In the Sioux City Journal, 1894

 

Sioux City Journal, 21 Nov 1894

From time to time new articles and collections appear on Newspapers.com, so it is important to check periodically. Back in May, I located a new-to-me article on Agnes Atherton losing a diamond sunburst pin in 1909 Cincinnati. Above and below are newly added articles from the Sioux City Journal, describing a larceny of two diamond rings belonging to Agnes, while she was performing in the city.

Sioux City Journal. 22 Nov 1894.

Preston Wakefield appears to have been an acrobat, perhaps in the Gillette Brothers act led by Agnes' partner/husband Alfred Gillette. Later by 1897, Wakefield appears in a news clipping as an acrobat with the Barnum and Bailey circus. He was a known bad character in Sioux City. In 1892, his father published an article in the paper warning people not to trust him and that he would not pay his debts for contracting. He was arrested at least three times in 1894, and appeared in the Sioux City Journal in April 1894 after he was wounded in a fight with "Wienerwurst John", whose "face was pounded to the color of raw beef, one eye was black and the other was swollen completely shut."

Agnes would have been 36 at the time. The rings, worth about $100 in 1894, would be worth about $3700 today. It seems incredibly naïve of her to have asked Wakefield to pick up the rings. In the 1893 City Directory for Sioux City, Wakefield was listed as a student, and he would have been about 20 years in 1894.