A Look at Halloween Pranks of Yesteryear: 1800s-1940s

The Halloween pranks that most of us grew up with were not very creative...but at least they weren't TOO destructive. Maybe there was a touch of vandalism, but not to the extreme it is in the current millennium.

The Halloween pranks of a still-alive generation included soaping windows, draping trees and houses with toilet paper, putting bags of poop on doorsteps and porches, unscrewing porch lights, making scary unknown phone calls, and pushing parked cars down the block.

Halloween pranks have gotten too destructive and harmful...from fires, destroying public and private property, assault, and robbery. The once bothersome pranks have somehow turned into actual crimes.

Get our free mobile app

Older Halloween pranks from the 1800s into the early 1900s included putting wagons on top of buildings, placing garbage on public seats (like rotten tomatoes), painting livestock, tying strings of tin cans to vehicles, kidnapping a horse or cow, firecrackers, and switching street signs. Unfortunately, it seems that arson has been a Halloween prank ever since the horse-and-buggy days.

Now in the 2020s, there are video cameras everywhere. On street lights, stop lights, porches, storefronts, drones, and strategically placed mini-cams that you can't even see or notice. So while some pranks remain the same and others have gotten worse, the likelihood of the eyes of a hidden camera will probably capture your deed.

The gallery below shows some old American pranks going back as far as the mid-1800s!

MORE STUFF: