guy is very distantly on my family tree and maybe, just maybe, he would have said in his best historic tones “Cousin Tom, we’ve done it.” Well, who knows?

Babe’s big blast: Legendary New York Yankees slugger Babe Ruth was famed for his barnstorming visits to smaller towns to play on their teams. On one visit to Wilkes-Barre he sent a towering shot out of Artillery Park and into history and thereafter pronounced it his longest homer.

While that fact is unchallenged, no one today seems to know exactly how far the ball went. Newspaper stories are vague. I hope that, had I been there, I would have left the park and paced out the distance to the ball. Hey, maybe the state historic marker would say “According to very alert spectator Tom Mooney, the ball traveled 600 feet before coming to earth.”

Saintly Bingo: Some histories of Bingo say that the venerable game got its start as a fund-raiser at St. Nicholas Church, right here in Wilkes-Barre, in the 1930s. There’s good evidence for that – enough that I wish I could have been on site.

Would I have stood up and announced to the players that they were enjoying an historic moment and they and their progeny should never miss a session? Would I have been memorialized in the annals of the Diocese of Scranton as a benefactor of religion? Hey, gimme a couple more cards.

On track for success: We used to have an electric commuter railroad known as the Laurel Line. It linked Hazleton, Wilkes-Barre and Scranton, running several times a day and charging just pennies. My parents and I rode it from time to time.

If only I could ride it again, this time telling passengers that they should resist calls to tear it down in the name of progress and highway potholes. I’m afraid, though, that they’d get annoyed at my harangue and put me off short of the Pittston station.

Well, there are other moments in time I’d like to visit. I wonder what it was like to sail on one of the coal barges that plied the canal now known as Pennsylvania Boulevard. I’d like to visit a 1950s drugstore soda fountain, see a horror double feature at a neighborhood theater and hop on a trackless trolley bus.

Kankakee? Well, my best information is that the fountain was disassembled and hauled over to Kirby Park, where it was stored at the caretaker’s building and – presumably – washed away in the 1936 flood.

But Bingo at St. Nick’s – whooooeee!

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Tom Mooney is a Times Leader history writer. Reach him at tommooney42@gmail.com.