Joe Silvers and His Caged Bird

Around the first of November 1872, 28-year-old Joseph Silvers of Sedalia learned that a young woman was being held in the Missouri State Penitentiary and that the only way she would be released any time soon was if she were to become married. Strange as this might seem, it was apparently true, and Silvers, actuated primarily by concern for the young woman's welfare, promptly wrote a letter to the warden of the prison asking for the woman's name and that of her father's. 

On November 5, a representative of the warden, in the warden's absence, responded that there was indeed a young woman in the state penitentiary, serving a life sentence, with the exception that she could be released upon marriage. The respondent enclosed a picture of the woman and described her as "handsome and intelligent." He said the woman was well educated, and he thought she would make a good wife. He didn't know who her relatives were, although she told him she had a stepmother who caused her to commit the crime that got her incarcerated. 

A week or so later, Silvers appeared unannounced at the Jefferson City prison and asked to see the lady in question. He said he'd come all the way from Sedalia with plans to marry the woman and that he did not intend to leave until the thing was arranged. 

The woman, who was allowed to receive Silver's in the matron's room, was described by a newspaper reporter at the time as "very pretty" with hair done up in "gorgeous style." Silver agreed, later describing her as "handsome as any woman he ever saw." 

Silvers proposed marriage, and the woman agreed and promised to be a good wife, with the stipulation that he never "throw up" to her the fact that she had been in prison. Stating that he was not wealthy but that his love was strong, Silvers promised never to use her imprisonment as a cudgel.

The only thing left to do to consummate Silver's matrimonial plans was to get Governor Benjamin Gratz Brown to pardon the young woman. Thus, he wrote to the governor from Jefferson City on November 13, asking for said pardon. He said he had seen the young woman and that he "loved her on sight." Silvers said he thought he would "go crazy without her love," if Brown refused his request. 

Silvers planned to stay in Jeff City until he had an answer, but knowledge of his strange request soon leaked out, and he quickly became an object of ridicule, among friends and strangers alike. All the publicity surrounding his effort to marry the imprisoned woman so disgusted Silvers that, without waiting for an answer, he returned to Sedalia, where he was met with "taunts and jeers." 

So unbearable did the teasing become that Silvers gave up his plans to marry the woman and left Sedalia to become a "wanderer upon the face of the land." 

On a personal note, I recently started building an author website. I've never had one before, because I was never convinced that it would really do me all that much good, but I decided to give it a try. It's still very much a work in progress, but I went ahead and went live with it, with the idea of tweaking it as I go along. For the curious, the link is www.larrywoodauthor.com.

Fake News, 1874 Style

In mid-November 1874, a report reached Springfield (MO) concerning a fatal affray involving two prominent Taney County residents, J. C. Johnson and Kenneth Burdett. Johnson, who was Taney's current sheriff and had recently been elected to the state legislature, and Burdett, who was a prominent doctor in the community, had allegedly gotten into a shooting affray at Forsyth that left Johnson dead and Burdett mortally wounded. "No particulars of the difficulty" were received, however. 

The reason no particulars of the affray were received is because it didn't happen. But that didn't keep several newspapers across Missouri from reprinting the report that Johnson and Burdett had killed each other in a gun battle. After all, it made a good story. It's even questionable whether such a report actually reached Springfield, since the Springfield papers were not among those that reprinted it.

In fact, both men lived a long time after 1874. J. C. Johnson went on to serve three terms in the state legislature. During this time, he also studied medicine and received a diploma from a St. Louis medical school. Returning to Taney County, he practiced medicine for many years and also continued his public service, being elected Clerk of the Circuit Court and Recorder of Deeds in 1894. He died in 1906.

Meanwhile, Dr. Burdett continuing practicing medicine after his supposed 1874 affray with Johnson. In 1890, he moved to Douglas County and lived on a farm east of Ava. He practiced medicine until shortly before his death in 1903. 

