Snooperkatz, the Lost Cat of 1894

Christian Gudebrod ran the The Gudebrod Brothers Silk Company, Inc. at the building now called Bleecker Tower in New York City. The business had a shop cat named Snooperkatz that Gudebrod was particularly fond of. When Snooperkatz went missing in May of 1894, Gudebrod posted flyers offering a one dollar reward for the return of his lost cat.

Unfortunately, nobody returned Snooperkatz. However, every man, woman, and child who saw the flyer brought Christian Gudebrod multiple street cats in hopes of getting the dollar reward.

As The Sun reported on May 11, 1894, within just a few days, the large building was overrun with cats, “raising their voices in a stream of profanity that is dark, deep and strong.” There were “black cats, white cats, gray cats, yellow cats, mottled cats, tomcats, pussy cats, tailless cats, earless cats, whiskerless cats, cats of high caste, and cats of absolutely no caste at all!”

Apparently the people who brought the cats were not too keen on taking them back where they found them. Anyway, the story made the newspapers, and The Sun sent a reporter to interview Gudebrod about the incident. Gudebrod told many tales about the mischievous and often downright devilish Snooperkatz, which you can read at The Hatching Cat. -via Strange Company