A Series of Eternal Triangles--Part 1

A series of three related love triangles in the southwest Missouri-southeast Kansas area over a period of twenty years in the early part of the twentieth century resulted in the deaths of four men. The first act in this three-part tragedy was staged at Joplin in October of 1908, and the principal players were thirty-two-year-old David Lee Nutt, his wife, and his cousin.

About nine months earlier, Nutt and his wife, Blanche, were living on a farm near Neosho when Nutt's cousin Jake Nicely came to live with the couple and their three children. Nicely, who was of "prepossessing appearance" and about ten years younger than his cousin, "proved attractive" to the twenty-eight-year-old Blanche, and a friendship grew up between them.

In 1900, just two years after he and Blanche were married, Lee, as Nutt was usually called, had been involved in a mining-related dynamite accident that put out one of his eyes and blew off one of his hands. Whether Lee's disfigurement had anything to do with Blanche's disenchantment with her husband is unknown, but, for whatever reason, the relationship between Blanche and Nicely soon "ripened" into something more passionate than friendship.

One day in July, the clandestine lovers took off together, leaving Nutt to take care of the children alone. Nutt at first swore vengeance, but when the illicit couple was located in Kansas City, he and other relatives pleaded with Blanche to come home. "The efforts of the peacemakers were spurned," however, and the illegal lovers stayed together.

On October 25, 1908, Nutt came to Joplin on business and met his wife on the street that evening. He again pleaded with her to come back to him, but she still refused. He spent the night in a Joplin hotel ruminating over the treachery of his wife and his cousin. The next day, Nutt, who was carrying a revolver, again saw Blanche on the street and followed her into Church's shoe store. Discovering that Nicely was in the store with her, Nutt was overcome with anger. He fired several shots at Nicely, at least two of which took effect, and Nicely died almost instantly.

Nutt was arrested at scene without resistance. At his trial in 1909, Nutt pleaded self-defense, claiming that Nicely had physically assaulted him when he first entered the store and tried to speak to his wife. How much stock the jury placed in Nutt's version of what happened in the store is not certain, but they came back after only 45 minutes of deliberation with a verdict of not guilty, citing the "unwritten law" in addition to the self-defense claim.

A short time after this episode, Blanche divorced Nutt, and Nutt moved to Granby, where he remarried and where he made the acquaintance of one John Cole, who figures prominently in the next act of this three-part drama. (To be continued.)

Kingdom City

Most of the towns of Missouri and the Ozarks were founded in the 1800s or very early 1900s near bodies of water, mineral ore deposits, or mineral springs. A few were founded as county seats at the time their respective counties were formed.

Some towns, mainly small ones, were also founded in the early days at the intersection of two roads. This phenomenon of towns springing up as a result of road building continued well into the twentieth century, after automobiles had replaced horses and buggies as the primary mode of transportation and after most railroad building, mineral exploration, and other activities that provided the early impetus for the formation of towns had largely ceased.

I can think of several examples of towns in Missouri and the Ozarks that formed as a result of road construction during the first half of the twentieth century, but one the one I want to discuss today is Kingdom City, a small community in northern Callaway County.

When US Highway 40 and US Highway 54 were being built through Callaway County in the mid-1920s, Fulton in the central part of the county and McCredie in the northern part, both located along the planned route of Highway 54, hoped that Highway 40 would come through their respective town. Instead, it ended up passing a mile or two south of McCredie and intersecting with Highway 54 at that point.

The intersection soon had a gas station with more businesses likely to follow, but it had no name other than just the Y. The people of McCredie wanted to name the place South McCredie, while those from Fulton wanted to name it North Fulton. In November 1927, the Fulton Oil Company, owner of the service station, suggested naming the place Kingdom City as a reflection of Calloway County's nickname, Kingdom of Callaway, and Kingdom City it became.

The crossroads community grew rapidly after that. Within a year or so, Kingdom City boasted three filling stations, three cafes, a hotel, two garages, and a grocery store, and a department store was planned.

When I-70 was built through Callaway County in 1965, it passed a little bit south of the route Highway 40 had followed, but not far enough away to completely bypass Kingdom City, and the town still benefits from the patronage of travelers along I-70.

