November 12, 2024 • 10 mins
Two stories, two keepers of the light. Enjoy this curious tour through the Cabinet.
Order the official Cabinet of Curiosities book by clicking here, and get ready to enjoy some curious reading!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, folks, erin here. Today is the day the first
ever official Cabinet of Curiosities book has arrived, and this
is the week to grab a copy in whatever format
fits your needs hardcover, ebook or audiobook. For audio lovers,
we have a special guest to accompany me as we
move through the Cabinet audiobook. Danish Schwartz, host of the
(00:21):
Amazing history podcast Noble Blood, joins me in the audiobook
for little conversations in between the topical sections, adding a
cool layer of insight into the stories that you'll hear.
And of course, the hardcover is available everywhere. I specifically
want to mention that Target has gone all in with
me on this, putting the Cabinet of Curiosities book into
(00:42):
stores all across the country. Honestly, I'm blown away by
the response the book has received in the lead up
to launch and here we are, so please, please please
grab a copy today, set it aside as a holiday
gift for a history lover in your life, or selfishly
clutch it to your chest and refuse to let anyone
else touch it. You do you. I'm just grateful that
(01:05):
you find listeners are here, supporting the show and spreading
the word and pointing friends and family to the book
might be the easiest way to share cabinet with others.
Find all the links that you'll ever need over at
Grimandmild dot com slash curiosities, And again, thank you so
much for helping this book become reality. And now on
(01:27):
with the show. Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities,
a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild. Our world
is full of the unexplainable, and if history is an
open book, all of these amazing tales are right there
(01:50):
on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to
the Cabinet of Curiosities. In Monawai, Nebraska, Elsie Isler's tavern
is the only place to be. Well, that's because it's
(02:12):
the only place, period, because Elsie Isler is the sole
resident of America's smallest incorporated town. Monawai, Nebraska's population is one. Monawai,
located just over the border from South Dakota, feels remote
and isolated. The county it sits in has just two
thousand people living there. It's seven miles to the nearest
(02:32):
gas station and sixty to the closest walmart, but Monawai
wasn't always that small. The town was founded in nineteen
oh two as a stop on the Chicago North and
Western Railroad. By the nineteen thirties, it was a bustling
farming community. Back then, the town had a whopping one
hundred and twenty three residents, huge by today's standards. Obviously,
(02:53):
it had a school, a post office, a church, a
grocery store, and even a jail. Over the years, though
the world moved past Monawai. Modernization and the high cost
of equipment and labor led many farmers to just leave.
By the time Elsie and her husband Rudy bought the
Monawai Tavern in nineteen seventy one, much of the town's
population had already gone. When the railroad shuttered in nineteen
(03:16):
seventy eight, that was the final blow. The population dwindled
to just two, Rudy and Elsie. When Rudy passed away
in two thousand and four, that number dropped to one. Today,
Monowai's main street is an unpaved dirt track. The downtown
is completely shuttered except for three buildings Elsie's house, Rudy's library,
which runs on the honor system, and the Monawai Tavern
(03:39):
with no noisy neighbors or town meetings. You would think
being the last person in Monawai would be peaceful, but
you'd be surprised how busy it gets living in an
empty town. Ninety year old Elsie spends her days being
a one woman town. She is the mayor, treasurer, and librarian,
and she pays taxes to herself to keep everything up
(04:00):
and running. She secures funding from the state for water
and power, and even finds time to approve a liquor
license for herself every year. When she's not running the town,
of course, she's running the Monawai Tavern, the beating heart
of Monowai. For fifty years, she's been serving up the coldest,
not to mention, the only beer in town. Step inside
(04:20):
and you'll enter Elsie's world. Elsie is a diminutive figure.
She greets customers kind heartedly from the grill. The wood
paneled bar is covered with dusty paraphernalia, from vintage road
signs to black and white pictures of the town. The
bathroom is an outhouse out back, and above the bar
is a handwritten placard that reads, if you are grouchy, irritable,
(04:40):
or just playing mean, There will be a ten dollars
charge for putting up with you inside the tavern. You
will see that while Elsie lives alone, she is far
from lonely. Around fifty people stop in each day to
grab a burger and chat with Elsie. That number balloons
on Sundays when local farmers join the weekly running card game.
