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You know how, when you go to the post office, they grill you about what you're sending? You have to click on the little screen and they ask you questions like, "Are you shipping anything liquid, fragile, perishable, paranormal, destructive, potentially hazardous, explosive or suicidal?"
I've noticed that one thing they never ask is "Are you shipping any raccoons?"
That may seem awfully random to you. You'd think that specific question wouldn't be necessary. And yet, in the history of Clinton County, there's at least one incident that could have been avoided by asking that question.
Let's take a look back at April 5, 1936. A large box had just come into the shipping area of the McElhattan station. The box was to be delivered to Henry Cree, who lived in Woolrich at the time. George Kontz, the station agent, used a time-honored method of dealing with it: He placed it in his office and decided to handle it in the morning. This same method is often used at workplaces throughout the country even today.
What he hadn't planned on was the contents of the box. For some reason, the box contained six live raccoons.
Just to be sure you got that, I'd like to say it again: Henry Cree had ordered a box containing six live raccoons. The Lock Haven Express reported on this in the newspaper on April 6, 1936, and they did a masterful job of not explaining why, exactly, Henry Cree would need six live raccoons. They didn't even speculate. Cree, by the way, owned Dickey's Hardware in Lock Haven, at the time the oldest operating hardware store in the city. He'd purchased it in 1924. I can't think of a reason why he would have needed to acquire one live raccoon, let alone six.
Come to think of it, I'm not even sure where the raccoons were coming from. Both Craigslist and Amazon hadn't been invented yet, and those would be my biggest candidates for ordering wildlife. Maybe the whole thing was some weird sort of prank.
If so, it backfired. During the night, the raccoons chewed their way out of the box, because raccoons are clever and very easily bored. Then they immediately proceeded to trash the entire office, leaving Kontz an interesting sort of surprise when he arrived at work the next day.
"George Kontz, the station agent, placed the box in his office that night," stated the Express in their article. "In the night the coons gnawed their way out and the next morning Mr. Kontz found his office supplies well chewed and distributed throughout the room."
This being 1936, it is worth noting that it was one month after the 1936 flood, which had happened in March. So, for context, just about everything within half a mile of the river was already a mess. The office had probably been cleaned up after the flood, and was not exactly improved by the presence of six haywire racoons.
Kontz had some trouble deciding how to handle this. Presumably, the workplace training never covered this specific situation. He was assisted by the arrival of Bob Lindsey, the local mail driver, who helped him catch the raccoons. The two of them spent a couple of hours catching the animals throughout the office. I have to say, personally, I've had worse mornings at work.
The raccoons were set free in the hills above Woolrich, presumably because Kontz didn't want them too close. Cree clearly never got his raccoons, and I'm assuming he reordered them if they were important enough.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go take a look at Amazon. I want to see what kind of live animals I can have delivered, just in case anyone is stealing packages off my porch.
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Lou Bernard is a Lock Haven resident with a keen interest in the history of this area. He is adult services coordinator at Ross Library and may be reached at loulhpa@gmail.com or 570-660-4463.