In 1967, Kingdom City was incorporated as a village, and the former unincorporated village of McCredie was absorbed into Kingdom City. The McCredie Post Office moved to Kingdom City near the same time.

Today, Kingdom City sports quite a few businesses and a population of about 145 people, while McCredie, as a separate place, exists mainly in memory.

The Fair Play Fire

Fair Play, a small railroad town in western Polk County (MO), had a population of about 250 people when it was visited on Sunday afternoon, September 19, 1887, by a fire that destroyed nearly all the business district.

Initial reports said the fire originated on the premises of S. L. North and Co. General Store and Bankers and could not be contained. Efforts were concentrated on removing all the goods that could be saved, and the North general store and adjoining bank, the lumberyard, and a millinery in the upper story of the North building were the only businesses that were unable to remove their stock.

A later report said that the only buildings to escape the fire were the McAckran and Co. Hardware store, a blacksmith shop, a small grist mill, and a few dwellings. Businesses, in addition to those mentioned in the previous paragraph, which were burned out were B. S. Brown & Son General Store; Brown and Hopkins Drugstore; Fox, Potts and Paynter General Store; Gordon & Drake General Store; P. D. Spraque Jewelry; W. Vanzant Hotel and Restaurant; and W. Robenstine General Store. Total loss was estimated at between $30,000 and $40,000.

Fair Play rebuilt rapidly after the fire, and today it is still a flourishing little town of about 450 people.

Marion C. Early High School

When I attended Fair Grove High School many years ago, we occasionally played Morrisville in basketball or baseball, but the school was called Marion C. Early High School, not Morrisville High School, and I remember wondering why. Why didn't the school simply have the name of the town in its title like nearly all the other small-town high schools I knew about?

I'm pretty sure I could have learned the answer if I'd been inquisitive enough to do a little research or even to ask a few people who might be in a position to know, but I did neither of those. Recently, though, I learned the answer without really trying. I was just scrolling through some Springfield newspapers when I came upon a 1925 article about Marion C. Early's donation of the land and buildings for the school.

Born in 1864, Early, a St. Louis lawyer, grew up on a farm near Morrisville. Although limited educational opportunities were available to him, he managed to obtain enough early schooling to enroll in Drury College in Springfield. After working his way through Drury, he studied law at Washington University in St. Louis, earned his law degree, and was admitted to the bar.

Although Morrisville did not have a high school during the early 1900s, it did have a junior college, Morrisville-Scarritt College, which was founded in 1909 with the merger of Morrisville College (previously Ebenezer College) and Scarritt College of Neosho. The deed to the land on which the college was located stipulated that it had to be used for educational purposes.

However, when the college closed in 1924, the people of Morrisville could not afford to purchase the land. Mr. Early, who had been a trustee of Morrisville-Scarritt College, bought the eight-acre tract of land and the college's four brick buildings for an estimated $100,000 and donated them to the town of Morrisville for use as a high school. A consolidated school district was organized, and the town's first public high school opened in September of 1925 as Marion C. Early High School.

Gasconade Bridge Tragedy

Construction of the Pacific Railroad west of St. Louis began in 1851. The road was supposed to become the first transcontinental railroad, and by the fall of 1855, it had reached the Missouri state capital at Jefferson City. To mark this milestone, a celebration was planned in Jefferson City for November 1, and early that morning an excursion train of 12-14 cars carrying about 600 passengers left St. Louis to attend the festivities.

The trip to Jefferson City was about two-thirds complete when, shortly after one o'clock in the afternoon, the train approached a wooden bridge over the Gasconade River at the present-day town of Gasconade. The bridge was not yet complete, but it was supported by a temporary trestle that was thought safe. However, as the train started across the bridge, the structure gave way, precipitating the front locomotive and ten of the passenger cars into the river. The bridge was about thirty feet above the river, and the water that the train cars plunged into was as much as twenty feet deep.