She can even count on some of her local patrons
(05:01):
to jump behind the bar and wash dishes and sling
drinks on a particularly busy night. Although she's got a
close crew of regulars from the surrounding towns, people have
come to visit Elsie from all fifty states and sixty
different countries. Although the town and the tavern have been
Elsie's life for the past fifty years, she has no
desire to change things now. As she's told reporters, she
(05:24):
adores her life in Monowai. She loves meeting all sorts
of people who come to the tavern and tell her
about themselves over cheap beers. So if you're driving across
Highway twelve in Nebraska and find yourself hankering for a bite,
stop in and say hi. You can count on Elsie
being behind the bar Tuesday through Sunday morning until night.
Business is booming, even if the population is not. Visit
(06:02):
London today and you'll get the sense that the city
doesn't truly awaken until after dark. From South Bank to
Covent Gardens, dusk brings a flurry of activity. Hobgoers spill
out of awnings and congregates on sidewalks, Tourists embark on
midnight jack the Ripper tours accosted by hawkers and street performers,
and on weekends the night Tube never stops running. But
(06:24):
it wasn't always like this. Before the late Victorian era,
poor street lighting made getting around at night difficult. This
was true in most major cities, but especially so in
Britain's capital, which regularly grappled with waves of green and
black fog. These pea soupers, as they were called, grew
worse and worse during the Industrial Revolution, when factories and
(06:45):
homes pumped smog from burning coal into the sky, creating
a dense, impenetrable haze. In a setting like this, going
outside at night was a dangerous proposition, like stepping into
a murky nether world populated by criminals and sterious figures.
Members of the upper class could avoided as much as possible,
but every now and then you didn't have a choice.
(07:07):
Say a relative fell ill and you had to fetch
a doctor, or maybe you just stayed at your club
playing cards a bit later than you intended. And in
these situations, what was a gentleman or a lady to do. Well.
If you were very rich, you might have a carriage
and a few servants to run ahead with a lantern
to light the way, but most other people were out
of luck. You couldn't hail a cab in those days,
(07:29):
but you could do the next best thing, call on
the services of a link boy. These torch wielding children
were everywhere in nocturnal London, as commonplace as double decker
buses are today. For a small fee, they would escort
you to wherever you needed to go, providing lights and
directions so that you wouldn't get lost on the way.
(07:49):
The name linkboy comes from an outdated term for the
cotton wick on torches that they used. They worked long
hours for pitiful pay, typically charging just one farthing per
trip that would be roughly a quarter of a penny
in today's money, so perhaps it's not surprising that some
bolstered their income by partnering with thieving gangs. It was
an easy task for a link boy to lead their
(08:11):
clients in the wrong part of town, where older, more
dangerous criminals were lying in wait. It's hard to say
how often this actually happened, but it was a common
enough fear that the link boys quickly gained a reputation
for trouble. Over time, they became almost mythical figures, representing
the dangers that haunted London's streets. They were viewed as
impish will of the wisps, who were more likely to
(08:33):
lead you to your death than to your destination. But
however society saw them, the link boys were never demons.
Almost all of them were young males who had fallen
through society's cracks. Many were orphans trying to survive on
the fringes of a city that had never loved them.
Each night, they faced dangers that terrified the city's adults
without any kind of supervision or protection. Around the end
(08:57):
of the nineteenth century, electric street lights were gradually installed
around London. These street lamps were significantly more powerful than
the gas lamps that had preceded them, and far more
effective at cutting through the city's infamous fog. As a result,
getting from points A to point B became easier, and
the demand for link boys plummeted. Soon they vanished entirely.
(09:19):
The children who had once lit up London's foggy streets
would now earn their bread like the rest of the
city's poor, toiling away in dangerous factories. Today, the link
boys are all but forgotten. The best evidence that they
once existed at all is the metal cones, which can
still be found outside older London houses. Link boys would
use these devices, called snuffers, to put out their torches
(09:41):
after delivering a client home, and thankfully they live on
in a popular expression that we all know today, if
someone wanted to say that a person they knew wasn't
good enough to be their link boy, they would say,
you can't hold a candle to them. It's yet one
more piece of evidence of how these children were used, demonized,
and forgotten. They deserve to be remembered for their resourcefulness,
(10:03):
their enduring spirits, and still burning long after the city
closed its eyes. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour
of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mankey
(10:26):
in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
winning show called Lore which is a podcast, book series,
and television show and you can learn all about it
over at the Worldolore dot com. And until next time,
stay curious.
