Woman Scales Stack 225 Feet High on Dare

1909

Makes Trip in Painter's Swing to Chimney Top at Rockford, Ill., While Friends Watch.

Rockford, Ill., Oct. 9 — Rather than take the "dare" of her friends, Mrs. L. D. Morris yesterday made a trip alone in a painter's swing to the top of a chimney 225 feet high. She went up on the outside of the chimney, perched on a narrow board secured between two ropes, while scores looked on in anxiety.

At the top Mrs. Morris waved her handkerchief to the group below, and after she had spent a few minutes enjoying the view, was let down, none the worse for her experience.

The stack is a new one, almost completed, and the tallest in Rockford.

"A Rockford woman went to the top of the water works chimney on an inside elevator," said Mrs. Morris. "I said I had nerve to go up on the outside of a higher one in a painter's swing, although they wouldn't believe me, but I did it. The view repaid me."

—The Cedar Rapids Evening Gazette, Cedar Rapids, IA, Oct. 9, 1909, p. 9.