Germantown, Missouri

Germantown is a small community in Deepwater Township in southwest Henry County, Missouri. Today, about all that remains of the place are a church, a couple of businesses, and a few residences, but at one time, it was a thriving little village.

Founded in 1857, Germantown was named for its high concentration of residents who were German immigrants or of German descent. The current church at Germantown is the St. Ludger Catholic Church, which was established by German Catholics in the town's early days. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

One of the more interesting episodes of the Civil War in Henry County occurred in March of 1864 in the Germantown neighborhood. On the evening of the 26th, a party of guerrillas came into Deepwater Township and started “menacing the citizens and committing the most outrageous acts of plunder.” A citizen named Short hurried to the Federal camp at Germantown, to report the situation, and a Union detachment under Sergeant John W. Barkley was dispatched to the vicinity of the trouble.

When he arrived on the scene around midnight, Barkley learned that, after Short’s departure, another citizen of the neighborhood had shot and severely wounded one of the bushwhackers and that they had fled the area, taking the injured man with them. The Federals pursued and soon caught up with three of the Rebels at the house of man named Dunn. After an all-night stand-off, the three guerrillas, including the wounded man, surrendered and were taken back to the Federal camp at Germantown.

The two uninjured Rebels were given a drumhead court martial. Civilians testifying before the tribunal identified the two men as part of a band that had committed all sorts of depredations in their neighborhood the previous winter, and the two guerillas were convicted and sentenced to die by firing squad. The condemned men knelt down beside the grave that had been prepared for them and "met death with a dauntlessness worthy of a better cause."

The wounded Rebel was spared because of his serious condition, but the Union commander at Germantown vowed to execute him if he recovered. For a more detailed account of this episode, check out by book The Civil War on the Lower Kansas-Missouri Border https://amzn.to/3L13BOF.

After the Civil War, Germantown prospered for a few years and seemed to be on the road to becoming a fairly substantial town. However, when a railroad was constructed through the area in the early 1870s, it bypassed Germantown. The town of Montrose grew up along the railroad about four miles southeast of Germantown, and several businesses and quite a few residents of Germantown packed up and moved to the new town. Germantown began a rather precipitous decline, and by the mid-1870s, it had already lost its post office. By the late 1880s, it wasn't much bigger than it is today, not much more than a wide place in the road.

Me and Mrs. Jones, We Got a Thing Going On: A "Triangular" Relation Culminates in Murder

When 48-year-old Sarah Elizabeth "Sadie" Trainer shot and killed 47-year-old Cora Jones on the streets of St. Joseph on Saturday evening, December 17, 1932, the immediate dispute involved a grocery bill, but the murderous act was the culmination of bad blood that had existed between the two women for many years over "a triangular relation."  

According to Sarah's son, 31-year-old Forest Trainer, his father had begun an affair with Cora Jones about 13 years earlier. Sarah had caught her husband, 53-year-old Fred Trainer, and Cora together two or three times, resulting in bitter quarrels. Forest's parents had finally separated about five or six years ago, and the elder Trainer had gone to board with Mrs. Jones and her husband, Charles, who lived not far from the Trainers. Sarah did not file for divorce until early 1932, and the divorce was granted just two or three months prior to the shooting. The property settlement decreed by the divorce also caused "a good deal of trouble" between the Trainer couple. 

Early on Saturday evening, December 17, Forrest Trainer and his young wife, Ethel, went to a local grocery store to purchase provisions and asked for credit, but storekeeper David Stearns denied the request, because Trainer, who was out of work, already had run up a bill with the store that he couldn't pay. Stearns said Trainer would have to pay something toward the current bill before additional credit would be extended. 

Trainer called his father and told him the situation, and Fred Trainer, in the company of Cora Jones, soon met up with his son outside the store. Forrest asked his father to give him some money, which, according to the son, