Time Machine: The pet of The Gazette

CEDAR RAPIDS — It began with a joke. When asked what souvenir a friend could send to him from Florida, Gazette Editor Fred Faulkes replied an alligator, 'the biggest one you can find.'

When informed that a reptile was coming in spring 1896, Faulkes thought it would be a baby, but the one that arrived in a box at The Gazette building on First Street at the First Avenue bridge was full grown.

C.H. 'Charley' Foy, 'a wealthy capitalist of Cedar Rapids,' according to an account in a March 1896 Jacksonville, Fla., newspaper, had arrived in Florida to take options on several tracts of land. His escort was C.F. Bates of the Florida Tourists and Southern Investors Guide. Foy was the proprietor of an insurance, real estate and loan office at 18 South Second St. as well as landlord of more than 80 rental houses in the city. Bates was a real estate agent with an office at 52 First Ave.

Before Foy left Cedar Rapids, he promised Faulkes that he would find the largest alligator possible and send it to him. He was offered several large gators at reasonable prices, but decided it would be more economical to capture one on his own. Foy hired some guides and he and Bates set out from Fort Meade on what they assumed would be an easy task. They didn't bother to change out of their fine suits before heading out for the hunt.

In the evening, two very bedraggled looking men tried to sneak into the hotel. A couple of bell boys saw them, raised an alarm and the men were confronted by a cadre of porters and bell boys armed with pitchers, fireplace pokers and ancient revolvers.

'Mr. Foy finally explained that he and Mr. Bates were guests of the hotel and that they had been on an alligator hunt, and he drew a five-inch gator from his pocket and exhibited it as evidence. They were recognized and piloted to their rooms,' the Florida paper reported.

After changing into clean clothes, the men headed for Jacksonville, where Foy telegraphed to Fort Meade that he would pay for the largest alligator that could be caught and shipped immediately. A 200-pound, 10-foot reptile arrived and was shipped to Faulkes in Cedar Rapids with a letter relating the adventures that led to its capture.

Total cost of the adventure — alligator, loss of clothes, expense of guides — amounted to $184 ($4,950.42 today).

The gator arrived in Cedar Rapids about a month later. It apparently had not been fed or had water for a month, but it seemed to be fine. After its arrival, it was ascertained to be the largest one that had ever been shipped north.

Faulkes had a fenced enclosure built around The Gazette and into the water and a pile of sand added for the gator to sun himself. The large reptile was set loose within those confines and the public was invited to view it. As people were watching the gator, Faulkes was watching them. He wrote an essay for the paper about the two boys with their cart, the man who bragged that he had killed a boxcar full of alligators, the man who tried to make money off the interest of the crowd by offering to wrestle the beast for $10, the student who asked a dozen questions, and others.

More than 2,000 people had come to view the gator in the first weeks after its arrival, with crowds increasing each day, but not all were kind. Faulkes appealed to the marshal to police the boys and men who tried to throw stones and sticks at the creature.

While Faulkes was coming up with a proposition to use the gator to raise money for the Home for the Friendless, the alligator was dying. The paper announced June 22, 'Dead, our alligator is dead.' It went on to say, 'The simple truth is that the reptile was sent to The Gazette by two friends as a piece of humor. He was a curiosity here. Many of our people had not seen one, especially one of such size and so fine a specimen, and from the numbers who came to look at him it is to be judged that he was doing a good work in the city by giving to the old and young, especially the young, a moment of pleasure ... ' It was surmised that the reptile may have been fed poisoned meat, or possibly fatally injured from blows to its snout. The Gazette offered a $25 reward for identification of anyone who may have caused his death.

The remains were taken to John B. Turner's funeral home to be embalmed. The National Funeral Directors Association was in the middle of a conference in Cedar Rapids at the time and its president, Professor William P. Hohenschuh, assisted with the process.

By July of the 1886, C.F. Bates had gone into the alligator business. He arrived in Cedar Rapids with seven reptiles, according to The Evening Gazette. One was older and large — 10 feet long and 225 pounds. The other six were various sizes and very lively and fierce. They all arrived in one box, but no one knew how to get them into separate compartments. Someone suggested asking John Turner, who was reputedly an expert at handling snakes, but Turner insisted that he had no experience with gators. Nevertheless, 'he was equal to the emergency and after making six grabs at the big box in which the old alligator was lying and eyeing him fiercely, Turner had the young fellows in their future places of abode.'