Remembering the ‘great ice cream caper’ of 1937

It was the great ice cream caper.

During the early morning hours on a Tuesday in late August 1937, three O’Fallon boys, all about 14 years old, conspired to steal ice cream from Mel Hemmen’s shop on West First Street.

Knowing downtown was patrolled by William Sanspeur, the night shift police officer, they waited for him to go off his beat before they struck. Two of the boys made it to the rendezvous and succeeded in lifting several bricks of ice cream. They went to the B&O park, now the parking lot along First Street between Lincoln and Cherry, to enjoy the spoils. But not wanting to leave out the third boy, who apparently had overslept, they hid what was left of the ice cream in some bushes at the park and went to retrieve him at his house.

On returning to the park, however, they discovered the ice cream was gone. It turned out that Mel Hemmen had watched the whole thing and stole back the ice cream when the two boys went to get the third. All three were given a stern lecture by Deputy Sheriff and O’Fallonite John E. Tiley.

75 years ago Feb. 12, 1942

Work has begun in the manual training department of the high school on the construction of 50 model airplanes for the Navy Department. Similar planes are being constructed by many schools the country over. Their use by the Navy is for instruction purposes for future flyers.

50 years ago Feb. 9, 1967

O’Fallon’s night club has a go-go girl atmosphere but Chief of Police James Tiley will be giving the place a close scrutiny. The go-go show was opened in the Colonial Dining room on Highway 50, near Lincoln. Tiley reported the show to the City Council Monday night, which voted to give Tiley authority to make rules of conduct at the place and to retain a control over the personnel of the bar. (Colonial Dining room was at the present location of Auto Zone.)

This story was originally published February 9, 2017 at 11:08 AM with the headline "Remembering the ‘great ice cream caper’ of 1937."