From the Lawrence Daily World for Nov. 30, 1910:

• “The man who can outwrite all others in the world on a typewriter was in Lawrence yesterday. He is H. O. Blaisdell and gave a demonstration at the Business College. Before the students he wrote 132 words of new matter in a minute. At Madison Square Garden Blaisdell wrote 6,919 words in an hour, making only 72 mistakes. He was penalized 360 words, giving him an average of 106 words per minute. To write this much matter he had to make over ten finger strokes a second.”
• “‘Hey, there. Your barn is on fire,’ called someone last night to young Gilmore as he stood on the back steps of his home at 901 New York street. ‘You must be mistaken. I was just out there,’ answered Gilmore. The alarm proved true, however, and soon the blaze had burned its way through the roof. How the blaze started no one knows. Mr. Gilmore is of the opinion that it may have been started by the electric light wires strung over the roof of the barn, although the barn itself was not wired.”