Entertaining the Soldier Boys

I've heard local lore about how soldiers from Camp Crowder in Neosho would trek to Joplin on weekends during World War II to patronize prostitutes. I've never found much about this in written documents, but the local lore is so prevalent that I'm pretty sure it was true.

Springfield, too, apparently served as a sexual resort for soldiers during WW II. In fact, there's more written evidence of this in the case of Springfield than that of Joplin. In Springfield's case, though, the soldiers mainly came from Fort Leonard Wood. 

For example, a 45-year-old woman named Jessie Dixon Wilson was charged in July 1942 with operating a bawdy house under the guise of a legitimate business, and her preliminary hearing on the 17th turned into "an exciting and dramatic" affair when eight soldiers, five from Fort Leonard Wood and three from the O'Reilly Hospital in Springfield, testified for the prosecution.

The procedure got off to a sensational start when the attorney for the defense brought a woman who looked a lot like the defendant into the room and succeeded in tricking one of the first soldiers who testified into identifying the look-alike as the woman who'd provided a "date" for him at the Van Nuys Hotel instead of Mrs. Wilson, the actual proprietor of the Van Nuys. 

When order was restored and the real defendant was brought into the room, the same soldier and seven additional soldiers all identified Mrs. Wilson as the person who had set them up with "dates" at her hotel between April 3 and June 28. She had charged them $2 each, and all of them had contracted venereal disease as a result of their "dates." 

Jessie Wilson was bound over for trial, but the defense lawyer did succeed in getting the charge against her husband and co-defendant, Hubert Wilson, dismissed by showing that Jessie had full ownership and management of the hotel and that Hubert only lived there. Originally charged with a felony, Jesse later pleaded guilty to a reduced charge in a plea-bargain deal and got off with only a fine of $200.