William Henry Lynch and the Development of Marvel Cave

Today, tours of Marvel Cave, located on the grounds of Silver Dollar City, are free to anyone paying admission to the theme park. The cave is little more than a sidelight, though, and many visitors to Silver Dollar City bypass the subterranean tour altogether. Once upon a time, the situation was reversed. As most people who live in the Ozarks know, Marvel Cave as a tourist attraction predated Silver Dollar City by many years. The cave was not just the main attraction in the vicinity; it was the only attraction. Starting about 1960, Silver Dollar City grew up around the cave, but in the very early days of the theme park, the cave was still the main attraction. Visitors had to pay to tour the cave, but admission to Silver Dollar City was free. Quite a switch from the way it is today.
Evidence suggests that Marvel Cave was known to Osage Indians hundreds of years before white men inhabited the Ozarks, and early Europeans may have explored the cave as early as the mid-1500s. The first recorded exploration of the cave, however, was led by St. Louis lead-mining magnate Henry T. Blow in 1869. Blow's group didn't find lead, but in the early 1880s, another group of explorers, led by T. Hodges Jones, found evidence of what they thought was marble. Jones and his fellow investors bought the property, named the cave Marble Cave, and formed the Marble Cave Mining and Manufacturing Company. A town called Marmaros (Greek for marble) was platted nearby, and it soon had a hotel, a general store, and several other businesses.
However, no marble was ever taken out of the cave, and when the mining enterprise died, so did the town. In 1889, William Henry Lynch bought the property sight unseen and planned to develop it as a tourist attraction. When he explored it shortly afterward, he was especially impressed by Marble Cave's huge cathedral room, which he envisioned as an entertainment venue that could draw thousands of people to hear music, listen to speeches, and so forth. Lynch opened up previously blocked passages of the cave and installed ladders to accommodate tourists of the cave, and he began promoting the cave not only as a place to tour but also as an entertainment venue. He called the cave the "greatest natural chamber in the world." The thing that was working against the cave, however, was its isolated location and the lack of transportation to reach it. Lynch focused much of his attention on trying to bring a railroad to the vicinity of the cave.
In early 1893, there was still no railroad to the area, but word had gradually begun to reach the outside world about the wonders of Marble Cave, thanks to articles in magazines and newspapers like the St. Louis Globe-Democrat and the Kansas City Times. While still waiting for a railroad, Lynch arranged, in the meantime, for a daily stage line to run between Springfield and Marble Cave. He also had plans to light the cave with electric lights and to build a hotel near the cave to accommodate overnight visitors. In the fall of 1894, Lynch staged a huge celebration in and on the grounds of Marble Cave, taking out entire newspaper supplements to publicize and promote the event. He advertised the event as a big musical bash, a literary convention, an oratory competition, a sightseeing expedition, and a religious observance all rolled into one. He even invited young couples to come to the event to get married in the beautiful cathedral room. He told the people of the region that the success of the event would help sell the Ozarks as a place where people would want to come and visit.
The fall 1894 event was a moderate success, but it demonstrated once again the need for a railroad. By late 1902, the nearest railroad to Marble Cave was still forty miles away, but the Missouri Pacific was in the process of building a line to the cave. As the project was announced and got underway, Lynch once again threw himself into promoting the cave. He gave speeches in St. Louis and other cities about the wonders of the cave and got write-ups about it in various newspapers. It was also in 1902 that the cave first started being called Marvel Cave instead of Marble Cave, at least informally. However, the two names were used almost interchangeably and the official name may not have been changed until after Lynch's death in 1927, as the Silver Dollar City website says.
Alas, the plans for a railroad to Marvel Cave never materialized, but by the 1910s, the advent of automobiles had made the question a somewhat moot point. For example, in November 1915, during a special event at the cave, auto service to the cave was offered from nearby Reeds Spring, which did have a railroad.
In 1927, William Lynch died, his daughters took over Marble Cave, and it officially became known as Marvel Cave, although, as I say, it had been called Marvel Cave at least on an irregular basis for twenty-five years. In 1950, the Herschend family purchased a 99-year lease on the property from the Lynch sisters. In 1960, the Herschends opened Silver Dollar City on the grounds of the cave, and over the years, the theme park has gradually engulfed the cave and dwarfed its importance. Although there are still many people who enjoy tours of the cave, there are many others who go to Silver Dollar City exclusively for the amusement rides and other entertainment.