Fatal Affray Near Summersville

A baseball game was in progress at Summersville, Missouri, on Saturday, September 4, 1886, when two players from opposing sides, 20-year-old Jerry Orchard and 24-year-old Riley Martin, got into a heated dispute. Friends had to intervene to prevent "a serious termination of the quarrel," according to a Texas County correspondent.

The following Thursday, September 9, a corn-cutting, to be followed that evening by a dance to celebrate the harvest, was held at a farm near Summersville. Most of the members of the rival ball clubs were present, and "the little brown jug" passed freely among the workers throughout the day.

After the work was done, the womenfolk served a big feast for supper, and then the music and dancing got underway. The dance was "in full blast" when "brawling cries" came from the front yard, and dance-goers discovered that the week-old feud had been revived. Riley Martin was about to come to blows with 18-year-old Zem McCaskill when Jerry Orchard showed up and took McCaskill's side in the dispute. Angry that his old foe from the baseball diamond was trying to interfere, Martin drew his pistol and snapped it at Orchard three times on an empty cartridge.

Orchard took off running, but Martin gave chase. Suddenly, Orchard drew his pistol, wheeled around, and fired three shots in quick succession at his pursuer. Two of the shots shattered Martin's right arm, while the third struck him below the left shoulder, passed transversely through his body, and exited out the right breast.

At this point, 30-year-old James Stogsdale, a friend of Martin's, came up behind Orchard, leveled his pistol at him, and fired. The ball ranged through Orchard's body and came out the right breast.

A crowd gathered around the wounded men, who lay on the ground seriously wounded, and in the confusion, Stogsdale fired another shot, this one at Zem McCaskill. The ball grazed McCaskill on the left side of his chest, cutting a six-inch-long gash in the flesh above his heart about the depth of the bullet.

At this juncture, 24-year-old Lewis Raider, a Summersville druggist, shoved his way through the crowd to where Orchard lay on the ground in an effort to try to prevent more violence. Stogsdale, though, would have none of it. "Goddamn you," he yelled, "I'll give you the benefit of a shot." The gunman then fired a shot that made "a terrible wound" in Raider's right thigh.

The would-be murderer then "broke away from the crowd, leaped the fence and disappeared in the darkness."

The wildest confusion ensued. Men yelled, women screamed, and people from miles around hurried to the scene. The wounded men were taken to nearby residences, and doctors were summoned. The wounds of Martin and Orchard were thought to be fatal, while Raider and McCaskill were less seriously wounded. Martin did, indeed, die from his wounds a few days later, while the other three men, including Orchard, quickly recovered.

It was thought that Stogsdale had escaped to Texas, but this supposition is called into question by later records. At any rate, little effort was apparently made to capture him. As far as I have been able to determine, no one was ever prosecuted for their part in this deadly melee.

Joplin Nightlife Gives a Springfield Fellow More Excitement Than He Can Stand

Joplin began as a wild, lawless mining camp in the late 19th century, and it still had a reputation as a wide-open town where almost anything went even as late as the Depression era and beyond. A Springfield newspaperman, Franklin Rhoades, ventured to Joplin one evening in January 1934 to visit some of the town's raucous nightspots and report on them. Prohibition had put a bit of a damper on the revelry in Joplin for a few years, but the ban on alcohol had recently been lifted, and Joplin was once again Joplin, according to the reporter.

All seven of the spots Rhoades visited were on the outskirts of town rather than in Joplin proper, and the first place he stopped was the Oriole Terrace between Joplin and Redings Mill. It was "free beer night," which meant that for a 25 cents admission charge, you could have all the beer you could drink throughout the evening. There was a big crowd in attendance, a thick haze of cigarette smoke hung in the air, and lots of dancing was going on, with a small jazz band playing popular dance music. "The large pavillion was jammed," and "a spirit of maudlin merriment was everywhere." While men of all ages and walks of life were in attendance, most of the women present were under 30 years old, and scantily dressed girls in their teens, wearing heavy makeup, "flitted from lap to lap." A woman from Joplin who accompanied the reporter pointed out a few of the men present and identified them for Rhoades. A man who was trying to drink from the same glass as a tall, red-headed girl managed a department store, and a young man who had his arms around a blonde girl was a holdup man just back from the penitentiary. 

