The sparrow family of birds includes many varieties around the world. They are usually small brown  and gray birds with short tails. They eat mostly seeds  and insects, but will scavenge food in cities. The birds tend to nest in buildings and thus are likely to inhabit cities. They can become pests in certain places.

This story may sound familiar as there was a “crow problem” in Galesburg a few years ago. Firearms were not among the suggested solutions for eliminating the larger birds. Irritating electronic sounds were used to keep the crows out of the trees. The human residents of the city were affected more by the noise than were the crows.

Carl Sandburg tried many ways to make money as a boy. There was a shortage of it in his family's household. In the early 1890s the city fathers decided there was a “sparrow problem.” The birds tended to nest in buildings and they created a mess with their droppings. Some people thought the birds might eat seeds that were valuable for other purposes.

The city clerk, J.C. Stevens, was appointed to collect the heads of sparrows which were brought in by citizens. Each sparrow head was worth a penny to the hunter.

Young Sandburg created his own “rubber gun” of a crotched stick, a piece of leather and two pieces of rubber. Some people called the device a slingshot. A rock was set in place and the rubber band pulled to create the propulsion for the rock. He managed to kill one sparrow with his homemade slingshot.

Then Sandburg acquired an air rifle. It probably came from Gumbiner's Pawn Shop or was traded for another valuable item with a boy down the street. He killed thirty sparrows with the rifle and took them to city hall for the money. He decided it was more sport than gainful employment.

A neighbor boy, Axel Johnson, tried to convince Sandburg that the birds could smell gunpowder, so it was better to use the slingshot or the air rifle. It was claimed some people soaked grains of wheat in whiskey and then collected the dazed birds. Any story is a good one if somebody will believe it.

By 1898 the City of Galesburg was paying two cents (equal to 57 cents in today's money) per head. The season began on December 1^st and ended March 1^st. At the end of the season, the city clerk reported 4110 sparrow heads had been turned in.  More than half the heads had been delivered to City Hall just before Christmas; perhaps as a way to earn a little money for Christmas shopping by the boys of the city.

On March 24, 1899, the Daily Republican-Register reported the names of those who had turned in the most sparrow heads. Austin Bunker deposited 631 heads at the clerk's office; Arthur Youngren 145 and Harry Lipsky 159. The heads were burned in the furnace at city hall. The newspaper stated they made a hot fire, “but the cost would hardly warrant the adoption of sparrow heads as a steady fuel.” No mention was made of the disposal methods used for the bird carcasses by the hunters.

Eventually, the campaign against the sparrows ceased as the cost of the bounties became too much for the city budget and the sparrows seemed to proliferate anyway.