Construction of Battlefield Mall

    Last time I wrote about construction of the Shrine Mosque in Springfield. This time I decided to write about another major building project in Springfield history: construction of Battlefield Mall.
    Plans for construction of Battlefield Mall first came to public attention in early January 1966, when it was announced that Dr. Francis McClernon was getting ready to sign a 75-year lease on his property at the northwest corner of Glenstone and Battlefield Road with Hermel, Inc., an Indianapolis development firm. At the time, Battlefield Road did not actually extend all the way to Glenstone, and approval of that road project was part of the contingency plan. The area was still relatively rural and undeveloped at the time. Other than McClernon's home site, about the only other things on the 65-acre farm were a few billboards along Glenstone. Initial plans called for development of 35 of those acres with an option to develop the other 30 acres to the north, which would extend the mall all the way to Sunset Street. Montgomery Ward had already signed a lease agreement with Hermel, and its proposed store, consisting of almost 119,000 square feet of floor space, would anchor the mall. It was reported later in the year that a second major department store had also signed a lease agreement. Identity of the store was not revealed at first, but speculation centered around J. C. Penney.
    In early 1967, rumors swirled that the whole project had been scrapped, but Hermel denied the rumors, and McClernon confirmed that the company had been making regular payments on its lease agreement with him. In mid-1967, it was confirmed that J. C. Penney was, indeed, the second major retailer to sign a lease agreement to locate in Battlefield Mall. The store would occupy approximately 144,000 square feet of floor space, and it was announced at the same time that Montgomery Ward had also upped the amount of floor space its store would require to about the same figure.
    Preliminary construction work finally got under way in September 1968 with a projected completion date for the mall of early 1970. The work had been delayed in part because of the uncertainty of the Battlefield Road extension project. In January 1969, a building permit for the almost $6.5-million mall project was issued by the City of Springfield. It was the largest building permit ever issued in Springfield history. Construction on the project began in earnest immediately after the permit was issued.
    Despite a couple of labor disputes that temporarily delayed work, the mall project was completed in July 1970. A ribbon cutting and other opening-day ceremonies were held on the morning of July 23, with at least 54 of the mall's 62 stores set to open for business later that day.
    Construction of the mall spurred the commercial development of surrounding properties. For instance, work on a Venture store just south of the mall site was begun even before the mall opened. Soon the whole area was a retail hub and definitely no longer rural.

Construction of the Shrine Mosque

    In 1920, the Abou Ben Adhem temple of Shriners in Springfield, Missouri, announced its intention to build a new temple, and a lot for the proposed structure was acquired at the northeast corner of Kimbrough and St. Louis streets at a cost of $20,000 in November of the same year. A groundbreaking ceremony was held on October 4, 1921, and Imperial Potentate Ernest A. Cutts came to Springfield as the guest of honor to turn over the first shovelful of dirt. Contract for the project was awarded to Springfield construction contractor J. M. Olsen, whose low bid was $257,500, not including heating and lighting.
    Plans called for the mosque to house a large auditorium with a seating capacity of about 5,000 people. About 3,700 permanent seats would surround the stage in a horseshoe shape, and approximately another 1,300 temporary seats could be set up on the floor. Construction of the Shrine Mosque, as it was called, would be the costliest building project in Springfield history, and the auditorium would be one of the biggest and best in the Midwest.

    As often happens with large construction projects, the initial deadline could not be met, and the projected costs also rose. When the mosque was finally completed in the fall of 1923, it was at a total cost of over half a million dollars (about twice the initial estimate, but this final cost included heating and lighting)
    A dedication ceremony for the new building was held on November 3, 1923, with Shriner dignitaries from all all over the country in attendance, including Imperial Potentate Conrad V. Dykeman. About 8,000 Shriners in all attended the event, and an estimated 25,000 people witnessed the parade through downtown Springfield.
    The Shrine Mosque auditorium was put into almost immediate use, attracting various well-known shows and performers to Springfield. One of the first events at the mosque was a musical production entitled "The Clinging Vine" featuring renowned actress and prima donna Peggy Wood on November 5, two days after the dedication.
    The Shrine Mosque was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. The Shrine Mosque Preservation Association was formed in 1986, and the organization is currently raising funds to make needed repairs on the building in time for its centennial observation in 2023.
    On a personal note, I went to a number of concerts at the Shrine Mosque in my younger years, but it has probably been close to forty years now since I've been inside the place.