Hey, folks, erin here. Today is the day the first
ever official Cabinet of Curiosities book has arrived, and this
is the week to grab a copy in whatever format
fits your needs hardcover, ebook or audiobook. For audio lovers,
we have a special guest to accompany me as we
move through the Cabinet audiobook. Danish Schwartz, host of the
(00:21):
Amazing history podcast Noble Blood, joins me in the audiobook
for little conversations in between the topical sections, adding a
cool layer of insight into the stories that you'll hear.
And of course, the hardcover is available everywhere. I specifically
want to mention that Target has gone all in with
me on this, putting the Cabinet of Curiosities book into
(00:42):
stores all across the country. Honestly, I'm blown away by
the response the book has received in the lead up
to launch and here we are, so please, please please
grab a copy today, set it aside as a holiday
gift for a history lover in your life, or selfishly
clutch it to your chest and refuse to let anyone
else touch it. You do you. I'm just grateful that
(01:05):
you find listeners are here, supporting the show and spreading
the word and pointing friends and family to the book
might be the easiest way to share cabinet with others.
Find all the links that you'll ever need over at
Grimandmild dot com slash curiosities, And again, thank you so
much for helping this book become reality. And now on
(01:27):
with the show. Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities,
a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild. Our world
is full of the unexplainable, and if history is an
open book, all of these amazing tales are right there
(01:50):
on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to
the Cabinet of Curiosities. In Monawai, Nebraska, Elsie Isler's tavern
is the only place to be. Well, that's because it's
(02:12):
the only place, period, because Elsie Isler is the sole
resident of America's smallest incorporated town. Monawai, Nebraska's population is one. Monawai,
located just over the border from South Dakota, feels remote
and isolated. The county it sits in has just two
thousand people living there. It's seven miles to the nearest
(02:32):
gas station and sixty to the closest walmart, but Monawai
wasn't always that small. The town was founded in nineteen
oh two as a stop on the Chicago North and
Western Railroad. By the nineteen thirties, it was a bustling
farming community. Back then, the town had a whopping one
hundred and twenty three residents, huge by today's standards. Obviously,
(02:53):
it had a school, a post office, a church, a
grocery store, and even a jail. Over the years, though
the world moved past Monawai. Modernization and the high cost
of equipment and labor led many farmers to just leave.
By the time Elsie and her husband Rudy bought the
Monawai Tavern in nineteen seventy one, much of the town's
population had already gone. When the railroad shuttered in nineteen
(03:16):
seventy eight, that was the final blow. The population dwindled
to just two, Rudy and Elsie. When Rudy passed away
in two thousand and four, that number dropped to one. Today,
Monowai's main street is an unpaved dirt track. The downtown
is completely shuttered except for three buildings Elsie's house, Rudy's library,
which runs on the honor system, and the Monawai Tavern
(03:39):
with no noisy neighbors or town meetings. You would think
being the last person in Monawai would be peaceful, but
you'd be surprised how busy it gets living in an
empty town. Ninety year old Elsie spends her days being
a one woman town. She is the mayor, treasurer, and librarian,
and she pays taxes to herself to keep everything up
(04:00):
and running. She secures funding from the state for water
and power, and even finds time to approve a liquor
license for herself every year. When she's not running the town,
of course, she's running the Monawai Tavern, the beating heart
of Monowai. For fifty years, she's been serving up the coldest,
not to mention, the only beer in town. Step inside
(04:20):
and you'll enter Elsie's world. Elsie is a diminutive figure.
She greets customers kind heartedly from the grill. The wood
paneled bar is covered with dusty paraphernalia, from vintage road
signs to black and white pictures of the town. The
bathroom is an outhouse out back, and above the bar
is a handwritten placard that reads, if you are grouchy, irritable,
(04:40):
or just playing mean, There will be a ten dollars
charge for putting up with you inside the tavern. You
will see that while Elsie lives alone, she is far
from lonely. Around fifty people stop in each day to
grab a burger and chat with Elsie. That number balloons
on Sundays when local farmers join the weekly running card game.
