Greetings and Salutations,
After one crazy beautiful weekend full of great weather, great friends, and a lot of golf, its back to the grind. I’m already counting the seconds until I can get back out to another new and fun Milwaukee establishment where, hopefully, I will see all of you. This week we travel back to Riverwest to give High Dive the Thursday night run through. This establishment has been around for quite some time and over the years it has had many names: the River Horse, the Impala Lounge, but in 2015 it became the High Dive. With a strong focus on live music and affordable drinks, this is a frequent stop for many regulars in the Riverwest neighborhood – and with a happy hour every day of the week from 4 to 9, I can understand why. Join us this week for a couple of drinks as we continue to celebrate spring in Milwaukee. And for those of you who have not yet taken the dive into our special Thursday night shindig, why not channel some bravery like the diving horses of the 1920’s. Yes you read that correctly….diving horses!
Photo Credit: Pinterest.com
Dating all the way back to 1881, horse diving was started by the late, great William “Doc” Carver. The idea came to him as he crossed a bridge and it partially collapsed, causing his horse to take a dive in the river below. Obviously, the first thought was to do this again, but intentionally for entertainment; thus, the odd world of horse diving was born. The idea was simple: the horse would run up a shoot to a platform where the driver would hop on and plummet down 40 to 60 feet into a huge body of water.
Photo Credit: Pinterest.com
Diving horses reached its peak popularity in the 1930’s in New Jersey at the famous Steel Pier where Sanora Webster grew to fame. This woman is the pure definition of gutsy. She had an accident on one of her standard jumps when the horse lost balance on the platform and fell at an odd angle causing her and the horse to hit the water much harder than usual. Because of this, her retinas became detached causing blindness. That did not stop her – she kept horse diving blind until 1942! Obviously, this type of show was frowned upon by animal rights activists, and the show was shut down in the 70’s – but the memory lives on. I can honestly say this was something I have never heard of before, but my discovery perfectly coincided with our trip to the High Dive this week.
Photo Credit: Pinterest.com
Cheers to High Diving Horses!
Your Co-Founder and Friend,
Jeremy Blandin
*Keeping your glass filled and spirits high one Thursday at a time, this is Welcome to Thursdays: a local social group determined to make your Thursdays more fun. Each week, The Squeaky Curd features a (generally) fictitious story of a Milwaukee County bar that we gather at on Thursday evening. Join us Thursday, May 10, 2018 at High Dive, 701 E Center St (Riverwest), at 7:30pm.*