Things to Do in Joplin 1953

   It's not unusual to hear people, especially younger people, complain about not having anything to do in their town or region. I've never given much credence to such complaints, because most of the time, when you hear such complaints, there's actually quite a bit to do in the designated region. I think what people are really saying when they say there's nothing to do is that they want something new and different to do.
   People nowadays probably have more activities to choose from than ever before when it comes to being entertained, but in glancing at the entertainment page of the May 12, 1953, edition of the Joplin Globe, I have to conclude that people had plenty to do to amuse themselves even sixty-eight years ago.
   Joplin boasted over a half dozen walk-in theaters at the time. These included the Orpheum Theatre at 528 S. Main Street, where The Naked Spur was playing; the Glen at 1413 S. Main, where The Girls of Pleasure Island was showing; the Fox, at 415 S. Main, where you could watch Bwana Devil; the Electric Theater at 1514 S. Main, featuring The Iron Mistress; the Lux at 308 S. Main, where No Holds Barred was on the screen; the Paramount, at 515 S. Main, which featured Down Among the Sheltered Palms; and the Rex, at 1425 S. Main, which was showing Canyon Passage. In addition, Trouble Along the Way was playing at the Civic in nearby Webb City, and Cattle Town was showing at the Larsen (also in Webb City, where the Route 66 Theater is currently located). The area also had at least four drive-in theaters, including the Crest (near the present-day intersection of Range Line and 32nd) and the Tri-State (just off West 7th Street) in Joplin, the 66 Drive In near Carthage, and the Edgewood just south of Neosho. Admission prices for these movies varied from a dime to 75 cents, depending on the movie house and the time of day.
   If you weren't in the mood for a movie, there were other things to do. For sports fans, there was professional baseball. The Class D Joplin Miners played at Miners Park (renamed Joe Becker in 1954), where general admission was 65 cents, bleacher seats were 35 cents, and kids could get in for a quarter. Also, the Greentop Speedway, located on North Main near Stone's Corner, was getting ready to open for the season the next night, May 13. The speedway was a dirt track that hosted modified stock car races, and admission was 75 cents.
   The Rock City Tavern, located a couple of miles south of Joplin where Richardson's Candy House later did business, was just one of a number of nightclubs where those of age could drink and dance the night away. If you just wanted to go out to eat, you also had a variety of places to choose from. For instance, Wilder's Restaurant, at 1216 S. Main was in its heyday, offering "fine food" and "excellent service." 
   And all this was from just one page of the Globe.

