Chalybeate Springs

I've written on this blog several times in the past about communities throughout Missouri and the Ozarks that sprang up as mineral water resorts during the late 1800s. One such place that I was not familiar with until recently, however, was Chalybeate Springs, in northeastern Lawrence County, Missouri. 

Located about four miles west of Halltown and about a half-mile north of Old Route 66, the place was originally called Johnson's Mill after a mill that was built on nearby Clover Creek (now Turnback Creek) about 1855. The name was soon changed to Chalybeate Springs after the supposed healing properties of a spring just east of the creek were discovered. The name derived from the fact that the water contained and was flavored with iron salts.

Chalybeate Springs was established as a resort by D. C. Allen about 1867, making it one of the earliest mineral-water resorts in the Ozarks. The fame of the springs, however, predated establishment of the resort, as the place was known for its supposed healing waters even before the Civil War. 

The resort became even more popular in 1872, when E. G. Paris opened a large hotel at the site. A post office called Chalybeate Springs was established at the site about the same time that the hotel was completed. The name of the post office and the community was changed to Paris Springs in 1874, although the springs themselves were still often referred to as the Chalybeate Springs. The springs were advertised in the newspapers of Springfield and other regional towns, and the place thrived throughout the late 1800s and into the early 1900s under Paris's promoting hand. In addition to the hotel, Paris Springs also boasted a general store, a wagon-maker, a shoemaker, a blacksmith, a livery stable, a livestock dealer, and an attorney-at-law. 

Advertisement from a 1870s Springfield newspaper.

Paris Springs reached a peak in popularity as a mineral-water resort about 1906, but it soon began to decline after that. The hotel closed around 1914 or shortly afterwards, and the abandoned hotel burned in 1917. The final death knell for the community sounded when its post office was discontinued in 1920.

When Route 66 was constructed in 1926, it bypassed Paris Springs by a half-mile or so to the south, and a new community called Paris Springs Junction sprang up at the Route 66 turnoff in order to cater to passing motorists. Among the businesses erected at the turnoff was a Sinclair service station. In 1961, Route 66 was realigned, bypassing both Paris Springs and Paris Springs Junction. Then, when I-44 was built in the mid-1960s, it bypassed the entire section of Route 66 from Halltown to Joplin by several miles.  

The service station at Paris Springs Junction burned in 1955. However, a replica of the station was built across the road many years later, and it is now about the only thing that remains at Paris Springs Junction. As for Paris Springs, nothing remains there to suggest the place was ever a booming resort. 

Avola, Missouri

Continuing with the theme of my recent posts, let's look at another small community that once thrived but no longer exists: Avola, Missouri, located in south-central Vernon County.

The first white people in Drywood Township settled near what became Avola around 1840, but the area remained very sparsely populated until shortly before the Civil War. The Avola schoolhouse was built in 1859, and C. Correll taught the first school. He also held religious services at the schoolhouse on Sundays, since there were no churches in the area. The school district was quite large at this time, encompassing much or all of the present-day Sheldon School District.

The village of Avola was laid out in 1869, but the plat was never recorded. In the late 1800s, Avola had three churches, a store, a post office, and a hotel. Avola was the principal trading point of Drywood Township until the Pacific Railroad was built through the area and Sheldon was established along the line in 1881. Most of the population and businesses of Avola soon moved to the new town.

Today, about the only remaining vestige of the old community of Avola is the Avola Cemetery, located about six miles northwest of Sheldon on Highway N.

 

Hell on the Line

In 1881, a prohibition law went into effect in Kansas making it a dry state. However, gambling remained legal in the state. Meanwhile, drinking alcohol was legal in neighboring Missouri, but the Show-Me State disallowed gambling. To accommodate both the thirsty Kansans and the card-playing Missourians, enterprising businessmen began to build "double saloons" straddling the border. Missourians who wanted to gamble could simply walk a few feet from the Missouri side of the building into the Kansas side, and Kansans who wanted to imbibe in spirits could saunter over to the Missouri side. 

I've previously written on this blog about one such business establishment, built on the state line just east of Galena, Kansas, during the early 1880s. Called Budgetown, it had a notorious reputation, and was run during much of its existence by Joe Thornton, who was later lynched in Joplin for killing a police officer.