At 8:30, the pavilion was cleared for a floor show. "Out tripped a big peroxide blonde in black brassiere and bloomers," said the Springfield reporter. "The crowd went wild, and in answer to their applause, the 'dancer' jerked off the brassiere" and then quickly fled to the dressing room. Even the women joined in the "thunderous applause," and the stripper soon reappeared wearing a yellow evening dress that had the "transparency of cellophane." The blonde's underwear was "an imitation fig leaf" which "remained until the end of her act, but the dress stayed only a few minutes during a ten-minute performance." 

The next act was a boy of about 15 who started singing a song, "which lasted about two-thirds of a verse before the guests booed him off the floor." Then "everyone went back to their free beer and wrestling."  

The next place the Springfield writer visited was the Korean Club two miles south of the Oriole Terrace, and he found it to be a "poor night" at the Korean, which was decorated in Oriental patterns. The admission was 25 cents, the same as the Oriole Terrace, but there was no floor show and no free beer, only dancing that featured "a 12-piece negro orchestra." Only eight couples were in attendance, all of whom had come out in a group for the chicken dinner served earlier. 

Since it was a slow night at the Korean, Rhoades soon moved on to the next place on his list, the Tavern, located in a stucco building on West Seventh Street. While there, he saw several women whom he, being a police reporter, recognized as "Springfield's missing ladies of the evening." If the Springfield police still wanted them, said the reporter, they could find a dozen of them at the Tavern, but in the meantime the women seemed to be "doing right well at entertaining 'lonely bachelors.'"

The Tavern hostess joined Rhoades and his companion at their booth and seemed eager to have him give her place a good write-up. A floor show started shortly after the reporter's arrival: "Two small brunets in evening frocks sang and tap danced the first set. Next was a violin solo by a comely blue-eyed girl." 

After the violin solo, the hostess told the reporter to "wait and see what's comin' next." Directly, "a small, shapely young woman skipped out on the floor, wearing high-heeled pumps, and wielding two small fans." Soon she stood erect and dropped the fans, and everyone "clapped, stomped, yelled and whistled." As soon as the fan dancer finished her act, the hostess nudged Rhoades and told him, "Put that in yer paper, Sugarfoot." She added that, when he wrote the place up, he should say that the Tavern had only the best people because she ran an orderly club. "They's men comin' out here what have got nice money to spend--and we see that they has a good time."

The hostess then told the reporter that drinking, dancing, and a floor show weren't the only attractions the Tavern had to offer. Escorting him to an adjoining room, she showed him what he called "the biggest gambling hall I have seen in years." A gaggle of women swarmed around a big roulette wheel, while most of the men were playing faro. Others were playing poker or tossing dice. "Ten grand a week turns over here," the hostess bragged.

Before leaving the Tavern, Rhoades noted that so many drunks were collapsed on tables that a newcomer would have thought all the liquor had already been sold. The clubs Rhoades visited could not legally sell hard liquor, but he said that it was readily available from bootleggers if a person wanted to pay a premium price and that plenty of people seemed eager to pay it.

Farther west on Seventh, the Springfield man stopped at the Cotton Club, Joplin's newest and swankiest nightspot. However, the place was experiencing the same problem as the Korean--very little business. There were about a dozen couples dancing to a 14-piece band, but the manager told Rhoades he was losing up to $250 a week. He said his patrons had spent so much on Christmas that they couldn't afford nightclubs. 

Rhoades went to a few other places, like the Sturgeons and the Trading Post, but they mainly featured food instead of entertainment. 

Back in Springfield, Rhoades wrote his story up under the headline "Joplin Gives Night-Lifers Plenty to Do." A subhead added, "There's Almost More Excitement Than a Simple Springfield Fellow Can Stand." 

