The Cultural & Entertainment Notebook: The story behind Jackson's 'Mane' Street icon

He's known by most of Southeast Missouri simply as the "horse in the window" and has been standing tall at the corner of Missouri and West Main streets for nearly 120 years.

But did you know the stallion has a name -- and a story?

Prince Truxton II has been on display since the late 1800s in The Willer Seed Co.'s front window in Jackson, originally named after President Andrew Jackson's favorite horse.

For more than a century he was called "Prince," until a horse-naming contest in 1965 during the city of Jackson's sesquicentennial renamed him, according to a Southeast Missourian story from 2001.

Prince Truxton II is described as "dapple gray," and stands roughly 5 feet 6 inches tall, weighing nearly 600 pounds. He is made of papier-mache, but his mane and tail -- both removable -- are made of real horsehair that has surprisingly stood the test of time.

He was ordered from the Horse Display Works of Dayton, Ohio, for a mere $125 -- shipping included. Still, it was quite a hefty price tag in 1898.

The horse arrived in Jackson on a railroad car, and his main job was to display harnesses that Wolters -- the business at the time -- sold.

According to a Southeast Missourian story from 1931, "the veteran harness man" who purchased Prince said the horse "has paid for himself several times over," and "as an advertising medium, he's hard to beat."

Alpha Willer purchased the building and business from Herman Wolters and started a new business in 1945, which he named Willer Seed Co., according to former Jackson mayor Barbara Lohr.

As a child, Willer wanted to learn the art of leather craft and harness making, so he moved to Jackson in 1905 to learn the trade from Wolters. Willer continued to work with him after completing his apprenticeship.

Lohr said the building was erected by Herman Wolters to house his harness store. The horse was purchased that same year to use as advertisement for the business since, according to Lohr, during that time the main mode of transportation was horse and buggy.

Alpha retired in 1963 and the business was sold, but the building is still owned by the Willer family.

According to Lohr, current owner of the property, Dave Willer wants the horse to remain in the window.

Gaming Grounds is the current business located on the corner of West Main and Missouri streets housing Prince.

When asked what would happen if the horse were to be relocated, one of the employees at Gaming Grounds said, "We can move it, but we're told people would hate us if we did."

Noteworthy

Creepy? Yes.

I'm all for evolving technology that makes our lives easier, but I've never been a fan of eavesdropping. According to a Newsweek story published this week, researchers have developed a handset that can read the words you're thinking so you can interact with digital devices and digital assistants such as Siri and Alexa.

The new technology is called "AlterEgo," and project lead researcher from the MIT Media Lab Arnav Kapur said in a news release, "Our idea was: Could we have a computing platform that's more internal, that melds human and machine in some ways and that feels like an internal extension of our own cognition?"

'Frozen' thawed by 'Black Panther'

The mega popularity of Disney's animated musical "Frozen" has come and gone, thanks to the overwhelming success of Disney/Marvel's "Black Panther."

A story on CNBC.com said "Black Panther" takes its place among the top-earning movies around the world with its gross earnings of $1,279,200,000, surpassing "Frozen's" $1,276,709,334.