Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

Halloween was a wild night, with police fielding more than 500 calls. Most involved standard pranks including breaking down fences, carrying away gates, ringing door bells and knocking over outhouses.

Yet a few pranks went a lot further:

• A crowd of boys broke into an auto, released the levers and launched it down Perry Street to 10th Avenue before it careened to a stop.

• Several people stacked two telegraph poles across the intersection of Second and C, creating a dangerous barricade at the bottom of a steep hill. The barricade also included a bedstead, a woodshed and a bundle of wire.

• Some boys were caught greasing the streetcar tracks at 14th and Perry in an attempt to halt the streetcars.

• A girl in a Third Avenue apartment house dressed up like a boy and got out on the fire escape in an attempt to scare some of her friends. The house manager saw her and beat her several blows with a heavy plank before he realized who it was.

• Some boys broke up a service at a Swedish church on Sinto Avenue and Washington Street, but they ran away before police arrived.

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1517: Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses on the door of the Wittenberg Palace church, marking the start of the Protestant Reformation in Germany.