The year 1934, of course, did not mark the end of Joplin's lively nightlife. The town was still widely known as a raucous town throughout the World War II era. Toward the end of the war, General Eisenhower, in a radio address announcing that the ban on fraternization between American troops and German women had been lifted, is reported to have said, "Now, Berlin will be like Joplin, Missouri, on a Saturday night."  

Indeed, I still occasionally heard older folks remark on Joplin's rowdy reputation ten to fifteen years after the war when I was growing up in the Springfield area.  

The Oriole Terrace Nightclub

Last time, I wrote about Herb Farmer's shooting of a Newton County deputy at the Oriole Terrace Nightclub south of Joplin in 1934, and I mentioned in passing that the Oriole Terrace was a notorious place. So, I thought I'd go into more detail this time about the nightspot and how it earned its dubious reputation.

The Oriole Terrace was built in 1932 a mile or two south of Joplin's 32nd Street (which is the Jasper-Newton county line) on South Main Street Road. The club opened either late that year or sometime in the first two-thirds of 1933. The first mention of the place that I could find in newspapers was a September 1933 reference to a mother and daughter dance team from Kansas City who had recently performed at the Oriole Terrace.

Presumably their act was a little tamer than that of a "peroxide blonde" stripper who performed for a full house at the Oriole Terrace during "free beer night" one evening in January 1934. Free beer night was a regular Wednesday evening attraction of the Oriole Terrace. It costs 25 cents to get in, but the admission price entitled you to all the beer you could drink from 9 p.m. to midnight. The free beer nights were so successful that the proprietors soon raised the admission price to 50 cents for stags, while couples could still get in for 25 cents a person. Floor shows weren't limited just to free beer nights, and not all of the acts were as risqué as the blonde stripper's performance. They ranged from vaudeville acts to serious musicians, but enough of them pushed the boundaries of decency for the Oriole Terrace to quickly gain a reputation as a disorderly and immoral place. So much so, as I mentioned in last week's post, that a Newton County deputy was assigned to the club on a regular basis to keep order.

The brawl that took place at the Oriole Terrace in September 1934, when mobster Herb Farmer shot and seriously wounded a Newton County deputy, did little to tame the raucous atmosphere at the nightspot. Later in September, the Oriole Terrace featured a floor show that was billed as "the fastest mile-a-minute show in the Midwest."

The shooting incident did, however, increase calls for law enforcement to do something about the place. In early October, only two or three weeks after the shooting, the State of Missouri, on complaint from citizens living in the vicinity of the Oriole Terrace, filed suit in Newton County against the proprietors of the club, Robert Winters and Herbert Sanders, and against the owners of the seven-acre tract of land where the club was located, Edgar and Ruth Brown.

Seeking an injunction to close the Oriole Terrace as a public nuisance, the suit claimed the club was a "lewd, obscene, dissolute and immoral place," that it was "frequented by outlaws," and that it had "no adequate police protection." The suit also alleged that hard liquor was served without a license at the club and that it housed a gambling operation. One of the affidavits filed with the complaint was sworn out by a 17-year-old girl who said that she had danced scantily clad at the nightclub and that she had witnessed "immoral acts" there.

The defendants were granted a change of venue to Jasper County, and, while the lawsuit was awaiting action, the Oriole Terrace continued to operate as usual. As if in defiance of the suit, the club, on Saturday night, October 13, held what was advertised as a "big dance" and a "new floor show" with performances at 11 p.m., 1 a.m., and 3 a.m. On Tuesday night, October 30, the Oriole Terrace held a big Halloween party, followed the next night by its standard "free beer night." In November, the club started staying open until three o'clock in the morning or later, even on weekdays, not just weekends, and in early December, a new floor show was introduced featuring Emaleen, "the girl with the million-dollar smile," and hula dancer Bertha Zuapa. The Oriole Terrace celebrated both Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve with big bashes.

