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.

Fourth of July Celebration, 1925

Nowadays, a lot of towns hold Independence Day celebrations, and some of them are pretty elaborate affairs. However, I don't think they're any bigger than those held 100 years ago, and, in many cases, they're not as big.

Let's take Joplin, Missouri, as an example. The City of Joplin's official Fourth of July celebration this year will be held (I'm writing this on the morning of the 4th) at the Missouri Southern State University football stadium. Gates open at 5:30 p.m., food trucks open for business at 6:00 p.m., live music is slated to begin at 7:00 p.m., and the festivities culminate with a fireworks display from 9:45 to 10:00 p.m. Sounds like a pretty big deal, but it scarcely compares to the celebration Joplin held in 1925.

The Fourth of July celebration in Joplin in 1925 actually kicked off on Friday night, July 3. All the downtown businesses stayed open late, since they were going to be closed all day on the fourth, and a big crowd gathered downtown on Friday night as normally happened every Saturday night. So, folks were already in a festive spirit when Saturday, the fourth, rolled around.

People gathered for picnics and other activities at all the parks in Joplin on the fourth, others went to nearby swimming holes just outside the city, and baseball games and golf tournaments were held throughout the day in various parts of town The biggest attraction, however, was at Schifferdecker Park, where as many as 15,000 people gathered for afternoon and evening festivities.

In addition to the everyday park attractions, a movie was shown and a dance was held, both sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce free of charge. There was also a concert of live music. Free ice water was furnished for those in attendance. A daylight fireworks display was staged in the afternoon as well as the big finale that night. The "gorgeous fireworks display" put on at Schifferdecker the night of the fourth cost thousands of dollars and was one of the biggest ever held in Joplin.

One thing that was rather noticeably absent from the Joplin Independence Day celebration in 1925, probably to the relief of many in attendance, was speechifying. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, many local celebrations featured long-winded speeches by political office holders or candidates for office. Some people, I guess, actually enjoyed them.

The "Iron Mountain Baby" Skips Town

Called the Iron Mountain Baby, William Helms acquired his unusual moniker after he was thrown from a train along the St. Louis, Iron Mountain, and Southern Railroad near Irondale in eastern Missouri in 1902 when he was just a few days old. The unidentified infant was found by 67-year-old William Helms, nursed back to health, and taken in by the Helms family. His biological parentage remained a mystery, and he took the name of his foster family, who later adopted him.

Young Helms went to a rural school near Hopewell, where he grew up, and then moved to Salem, Missouri, to attend high school and worked as a reporter for the Salem News to help pay his way through school. Bitten by the newspaper/printing bug, Helms moved to Springfield in the mid 1920s to attend the teachers' college there and worked in a print shop in Springfield while going to school.

Around the end of 1926 or beginning of 1927, Helms moved to West Plains and worked as a printer there for a few weeks. He was soon back in Springfield, where he gave an interview to a Kansas City newspaper in mid-January 1927. In additional to discussing other topics, he said he had been hounded all his life by unwanted notoriety related to the sensational story of his infancy. He admitted that he had often wondered who his biological parents were and had even tried for a long time to find them, but he said he no longer cared and that Mr. Helms and his wife were his real parents. Helms expressed a desire to one day buy "a little printing business" of his own.

Helms's second sojourn in Springfield proved brief, as he left town around the end of January 1927 to take a printing job in Tulsa, Oklahoma. By late March of the same year, however, he was once again back in Springfield.

It may have been during this trip back to Missouri that Helms realized his dream of owning a "little printing business" of his own because sometime in the first half of 1927 he purchased a newspaper at Fair Grove, a small town 15 miles north of Springfield. What's known for sure is that Helms was fairly well established as editor and publisher of the Fair Grove Journal by August of 1927, when his position in Fair Grove was noted in Springfield newspapers.

William Helms Shortly Before Move to Fair Grove

In Fair Grove, Helms boarded with the Yandell family, and he took out a loan from the Fair Grove Bank to purchase the newspaper business He made the acquaintance of bank cashier J. I. Grant and other prominent citizens of the community and took an active part in civic affairs. He also participated in church activities, including as a leader in the Epworth League (a Methodist group for young adults) and was well liked in the town. In April of 1928, Helms visited Springfield with Cashier Grant and two other prominent Fair Grove citizens, as noted by the Springfield Leader.

On November 3, 1928, Helms up and left Fair Grove without giving notice to anyone. He left owing the Yandells $101 for board and owing the bank $511 for the mortgage it held on the newspaper plant. Several half-completed jobs were stacked about the printing office. His "sudden departure," said the Springfield Daily News, "comes not only as a surprise but as a shock to the entire community."

