Thirty years ago, Halloween jokes and pranks involved soaping windows, decorating trees with toilet paper, and jumping out from behind bushes to scare younger children.
But what did kids do for jokes and pranks a hundred years ago? It turns out that those early youngsters really did put the mischief in Mischief Night.
1. Leave the Fraternity Houses Alone
In 1907, Chicago, it was reported that a small group of boys, armed with pea shooters, decided trick a fraternity house. However, the tables quickly turned when the fraternity men rushed out the front door, grabbed the boys, ran back into the house with them, and dipped each boy into a tub of ice water. The fraternity members then spanked the boys before sending them home. [1]
2. Gardens Destroyed
Gardens were often the targets of destruction on Halloween night. Flowers would get trampled, rose bushes uprooted, and arbors pulled down.
This happened to an Indiana woman in 1919. When her neighbor mentioned the obvious destruction of the garden, the victim replied, “Yes, I suppose they called it fun, but I hardly know how to classify that kind of fun. Perhaps it is of the same old aboriginal brand in which the painted savages indulged when they tied their victims to the stake, built a slow fire under him, and then howled in glee at his sufferings. At least, right now I feel very much like the victim at the stake.” [2]
3. Fire Alarms
Pulling fire alarms was a common Halloween prank over a hundred years ago. For example, a fire department in Ohio, 1907, was called out on false alarms during the Halloween pranking time. It got so bad that they had to have the police watch over the alarm boxes to prevent kids from setting off the alarms. [3]
4. Pets
While it is rumored that cats get killed on Halloween night, in the 1920, cats were more likely to get painted. In Seattle, Washington, one resident called the police because some neighborhood boys painted her cat yellow. [4]
5. Wagon Pranks
Instead of soaping car windows or picking up smaller cars and moving them as a prank, boys would go after unwatched wagons during the Halloween season. In 1910, three boys were tried in court for pranking the local grocer. The found his grocery delivery wagon unattended and pushed it down a bank, destroying it completely. [5]
6. The Doorknob Trick
This one is a classic, and was still being done in my youth.
In any apartment building where there are doors facing each other across the hall, pranksters would tie a rope from doorknob to doorknob. The pranksters would then knock on the doors at the same time and make a run for it. The people inside the apartment would try and open their doors, but it was impossible. They had been tied so that neither person could open his door. The only thing that could be done was to call out and hope a neighbor would cut the rope connecting the doors. [6]
7. Take Away Steps
Another popular, but dangerous prank was to remove the steps from a porch or door. Often, steps were not attached to the home and pranksters could pick up the steps and move them away from a door. Next, they would knock on the door and wait for someone to try and step out.
There are newspaper reports of many people who were injured due to this ugly prank. [7]
8. Dummy Walk
In 1911, Cincinnati, it was reported that a group of men and boys pulled their own kind of special Halloween prank:
“A crowd of men and boys dressed up a ‘dummy’ in a fashionable suit of clothes and selected the darkest part of Walnut street to carry out their trick. A pole painted black was attached to the ‘dummy’ and when a car came in sight the ‘dummy’ was ‘walked’ from the curb to the tracks, the uncertain motion of its well stuffed legs and arms giving it the appearance of a drunken man.” [8]