In early January 1935, Winters, Sanders, and a young waitress at the Oriole Terrace were charged with selling liquor without a license, and they paid fines without contesting the charges. The very next night, they were arrested again for the same offense. The young woman again pled guilty and was fined $1 and costs, but the two operators of the club pled not guilty. They were tried in a justice court at Redings Mill, found guilty, and fined $100 each.

A couple of days later, a hearing on the lawsuit seeking to close the Oriole Terrace that had been transferred to Jasper County was postponed because one of the defendants' lawyers, who was a member of the state legislature, was not available.

The Newton County prosecutor responded by immediately dropping the first suit and filing a new complaint in his county, once again seeking an injunction to close the Oriole Terrace as a public nuisance. He cited the latest liquor offenses as well as prior complaints against the club. The judge granted a temporary injunction closing the club and scheduled a hearing for later on whether to make the injunction permanent.

Not easily deterred, Herb Sanders, a day or two after the Oriole Terrace was shut down, applied for a license in Joplin to open a nightclub and liquor dispensary in the 600 block of North Schifferdecker. The city council voted unanimously to deny the application.

In the wee hours of March 19, 1935, the Oriole Terrace, which had been abandoned since its closure in January, burned down from unknown causes. It seems reasonable to conjecture, however, that, given the place's unsavory reputation, the fire might have been a case of arson.

Shortly after being denied a license to open a nightclub in Joplin, Herb Sanders, along with his partner, Robert Winters, took over management of the Silver Slipper, a nightclub on West Seventh outside the city limits of Joplin. Previously known as the Tavern, the Silver Slipper burned mysteriously in the wee hours of May 27, slightly over two months after the Oriole Terrace had suffered a similar fate.

Sanders and Winters disappeared from the Joplin scene after this. Perhaps they decided to seek friendlier climes to conduct their line of business.

Herb Farmer Shoots Newton County Deputy

Herb "Deafy" Farmer was a mobster whose farmhouse south of Joplin near Redings Mill served as a "safe house" for gangsters from the mid-1920s to the early 1930s. He was a particularly close associate of the Barkers, whom he'd known when both the Farmer and Barker families lived at Webb City in the early 1900s. In June of 1934, Farmer was implicated as a go-between in the plot to free gangster Frank "Jelly" Nash, leading to the so-called Kansas City Massacre at Union Station.

While out on bond awaiting disposition of that case, Farmer got into trouble a little closer to home. The Oriole Terrace Nightclub was located between Redings Mill and Joplin, just up the road from Farmer's home, and on Thursday night, September 13, 1934, Farmer; his wife, Esther; and a sidekick named Herb Carter went there to do some drinking.

Shortly after midnight, in the wee hours of Friday, September 14, Carter and the Farmers got into a dispute with another customer, Herbert Keller (I guess everybody was named Herb back in those days), and Carter struck Keller. Newton County deputy Clem Bumgarner, who was stationed at the notorious nightspot to keep order, intervened to break up the scuffle and then called for backup.

An hour or so later, an all-out fist fight broke out between Carter and Keller. By this time, another deputy, E. M. Kimbrough had arrived, and he helped Bumgarner break up the brawl. They ejected Carter and Keller from the club, and they tried to get the Farmers to leave as well. Herb Farmer proved obstinate and exchanged some heated words with Kimbrough. Bumgarner explained to Farmer that Kimbrough was also a deputy sheriff, but Farmer was unfazed. "I don't care who he is," he declaimed.

Herb Farmer from the Kansas City Journal

The deputies managed to get Farmer outside, and Bumgarner bolted the door to keep him and the other two Herbs from reentering. However, Farmer's wife had been left inside.

Farmer went to his car, got a revolver, and returned to the club. He was denied entrance, but he broke the door down, stepped inside, and almost immediately started shooting at Kimbrough, who was in a booth across the dance floor. Farmer emptied his weapon, striking the deputy six times, as about forty patrons scrambled for safety or looked on in horror.