Gambling in Early-Day Springfield

Gambling was prevalent in Springfield almost from the town’s beginning. In 1835, for instance, William Lloyd was indicted for keeping a faro bank. This is the only reference to faro in early Greene County Circuit Court records. However, there are numerous references to gambling devices or gambling tables, and it is safe to say that many of these pertain to faro, a card game that was very popular in gambling circles throughout the 1800s. The game usually involved a table with the thirteen cards of a single suit (normally spades) already painted or pasted on the tabletop. Players would place bets on one of the cards, and the dealer, using a separate deck of cards, would deal two cards from a device called a faro box, turning them face up one at a time. If the first card, called the dealer’s or banker’s card, matched the card on which the bet was placed, the player lost and the dealer collected the money. If the second card, called the player’s card, matched the card on which the bet was placed, the player won and collected from the dealer or banker an amount equal to the bet. If neither card matched the card on which the bet was placed, the player could retract his bet or let it ride for the next two-card turn. The term “faro bank” could refer to the stakes in a game of faro, to the gambling establishment where the game was played, or to the game itself. In Lloyd’s case, the charge against him of keeping a faro bank was dropped when the defendant could not be found in Greene County.
Sometimes even Springfield’s founding fathers or other leading citizens were involved in gambling. For example, John P. Campbell, the town's founder, was charged in Circuit Court in 1841 with “suffering a gambling device to be set upon his premises.” The same year, Benjamin Cannefax, brother of the second sheriff of Greene County, was found guilty of gaming and fined one dollar. Other gambling offenders in early-day Greene County included Ephraim and Levi Fulbright, sons of William Fulbright, who was one of the very earliest settlers in the area that became Springfield. Not surprisingly, some of the gamblers were multiple offenders.

Gambling of any kind was at least nominally illegal in early-day Springfield, but in antebellum Greene County the offense was made more serious if one gambled with the wrong person. For instance, at the December 1850 term of the Greene County Circuit Court, several men, including Fleming Taggard, were indicted for “Gaming with a Negro.” The following June, Taggard was again charged, this time with “Playing Cards with a Negro.” Augustine Yokum was charged in December of 1850 with the doubly grievous offense of “Playing Cards with a Negro on Sunday.”
Early Springfieldians did not need a device specifically designed for games of chance in order to enjoy gambling. Holcombe’s 1883 History of Greene County noted, for instance, that there was considerable betting in 1855 on the outcome of the elections that year. Betting on horse races was an even more popular pastime in the mid to late 1800s than betting on elections.
This blog entry is condensed from my book Wicked Springfield.

Budgetown

Located on Short Creek just a mile or so west of the Missouri state line, Galena, Kansas, sprang up in the spring of 1877 as a booming lead mining town. Like most towns founded as mining camps, Galena, during its early years, was a wild, raucous place where whiskey flowed freely. A prohibition law that went into effect in Kansas in January 1881 put a damper on the liquor trade in Galena, as all ten of the town's saloons quickly went out of business. However, the new law couldn't slake the rowdy miners' thirst for liquor, and two enterprising saloon keepers found a way around the new law.
They simply moved a mile east and started a new town on the state line of Missouri, where liquor was legal. The original idea was to start a regular town where people would want to live, but that idea never quite got off the ground. Instead, the town became just a place for the miners to go and raise hell, and it mainly consisted of just a couple of saloons. At least one of the buildings, called a "double building," actually straddled the border, with the saloon portion in Missouri and the Kansas portion serving as a gambling hall, since gambling was still legal in the sunflower state but not in Missouri.
Officially named Dubuque, the new town became known as Budgetown or Budgeville, because "budge" was a slang term for liquor in the Old West. From the very beginning, Budgetown had a bad reputation, and the respectable citizens of Galena looked upon their new rival with disdain. Commenting on the new town in March of 1881, the Galena Miner suggested that the "b" in Dubuque be changed to a "p," and the name of the town would then "be about correct." A couple of months later, a resident of Neosho, Missouri, traveled to Galena and reported back to his hometown newspaper, the Miner and Mechanic, that there was not a drop of liquor to be found in Galena but that a new town named Budge had sprung up on the state line and the "eyes and feet of the thirsty Short Creekers turn that way as the sunflower expands its charms into the sun."
In late May 1881, just a week or so after the Neosho resident's visit, the Galena Miner gave its readers an update on Budgeville. According to the newspaper, the new town had failed to prosper as its founders had envisioned, and it was generally very dull. However, "There are seasons when there are wild times," the newspaperman allowed. The rural residents in the vicinity of Budgetown regularly complained to law enforcement of the indiscriminate discharge of firearms in and around the town, and they lived in fear that they might be hit by a stray bullet. The Miner concluded by reiterating that Budgetown as a business enterprise was a complete failure and would continue to be so as long as the sole object of those inhabiting the town was to "drink whisky and play cards."
 
