Akansas Live Bait Hook (enter Rod Serling)
This week's ad comes from the August 1904 issue of National Sportsman magazine. The Arkansas Live Bait Hook did not strike me as anything that notable, but there were enough remarkable ads in the magazine that I took it to the Little Rock, Arkansas NFLCC National to show to some friends.
While sitting in my room and discussing the various ads with a friend, this one jumped out at me mainly because I was at the time sitting in Arkansas. As I read the ad I was struck by the fact that the seller's address was the Capitol Hotel, and in Little Rock where we were at. As I wondered out loud to my friend what kind of a seller in a national magazine gave a hotel as their address, my eyes strayed out the window and there, directly across the street and engraved in stone, on the side of the building were the large words "Capitol Hotel"
-- Bill Sonnett