Kimbrough collapsed to the floor, while Farmer grabbed Esther and hurried outside, where Carter awaited. All three jumped into Farmer's car and sped away. Officers went to the Farmer place a mile or two south of the club, but the fugitives were not there. A search was undertaken, but it turned up no sign of Farmer and his companions.

Meanwhile, Kimbrough was rushed to St. John's Hospital in Joplin, where it was thought at first that his wounds might prove fatal. However, he began to show marked improvement a few days later, and he was released in mid-October after spending about five weeks in the hospital.

Sometime in the fall of 1934, Herb Farmer and his wife surrendered to federal authorities to face the charges against them related to their role in setting up the attempt to free Frank Nash, which led to the Kansas City Massacre. They were both convicted for their part in the conspiracy, and Farmer served two years at Alcatraz. After his release, he returned to Joplin, sold the farm, and moved into town, where he died in 1948 and was buried in Forest Park Cemetery.

Esther later married Harvey Bailey, self-proclaimed King of the Bank Robbers. Both of them are also buried in Forest Park Cemetery.

Kills Her Nephew, Who Was Also Her Paramour

On October 22, 1883, Ella Straub, 27-year-old housewife and mother of four or five children, killed her 21-year-old nephew by marriage, Louis L. During, at the Straub home near Clifton Hill in western Randolph County, Missouri, by beating him to death with a hammer. She proceeded promptly to the county seat at Huntsville and turned herself in. However, she would not say much about During's death except that she'd killed him during a quarrel.

Officers went straightway to the Straub residence and found blood everywhere, attesting to a violent incident, but particulars as to what caused the confrontation were few and far between in the days immediately after it happened. Newspaper reports suggested only that "Family troubles led to the tragedy."

Investigators wondered how a small woman like Ella could have overpowered a strapping young man like During, even with a hammer in her hand, and they also thought it strange that she had no blood or scratches on her when she turned herself in. Under the theory that she might have been shielding her husband, officers arrested 37-year-old William Straub as an accomplice about a week after the killing.

More specifics about the case came out as the investigation continued.

Ella and her husband had gotten married in 1872 when Straub was 26 years old and Ella was only 15. Sometime around 1879, young During, William Straub's nephew, came to live with the couple and work on their farm. Before long, a romance developed between During and Ella, who was described as "small in stature, black hair and eyes, with a rather attractive face and figure."

Ella's illicit intimacy with Straub's nephew "caused trouble between husband and wife," and the trouble came to a head in August or early September 1883, when Straub "slapped his wife severely," leaving her considerably bruised. Ella left home and went to Boonville, taking her kids with her. Straub came after her and brought her back to Randolph County, but she gave him the slip again and took off for Kansas. She wrote to During, who was supposed to meet her and elope with her, but he failed to show up, and she went on without him. While she was gone, During got married and started living with his new bride on a farm not far from the Straub place. When Ella came back to Randolph County in early October, she was reportedly jealous of During and his new wife, and many people thought her jealousy contributed to the murder.

However, that wasn't the story Ella told in mid-November when a joint preliminary hearing was held for her and her husband. While admitting that During was always very attentive to her and that a certain intimacy existed between them, she claimed she never yielded to his "improper proposals." She had been back from Kansas for about two weeks when During showed up at her house on October 22, 1883. When he asked where his uncle was and Ella told him that he was at work in the fields, During said it wasn't Straub he'd come to see anyway--it was her. Ella rose and went into the parlor to get some clothes for her baby but picked up a hammer as she passed through one of the rooms. While she was still in the parlor, During came into the room and "with an oath, demanded that she submit to his fiendish desires." When she refused, he struck at her, and she responded by using the hammer with "frightful effect."

At the close of the preliminary hearing, William Straub was released for lack of evidence, while his wife was held in lieu of $3,000 bond.

At Ella's trial in March of 1884, spectators packed the courtroom in Huntsville to view and hear the sensational proceedings. Ella repeated essentially the same story of self-defense that she'd told at the preliminary. Whether her version of events was true is not known, but since there was no one to refute it, the jury found her not guilty by virtue of justifiable homicide.