Despite the negative publicity Budgetown received almost from its beginning, rumors persisted in the spring of 1881 that the new town on the border was booming and already had a population numbering as high as 2,000. In early June, the Miner once again felt called upon to dispel the rumors. The editor assured his readers that the only place in Budgetown where a person could buy groceries had recently closed and that there was nothing left in the town that was in the least attractive to anyone except those who desired to "get where they have almost unrestrained license. Budgetown will never be a place where men will want to take their families."
The Miner editor was right. Budgetown remained little more than a place to drink and raise hell for the next few years. In early 1884, Joe Thornton, whose brother ran a grocery store in Galena, took charge of the only remaining business in Budgetown, a "double building" straddling the state line. Unlike his brother, Joe had developed an unsavory reputation, and it didn't take him long to start getting into trouble again once he removed to the state line. His troubles culminated in the summer of 1885 when he shot and killed a Joplin city policeman and was hanged by a mob later the same evening. You can read more about Joe Thornton in by book Wicked Joplin. I also have another book in the works about notorious incidents in Jasper County history, and one chapter of that book will detail Thornton's noted criminal career.
Budgetown was still shown on maps as late as 1895 under its official name of Dubuque. It was located on the state line between present-day Seventh Street and Old Route 66, in the general area where the Phillips 66 State Line convenience store and gas station is situated.

The Crime of Seduction

The crime of seduction has traditionally been defined in English common law as a felony committed when a male induces a previously chaste, unmarried female to engage in sexual intercourse with a promise of marriage. Although such laws are still on the books in some states of the US, cases of seduction are rarely prosecuted nowadays. The exception, of course, is when an underage female is seduced by an older male, in which case the male, especially if the age difference is pronounced, is often charged with statutory rape. However, if both parties are of legal age, laws against seduction are rarely invoked nowadays. It hasn't always been the case. It was not uncommon for a man to be charged with seduction a hundred or more years ago. The case of Allen Stemmons, of Jasper County, Missouri, is one example.
Stemmons was a young man about twenty-six years old living in the Carthage area when Viola Shottenkirk (surname also given as Bailey), about nineteen or twenty years old, came to his neighborhood from Kansas in December 1914 for an extended stay with her grandparents. Stemmons was attracted to the young woman right away, and they soon began keeping company. In August 1915, he proposed marriage to her. She accepted and began preparing table linen, sheets, and other household items in anticipation of the marriage. Their relationship even made the gossip column of the Jasper News when the paper reported on September 9, 1915, that "Viola Shottenkirk and Allen Stemmons of Maple Grove motored to J. F. Gullick's Sunday." (Maple Grove was a small community north of Avilla, about fifteen miles northeast of Carthage.)
Stemmons continued his attentions to Viola until one day in October, when they were out riding in an automobile, he "insistently solicited sexual intercourse," urging that, being engaged, they were already married in the sight of God. She demurred, pointing out that they were not yet married in the sight of man, but when he persisted, she finally gave in and "lent herself to his embraces." The couple again had sexual relations in November, and as a result of the intercourse, Viola became pregnant. According to later evidence, Stemmons didn't believe Viola when she first told him she was pregnant, and later he began backing off his promise of marriage and trying to arrange an abortion for her. When that failed, he made arrangements for her to go to Kansas City to have the baby. He met her in Kansas City and paid for her maternity care. Her parents, having learned of their daughter's condition, showed up, and the mother demanded to know of Stemmons whether he was the father of the unborn child. He admitted that he was, saying he knew that Viola had not had sex with anyone other than himself. When the mother wanted to know whether he planned to marry her daughter, he relied, "I didn't say I wouldn't."
But he didn't marry Viola, either before the child was born on July 31, 1916, or after, because he had fallen in love with another girl, Mary Leah Preston. He married her in August of 1916, just weeks after Viola gave birth to her child.
Viola and her family filed a charge of seduction and breach of promise against Stemmons in Jasper County Circuit Court. Stemmons, who had been a standout member of the debate team at Carthage High School, was described by a Webb City newspaper at the time he was arrested as "a clean, gentlemanly looking young man of splendid parentage." At his trial in the fall of 1916, Stemmons denied ever having sexual relations with Viola or ever having more than a casual relationship with her. He admitted making maternity arrangements for Viola but claimed he only did so in response to her threats. He said she came to the drug store where he worked and wanted him to provide something that would abort the baby. When he was unable to do so, she threatened to name him as the father of her unborn child if he did not provide for her relief. The jury didn't buy Stemmons' unlikely story, and he was convicted of seduction and sentenced to two years in the state penitentiary. His lawyers appealed to the Missouri Supreme Court, postponing imposition of sentence, but the high court ruled in late July 1918 that the judgment of the lower court should stand.
Stemmons was transported to the state prison in Jefferson City on July 30, 1918, but he didn't stay there long. Just a month later, he was pardoned by acting governor Crossley after serving just a month in prison. In issuing his order, Crossley said he did not believe Stemmons was guilty of the crime of which he had been convicted. He said it was clear from the court record that the jury itself had doubts as to his guilt and had only convicted him with a recommendation of parole. The trial judge, however, had gone ahead and pronounced the two-year sentence, saying he would rather the state parole board act on the recommendation.
On August 31, 1918, Stemmons walked out of prison a free man, and he went on to lead a long and productive life, dying in 1977 at the age of 88. What happened to Viola and her child I have been so far unable to trace.