Where Helms had gone and why was a complete mystery until Cashier Grant received a letter from the absconder on November 14. Dated November 12 and posted at Eufaula, Oklahoma, Helms told Bryant to take back the printing plant as payment of the $511 debt because he "never expected to see Fair Grove again." He also gave instructions for the return of some "boiler plate" type to a Kansas City syndicate.

In late November, the Yandells also received a letter from Helms, postmarked Houston, Texas, promising to pay the debt he owed them for room and board.

Rumors circulated as to what caused Helms to leave Fair Grove so suddenly and as to what his future plans might be. One Springfield acquaintance said Helms had told him he was going to South America. Other friends said Helms had a girlfriend in St. Louis and that they were planning to get married but that he had recently received a letter from her saying she'd changed her mind. This heartbreak, his friends speculated, had caused Helms to "give up his efforts at making a success." Still others suggested that Helms had quit Fair Grove so suddenly simply because he was frustrated that he'd been unable to live up to the high expectations of success he held when he first moved there and purchased the newspaper.

The suggestion of a St. Louis connection seemingly had some validity, because Helms did later marry a young woman in the St. Louis area, but whether she was the same one his Springfield friends had mentioned is not known. The couple subsequently moved to Texas, where they had one child. William Helms, the Iron Mountain Baby, died in Texas in 1953 and was brought back to Missouri and buried in a cemetery not far from the place where he'd been thrown from a train over fifty years earlier.

Rdy 1928

 

A "Tangled Romance" Claims Two Victims

A headline in the January 1, 1962, issue of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat spoke of a "tangled romance" resulting in the deaths of two people. The first sentence of the report told the story in brief: "Two women...were shot to death and the husband of one was wounded Saturday in a series of events involving a love triangle in Jefferson County."

It seems 33-year-old Juanita Smith, a pretty blonde who taught elementary school at Hillsboro, had been having an affair for a couple of years with 40-year-old Ralph Patton, former school board president at Richwoods, where Mrs. Smith had previously taught. On Tuesday, December 27, 1961, Patton left his wife, 37-year-old Esther, and went to stay at the Arlington Hotel in DeSoto. When Juanita Smith told her husband, Clarence, that she also planned to leave him, he grew extremely angry and jealous. He met Patton later that evening (the 27th) at a tavern in Richwoods, where the two men had a heated argument.

On Saturday, December 30, Esther met with her husband and his lover at the hotel to try to iron out the marital difficulties in her family, but Patton informed her that he did not intend to return home unless she became sick and needed him.

The two women then left together about mid-afternoon and drove to the Smith residence at Fletcher a few miles west of DeSoto. After Esther Patton talked with the Smith couple for a few minutes over coffee, she left with the stated intention of bringing her husband back with her so that all four parties could hash out the situation.

Instead of retrieving her husband, however, Esther drove to a spot about two and half miles west of DeSoto, pulled off the side of the road, and shot herself with a .32 caliber pistol. Gravely wounded but still alive, she drove into DeSoto, where she fell out of the car into the street. The pistol was found lying in the car seat. Esther was rushed to a hospital in Festus but died shortly after arrival.

Meanwhile, as Smith and his wife were waiting for Mrs. Patton to return, they got into a quarrel about Juanita "messing around with Patton." After waiting for some time with no sign of Esther Patton's return, Juanita took an aspirin and went to bed, and Smith took two aspirins and two "nerve pills" (i.e. tranquilizers). He later claimed that was the last thing he remembered.

What police were able to reconstruct from the evidence, however, was that Smith called Juanita's brother, Lloyd Nickelson, about dusk and told Nickelson and his wife that he was going to kill himself. They rushed to the Smith home and saw him standing in the doorway with a shotgun. As Nickelson approached the house, Smith retreated from the doorway, and a shot came from inside the house. When Nickelson and his wife entered the house, they found Juanita Smith lying on the kitchen floor dying from a shotgun blast and Clarence Smith on the floor, on the opposite side of a table from his wife, dazed and suffering from a wound across his face, apparently self-inflicted in a suicide attempt.

Juanita Smith died on the way to a hospital, and her husband was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. After his wound, which proved superficial, was treated, he was taken to the Jefferson County Jail at Hillsboro.

Tried at Hillsboro in late May 1962 on a reduced charge of second-degree murder, Clarence Smith was found not guilty after a jury deliberation of only about 45 minutes.

Note: Photo from the Crystal City Jefferson County Press-Times