She can even count on some of her local patrons
(05:01):
to jump behind the bar and wash dishes and sling
drinks on a particularly busy night. Although she's got a
close crew of regulars from the surrounding towns, people have
come to visit Elsie from all fifty states and sixty
different countries. Although the town and the tavern have been
Elsie's life for the past fifty years, she has no
desire to change things now. As she's told reporters, she
(05:24):
adores her life in Monowai. She loves meeting all sorts
of people who come to the tavern and tell her
about themselves over cheap beers. So if you're driving across
Highway twelve in Nebraska and find yourself hankering for a bite,
stop in and say hi. You can count on Elsie
being behind the bar Tuesday through Sunday morning until night.
Business is booming, even if the population is not. Visit
(06:02):
London today and you'll get the sense that the city
doesn't truly awaken until after dark. From South Bank to
Covent Gardens, dusk brings a flurry of activity. Hobgoers spill
out of awnings and congregates on sidewalks, Tourists embark on
midnight jack the Ripper tours accosted by hawkers and street performers,
and on weekends the night Tube never stops running. But
(06:24):
it wasn't always like this. Before the late Victorian era,
poor street lighting made getting around at night difficult. This
was true in most major cities, but especially so in
Britain's capital, which regularly grappled with waves of green and
black fog. These pea soupers, as they were called, grew
worse and worse during the Industrial Revolution, when factories and
(06:45):
homes pumped smog from burning coal into the sky, creating
a dense, impenetrable haze. In a setting like this, going
outside at night was a dangerous proposition, like stepping into
a murky nether world populated by criminals and sterious figures.
Members of the upper class could avoided as much as possible,
but every now and then you didn't have a choice.
(07:07):
Say a relative fell ill and you had to fetch
a doctor, or maybe you just stayed at your club
playing cards a bit later than you intended. And in
these situations, what was a gentleman or a lady to do. Well.
If you were very rich, you might have a carriage
and a few servants to run ahead with a lantern
to light the way, but most other people were out
of luck. You couldn't hail a cab in those days,
(07:29):
but you could do the next best thing, call on
the services of a link boy. These torch wielding children
were everywhere in nocturnal London, as commonplace as double decker
buses are today. For a small fee, they would escort
you to wherever you needed to go, providing lights and
directions so that you wouldn't get lost on the way.
(07:49):
The name linkboy comes from an outdated term for the
cotton wick on torches that they used. They worked long
hours for pitiful pay, typically charging just one farthing per
trip that would be roughly a quarter of a penny
in today's money, so perhaps it's not surprising that some
bolstered their income by partnering with thieving gangs. It was
an easy task for a link boy to lead their
(08:11):
clients in the wrong part of town, where older, more
dangerous criminals were lying in wait. It's hard to say
how often this actually happened, but it was a common
enough fear that the link boys quickly gained a reputation
for trouble. Over time, they became almost mythical figures, representing
the dangers that haunted London's streets. They were viewed as
impish will of the wisps, who were more likely to
(08:33):
lead you to your death than to your destination. But
however society saw them, the link boys were never demons.
Almost all of them were young males who had fallen
through society's cracks. Many were orphans trying to survive on
the fringes of a city that had never loved them.
Each night, they faced dangers that terrified the city's adults
without any kind of supervision or protection. Around the end
(08:57):
of the nineteenth century, electric street lights were gradually installed
around London. These street lamps were significantly more powerful than
the gas lamps that had preceded them, and far more
effective at cutting through the city's infamous fog. As a result,
getting from points A to point B became easier, and
the demand for link boys plummeted. Soon they vanished entirely.
(09:19):
The children who had once lit up London's foggy streets
would now earn their bread like the rest of the
city's poor, toiling away in dangerous factories. Today, the link
boys are all but forgotten. The best evidence that they
once existed at all is the metal cones, which can
still be found outside older London houses. Link boys would
use these devices, called snuffers, to put out their torches
(09:41):
after delivering a client home, and thankfully they live on
in a popular expression that we all know today, if
someone wanted to say that a person they knew wasn't
good enough to be their link boy, they would say,
you can't hold a candle to them. It's yet one
more piece of evidence of how these children were used, demonized,
and forgotten. They deserve to be remembered for their resourcefulness,
(10:03):
their enduring spirits, and still burning long after the city
closed its eyes. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour
of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mankey
(10:26):
in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
winning show called Lore which is a podcast, book series,
and television show and you can learn all about it
over at the Worldolore dot com. And until next time,
stay curious.