Crap Cans

That’s what they called them, right up until 1925 when the Town Council voted to dig toilet pits. Actually they never did call them anything else and are called “crap cans” many times in the Council minutes.

The “town scavenger” was responsible for the general tidiness of the town, pick up dead animals, clean up manure left on the streets and empty the “crap cans”   

It must have been a fairly hard job to fill, because the same person had it from inception. He seemed to bounce the council for a raise about every 6 months or so, and always got it. In 1925 he was making $185.00 per month, in comparison, the engineer that ran the power plant only made $150.00 a month.

He had also tried to run several side scams, holding the emptying of the “crap cans” hostage until a little side money was paid, refusing to do the Royal Crown Hotel’s cans as they were to many and to heavy without a premium being paid.  He usually got caught, and was centured by the council, and shortly after that, was when he asked for and got a raise.

He also refused to repair the cans. As you can imagine, this was not a job that anyone else wanted, so he got an extra 6 cents per can for repairs. This doesn’t sound like much, but there were just over 300 houses etc. and they each had 6 “crap cans”, so this was a tidy sum in those days.

He and his wife also ran a hotel\rooming house\bath house, so they were a pretty affluent couple, but making most of their money from his effluent job.