1911 The Sacramento Bee's October 19 edition details the city's progressives' ongoing "crusade" against area saloons, the Bush Quinn roadhouse at Riverside Boulevard and Sutterville Road being the current target of the teetotalers' efforts. Messrs. Marcucci and Checchettini, proprietors of the establishment, found themselves subject to the accusations of a former patron, Mr. Meister (incredible name, right?). Apparently not shy about incriminating himself, Meister detailed the sordid agreement by which he repaid a debt of "several dollars" to Checchettini. Per the contract, the debtor Meister lured young women - hereafter denoted as "live ones" - to the bar at the rate of "a dollar or so" a head. Clearly a profitable arrangement, the terms Meister secured also gave him occasional use of one of the rooms at Bush Quinn. Adding to Meister's damning claims, two alleged live ones described to the court the ordeal of their September 1911 "joy ride" around the local bar circuit. The Bee graciously avoided sharing the details with its Progressive-Era audience.
Judging from the Bee's coverage, saloons were a major issue in the weeks preceding the 1911 mayoral/Board of Trustees election. In addition to a grand jury investigation of local "hell-holes" that took aim at seven similar institutions, the paper reports that several temperance candidates for city offices vowed to support the Tuesday Club Ordinance, which banned saloons from residential sections of the city.
Marcucci and Checchettini attempted to sidestep future legal troubles by relocating their bar immediately across Sutterville Road from its original home. Outside the city limits, the new location was just across the street from a newly annexed parcel at the southern end of the city. The Sacramento County Board of Supervisors approved the new license for the notorious Bush Quinn hell-hole, apparently without reservation - or shame.
1936 "Nature endowed Tommy, the venerable 12-year-old cat of G.D. Webster of Hagginwood with extra toes and claws to make his way throughout his nine lives," reads the caption to an October 16 front page photo (see above) sharing above-the-fold space with a story on an apparent Nazi-backed coup in Belgium. "Known far and wide for his famous feet," Tommy had an extra working toe and claw on each of his feet. For the arithmetically challenged, that's 24 perfectly functional cat toes.
1961 Community Urban Renewal Enterprises (a shadowy organization I am too tired to research at the moment) strongly urged transportation planners to adopt a north-south interstate highway route along the Yolo County side of the Sacramento River near downtown Sacramento. According to an October 16 article in the Bee, CURE was primarily concerned with the fate of the city's historic West End. The blighted neighborhood was home to, among other things and people who'd seen better days, a number of historically significant buildings. Under a plan backed by CURE, planners would reject the preferred West End route between 2nd and 3rd streets, direct freeway traffic through present-day West Sacramento, and establish an Old Sacramento tourist trap. While CURE and other Old Sacramento boosters agreed that the historic district could be moved to make room for the planned interstate, the organization's spokesperson suggested that that would be akin to moving the pyramids at Giza or the Tower of London. Sure.
1986 If LaSalle Thompson had known what we know all these years later, you probably wouldn't be reading this sentence right now. According to a Saturday, October 18 report in the Bee, Thompson's contract negotiations dragged well into the training camp period of the 1986-87 NBA season. A summer's worth of contentious back and forth between the 6'10" center and Kings ownership ended "right after Cheers went off" on the previous Thursday. At the conclusion of the sitcom, frustrated team owner Greg Lukenbill phoned his equally frustrated big man and quickly hammered out an in-principle agreement netting Thompson a guaranteed four years and $2.5 million. The team made the announcement - dramatically! - the next day, issuing its first public notice of the signing following player introductions for a preseason game versus the Sonics. Thompson "strode oncourt to a standing ovation," and then strode to the bench, from which the still officially unsigned player watched the game. The '86-87 season, the franchise's second in Sacramento, was the beginning of a period in which the laughing-stock Kings missed the playoffs during eleven of twelve seasons. Lucky LaSalle played only two and a half of those before being traded to the Toronto Raptors.
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