A Killing at Prosperity

Prosperity is a former mining town in Jasper County, Missouri, about seven miles east of downtown Joplin or about four miles southeast of Webb City. Nowadays, it is mainly known for the old, two-story, brick schoolhouse that was abandoned about 1961 when Prosperity School consolidated with Webb City. The building, said by some people to be haunted, served as a bed and breakfast for a while but now sits vacant again. I didn't know about this incident until recently, but Prosperity was also once the site of a somewhat sensational killing.

Somewhere around the early part of 1903, Benjamin Aylor, owner of the Eleventh Hour Mining Company in Prosperity, lent Joplin miner Gordon Allen $1,500, with Allen mortgaging some mining machinery adjoining the Eleventh Hour Mine as collateral. Aylor was the son of J. W. Aylor, who was said to be the wealthiest miner in the district, and 30-year-old Ben Aylor was wealthy and successful in his own right. Allen had once been quite wealthy himself but had lost most of his money through "unfortunate mining ventures."

When Allen had not made any payments on Ben Aylor's loan after several months, Aylor foreclosed on the mortgage and took possession of the mining machinery. Allen, who felt he hadn't been treated fairly, grew angry and started making threats against young Aylor. On October 16, 1903, he drove to Prosperity in a buggy and confronted Aylor outside the office of the Eleventh Hour Mining Company. Still seated in the buggy, Allen directed some angry words at Aylor and then brandished a buggy whip as if he was going to lash Aylor with it. Before he could do so, though, Aylor whipped out a pistol and fired five shots into Allen's body, killing him instantly. After the shooting, Aylor went back to work loading ore without saying a word to any of the bystanders who'd been attracted to the scene. When he finished the task at hand, he went into his office and called the sheriff to turn himself in.

Aylor was arrested and put under guard but not placed in jail. A coroner's jury a day or two later failed to agree, with two members arguing justifiable homicide and the other four holding out for an open verdict (saying that the death was suspicious but assigning no cause). Aylor was eventually charged with second-degree murder and lodged in jail.

At his trial in December, the prosecution paraded several witnesses to the stand who had been at the Eleventh Hour Mine on the day of the shooting. Several testified to hearing shots and seeing Allen lying dead immediately afterward, but none of them had actually been an eyewitness to the shooting. The defense witnesses, on the other hand, were mainly men who testified as to the numerous threats Allen had made toward Aylor in the days and weeks leading up to the shooting.

Aylor took the stand in his own defense. He, too, testified as to Allen's prior threats, and he said that Allen had come to his mine on the day in question in a belligerent mood. He said he pulled his pistol and started shooting when he thought Allen was getting ready to whip him. He admitted that he continued emptying the weapon at Allen even after the man had tumbled from the buggy, but the jury nevertheless acquitted him after only ten minutes of deliberation.