Leonard Short and the O'Malley Gang

   A brother of US Congressman Dewey Short, Stone County (MO) native Leonard Short was a feed and produce merchant in Galena in the late 1920s. He also had a title and abstract company. In early 1930, he sold the feed and produce company. While still running the abstract company, he started promoting boxers on the side, and then in 1931 he became a wrestling and boxing promoter in Springfield, renting the Shrine Mosque to stage the events.
   Short was reputed to be Stone County's biggest bootlegger, but until 1933, about the worse trouble he'd ever been in was an unproven charge of selling illegal whiskey in the late 1920s. After the Bank of Galena was held up by three men on August 28, 1933, though, Short was arrested and charged with being an accessory for allegedly having met with the perpetrators. Promptly released on bail, Short swore there was nothing to the charges against him, and he went on promoting an upcoming boxing match. The charges against him were subsequently dropped when it was determined there was insufficient evidence against him to warrant a trial.
   Short was soon in trouble again, though. In January 1934, he was re-arrested and charged with being an accessory to an October 1933 robbery of the Model Bakery in Springfield. It was alleged that Short was the "brains" of the stickup job. At his trial in March 1934, Short was convicted of conspiracy in the robbery and sentenced to ten years in prison. He was released on bond while he appealed the conviction, and while still out on bail he was implicated in yet another robbery--the holdup of the Bank of Billings in December of 1933. It was about this same time, the spring of 1934, that it was first alleged that Short was part of an organized gang of thieves and robbers. Although certain other members of the gang, such as Dewey Gilmore, were also tentatively identified, neither Short nor Gilmore had yet come to be associated with the Irish O'Malley gang, as they later would be. In fact, the O'Malley gang did not come to public attention until late May of 1935.
   Meanwhile, Short was arraigned in Christian County in connection with the Billings bank robbery and was released on $25,000 bond. One justice declined to bind Short over to the circuit court on the charge because of the dubious character of the primary witness against him, who was an ex-convict. However, the charge was refiled with another justice, who did bind the defendant over for trial in the circuit court. When the case came up at Ozark in late May, Short was granted a change of venue to Douglas County.
   As Short's legal troubles mounted, he discontinued his promotion of boxing and wrestling matches at the Shrine Mosque and returned to his title business in Galena. At his September trial in Ava on the Billings bank robbery charge, several members of Short's family testified that he was with them at the time he was supposedly meeting with the holdup men, and the jurors acquitted Short after just fifteen minutes of deliberation.
   In November 1934, Short and a couple of other men were arrested as "suspicious characters" because they were "parading the business district of Monett in a motor car," as if they were casing the town. Although the car was found to have a "large arsenal" of weapons in it, Short was released after questioning.
   Then on January 3, 1935, Short and several other men were arrested when Bob Johnson, fleeing from a shootout at Picher, Oklahoma, was captured in Stone County. He led authorities to a stash of stolen goods and implicated the other men in a series of gunfights and robberies in southwest Missouri and northeast Oklahoma in recent months. Short was charged, in particular, with complicity in a recent diamond robbery in Jasper County, and he was taken to the lockup in Carthage. The next day, he was also implicated as an actual participant in the robbery of the Bank of Crane on January 1.
   As usual, Short was released on bond pending trial, and while out on bond he was arrested for allegedly participating in the burglary of a Nixa filling station on the night of February 16. A week later, the charge was dropped after the complaining witness dropped his complaint, saying he was not sure of his identification of the suspect. Somewhere about this time, Short closed his title business in Galena, apparently to concentrate on outlawry.

   In late May, Short was tied to the Irish O'Malley gang after Dewey Gilmore was arrested in Texas and Walter Holland, alias Irish O'Malley, was arrested for an alleged kidnapping in Illinois the previous August. Short was among other gang members rounded up, and he was implicated, along with Gilmore and others, in the double robbery of two Okemah, Oklahoma, banks on December 22, 1934. The same gang was suspected in several other bank robberies as well, including one at Fort Smith less than a month before the arrests and one at Neosho two months before that. One officer remarked that the arrest of the O'Malley gang members cleared up virtually every bank robbery throughout the Midwest over the previous couple of years.
   After his arrest, Short was also linked to the Six Daring Bandits, another gang that was broken up near the same time as the O'Malley gang. For instance, the Crane bank robbery was generally attributed to the Six Daring Bandits.
   Short was transported to Oklahoma and jailed at Muscogee to await trial on the Okemah robberies. While he was still awaiting trial, he lost his appeal in the Springfield bakery holdup case and was ordered to serve his ten-year sentence. Authorities in Oklahoma would not release Short to Missouri, however, until after his trial on the Okemah bank jobs. In late November, he was found guilty in federal court of complicity in the Okemah crimes. On December 3, however, before he could be sentenced, he and three of his comrades in the O'Malley gang, including Dewey Gilmore, broke out of the Muscogee jail where they were being held, seriously wounding a lawman in the process. Three days later, they were trailed to a farmhouse near Claremore, where lawmen engaged them in a shootout when they refused to surrender. One outlaw was killed outright, Short was mortally wounded and died within hours, Gilmore was also wounded, and the fourth man surrendered.
   Short's body was brought back to Galena for burial.