A similar place sprang up on the state line east of Pittsburg, Kansas about 1887. Alternately known as Berry Hill, the place was usually just called Hell on the Line. The place was established by P. H. Sawyer, a prominent citizen of Pittsburg, and one or more of his associates, but it was licensed and operated under the name of the bartender, no doubt to disguise where the money behind the place was actually coming from. 

However, the bartender died after the place had been operating just a few months. Sawyer and one of his associates, former Kansas state legislator A. J. Vickers, were arrested about the first of March 1888 and charged with selling liquor without a license. They gave bond of $500 to appear at trial. Although I have been unable to learn the ultimate outcome of their case, the Hell on the Line saloon soon ceased to operate. 

The small community of Berry Hill, which was never much more than a wide place in the road, continued to exist into the mid 1900s, but it, too, is now scarcely a memory. 

Nogo, Missouri

The past couple of weeks I've written about places in Jasper County that were once thriving little villages but that no longer exist or barely survive. I'm sticking with the general theme, but I'm shifting to Greene County this week. Nogo, which was located about three miles west of Strafford or seven miles east of Springfield along the railroad between the two larger towns, is another such place. 

Today, Nogo is completely within the bounds of Strafford, but at one time it was a separate place and was even something of a rival of Strafford. Strafford came into existence about 1869 or 1870 when the railroad was being laid between Rolla and Springfield, whereas Nogo didn't come along until much later, sometime around 1890. The people living in the area that became Nogo got together and decided they wanted a school of their own. They proposed to build the school themselves and petitioned to have a separate school district created for the school. The petition, however, was rejected; so, the schoolhouse became a "No Go" as well, and the entire community took on that name. 

In 1898, the people of Nogo stirred the ire of some Strafford folks when they petitioned the county to create a new township with Nogo as the seat of the township. The Nogoites didn't want to have to travel to Strafford to vote or conduct other legal business. Officials from Jackson Township, in which Strafford was located, opposed lopping off part of their township to create a new one because Jackson was already a fairly small township. Strafford, the officials said, was the center of the township and was already convenient for voting. According to a Springfield newspaper, some Strafford residents suggested that there would be more reason than ever for their little neighbor to the west to be known as Nogo by the time the township issue was settled. 

Alas, they were right. The township petition failed, and Nogo gradually faded into oblivion. At the time (1898), Nogo had a store or two, a blacksmith shop, and a post office. However, it lost its post office in 1905, and by the mid 1900s, all that remained of Nogo were a few foundation stones. Probably even those are gone now.

Fidelity, Missouri

Last time, I wrote about Medoc, Missouri, a small community in northwest Jasper County that used to be a thriving little town. Fidelity, located in the south-central part of Jasper County, is another small community in my general vicinity that used to be a thriving little town but no longer is.

A post office was established at Fidelity in 1855, and the town laid out in 1856 by William Cloe, who erected a large store building there. A large mill soon followed, and, according to Livingston's History of Jasper County, "for a while, this little village gave promise of being a town of importance." Indeed, the town thrived during the 1860s and early 1870s, before beginning a period of decline. According to North's 1883 Jasper County history, Fidelity was "famous" during the Civil War and for a number of years thereafter. 

Apparently, Fidelity was dominated by Southern sentiment during the war. I recall running onto a report by Union major Frank Eno during some Civil War research I was doing years ago, in which Eno said his soldiers had chased some Confederate guerrillas "into that misnomer Fidelity." 

Fidelity was the site of somewhat notorious incident in 1871 when a "Mr. Dye" got into an argument with S. Knowles and another man, T. M. Wakefield, tried to intervene. Turning his wrath on Wakefield, Dye struck the man in the back and, when he turned around, he stabbed him twice in the breast.

Knowles chased Dye into some woods and fired shots at him, but Dye escaped. Wakefield's wounds were painful but were not considered life-threatening. 

By 1883, when North's history was written, only a residence, a schoolhouse and a spring remained to mark the site of Fidelity. The town lost its post office in 1901, and Livingston mentioned in the early 1900s, like North before him, that virtually all signs of Fidelity had disappeared.

Actually, though, Fidelity still has a listed population of a couple of hundred even today. Located just south of I-44 on Highway 59, the town is so strung out, however, that it is hard to tell that it is anything more than just a few scattered homes and businesses along the road, and there is little to no evidence that it was ever a thriving village.