The rear locomotive and one of the passenger cars became disengaged from the rest of the train and were thus saved. In addition, some of the passengers had gotten out of their respective cars before the train started across the bridge in order to inspect the bridge and to observe the crossing. They, too, were saved, unless they happened to be on the bridge as the train started across it. Still, over thirty people were killed in the disaster, and another 100 or more were injured.

The rear locomotive raced back the way it had come to give an alarm, but details about the disaster were slow to reach the cities. As information about the tragedy trickled into St. Louis over the next couple of days, the entire city was thrown into "a dark time of distress."

A reporter for a Jefferson City newspaper reached the Gasconade bridge on Saturday morning almost 48 hours after the disaster. He described the scene as "such a heap of ruin as few mortals ever before gazed upon."

The Gasconade tragedy was the first major bridge collapse in American history with large-scale casualties.

Pumpkin Center

I mentioned Pumpkin Center, a crossroads community in Dallas County (MO) when I wrote about colorful names of Ozarks towns and villages a few weeks ago. It's located about five miles north of Buffalo on Highway 73 at its intersection with Highway 64. I used to pass through Pumpkin Center occasionally (depending on what route I took) when I'd drive to Jefferson City or Columbia from southwest Missouri, and I often wondered about the curious name of the place.

Moser's Directory of Missouri Places doesn't say much about Pumpkin Center and nothing at all about how it got its quaint name. However, I ran across a 1934 Springfield News and Leader article recently that gives a little bit of info about the place and how it got its name.

At the time of the article, J. M. "Uncle Josh" Duff and his wife operated a general store at the crossroads. In fact, according to newspaper, Duff had "the only store in Pumpkin Center, the only filling station, the only home, the only barn, the only well." In other words, "Pumpkin Center belongs to Uncle Josh."

The store served as a community trading post where farmers from the surrounding area traded cream, eggs, and produce for other home necessities. It was also a popular loafing spot "during the slack season," and often tourists would stop in just to visit the rustic place.

When Josh was away from the store, his wife, Nancy, operated it, but she didn't want to be called "Aunt Nancy," and she wasn't crazy about the tourists snapping pictures of the store and its owners.

Duff had bought the store about 1924 from A. L. Hause, who had gotten it from Charles Cussack, who in turn had acquired it from Robert Miller, the original owner. When Miller built the store, the house, and the barn about 1908, he was at a loss as to what to call the crossroads community. The forerunners to the present-day highways that intersect at the place were just dirt roads that would become muddy messes during wet weather. A neighbor, remarking on all the rain the area had been getting, supposedly said to Miller, "You might as well call it Pumpkin Center; this is a pumpkin growing country."

When Highway 64 was built some years after the store was established and was routed past the store, gasoline pumps were installed, but the place never became a booming metropolis. Today, there is still not much there other than a crossroads store and station.

Dadeville Banker Killed during an Attempted Holdup

About 1:30 in the afternoon of July 26, 1926, two young men in a 1926 Ford touring car stopped in front of the Crisp Prairie Bank of Dadeville (MO) after making several passes up and down the street in front of the bank. The taller of the two men got out of the vehicle and entered the bank. In the bank at the time were longtime banker Charley Landers, one customer, and the customer's small son. Brandishing a revolver, the tall bandit ordered all three of them into the vault.

Instead of entering the vault as ordered, Landers started toward the door of a small office at the back of the bank, and the would-be robber shot him twice in the back, once before he entered the little room and again after he'd passed through the door. Landers staggered through the room and out a rear door, where he fell to the ground.

The bandit, with the revolver still in his hand, backed out of the bank without taking any money. He walked to the waiting Ford and got in, and the vehicle headed east out of town.

Taken to a hospital in Springfield, Landers lived long enough to give a description of the man who shot him, but he died later that same evening. A large reward was offered for the apprehension of the man who killed Landers, and at least four separate men were arrested on suspicion over the next few months, but each was soon released for lack of evidence and the inability of Dadeville townspeople to identify them.

Another man was arrested on suspicion two or three years later, but he also was released after he was brought to Dadeville and people who had seen Landers's killer said he was not the man. Interest in the crime gradually waned after that, and, as far as I've been able to determine, no one was ever prosecuted for the murder of Charley Landers.