When a prowler met the mayor

July 8, 1889: When Mayor Henry Hazard awakened at 10:30 p.m. to the sound of a prowler outside his home on Fort and 3rd streets, he called to request that a mounted policeman come to his aid. But before help arrived, Hazard, “hurriedly slipping on his pantaloons, took his shotgun and went out to investigate the matter,” The Times reported.

He found a man under his house and got him to surrender. But when the intruder took off running, the mayor took action. Hoping to stop but not kill the man, he shot at him twice after he had gotten about 40 to 50 feet away, the newspaper said.

Police caught the prowler before they reached the mayor’s house, The Times said. He was identified as Carl Brandt, “a middle-aged German, a fresco artist and decorator,” who was bidding for a contract to decorate the new City Hall, and he was “pretty badly wounded, the entire charge of one barrel having taken effect just over the kidneys.”

Brandt’s explanation for visiting the mayor was suspicious, the paper said: “He at first told a cock-and-bull story about having seen a lady enter the house, and of his going in to see who it was, and afterward said that he was waiting for a street car.... He had been drinking some but was not what would be called drunk.”