Church in a Saloon and a Dance Hall in Church

Joplin earned a well-deserved reputation during its early mining days as a wide-open place where whiskey flowed freely and other forms of vice abounded. Saloons sat on nearly every block, and gambling parlors were almost as prevalent. The gambling halls often adjoined the saloons but not always. "Amusement emporiums" like Johnson's Vaudeville Variety Theatre, which I discussed in my previous two posts, offered ribald entertainment, and, for a price, female companionship could be had there and at other houses of ill fame in the downtown area. Almost from the town’s infancy, however, religion thrived alongside the revelry.

In fact, Joplin’s very first church service was held in a saloon. One day in early 1872, several men were discussing the need for a church when Kit Bullock, co-owner of Bullock and Boucher’s saloon on Main Street, offered his business as a sanctuary. Unknown to Bullock, one of the men among the group was an itinerant Methodist minister, and he promptly took the saloonkeeper up on his offer, saying he would hold services the very next day if Bullock meant what he said. True to his word, Bullock cleaned up his saloon, replaced the whiskey bottles with candles, and laid planks across his beer kegs to serve as makeshift pews. The next day, the preacher showed up and delivered a sermon to several solemn and presumably sober worshipers.

Not only was Joplin’s first church service held in a saloon, but the town’s early houses of worship were also often given over to secular use, a practice that some observers found just as unseemly as holding church in a barroom. The Tabernacle, erected at the corner of Fourth and Virginia in 1876, served not only as one of the town’s principal places of worship but also as a sort of town hall that played host to numerous public gatherings, including many that were offered purely for entertainment. For instance, when a roller skating craze swept across the country in 1877, the Tabernacle was turned into a skating rink, and large groups of “Holy Rollers,” as the skaters were often called, would gather each night to participate in their newfound recreation.

Such mixing of religion and merrymaking earned Joplin frequent criticism from its neighbors as an evil and irreverent place. In January of 1880, the Neosho Miner and Mechanic waxed indignant over the indecorous fundraising activities of a Joplin congregation that hoped to build a new church. Calling Joplin a “queer place,” the editor continued,

   The ladies belonging to the church are working with vim. During the holidays they had a festival, at which there  was music and dancing, and several articles of value were raffled off, the whole thing  realizing about a hundred dollars for the cause of religion. To-night they give a grand leap year ball, at  which a magnificent diamond ring is to be drawn, lottery fashion. Some of the most prominent lady members of the church are floor managers, and doubtless they will waltz a good amount of money out of those who attend. We presume the minister will be the beau of the ball, and all the ladies will vie with each other as to who shall have the honor of dancing with him. Thus do Christians in Joplin renounce the devil and all his work, and the vain pomp and glory of this world.

Joplin, though, did not meekly abide such criticism. Responding to the Miner and Mechanic, the editor of the Joplin Herald accused his counterpart at Neosho of being “pious and sanctimonious.”
This story, like my previous two blog entries, is condensed from my book Wicked Joplin.