HAL KATTAU ART

NOTES ABOUT THE PAINTING:

In the picture it is somewhere around 1908. You're on board a passing riverboat looking at Water Street. One of the first things you'll notice in the middle of the picture is a funny looking thing with black smoke coming out of it. "what's that," you ask? It's the "Dummy" that ran between Evansville and Newburgh pulling cars full of tourists who would spend their holiday along the river. Technically, it was a "steam dummy," so called because it was a steam engine camouflaged to look like a streetcar. Why? So it wouldn't spook the horses pulling wagons and carriages in town. Since it simply looked like a streetcar, and wasn't one, it was called 'The Dummy." "Let's Ride the Dummy" was an often heard phrase. The Evansville, Suburban & Newburgh Railroad had three of them. This one is seen pulling into the depot on Water Street. You will also find two Niles Electric "interurban" cards awaiting departure. Note that the Newburgh Tobacco Company is unloading freight at the dock. The Post Office was on the first floor of the International Order of Odd Fellows hall. The tan building to the right of the I>O>O>F> hall housed Leo's Place, a local watering hole. The orange building behind A.R. Burns later became the Riverview Inn, a restaurant that increased many waistlines in the area. The "Vertie j." sternwheeler in the foreground show up in photographs of the era with 46-star flags flying.
"I have continued a few traditions from my canister paintings. Three of the dogs I've owned are found in the picture: 'Casey', that's his fanny sticking out the right side of the bandstand, 'Garbo', is running alongside the interurban, and 'Gretchen', my mother's Schnauzer, is sitting on the lap of the lady on the open-air coach at the left side of the painting.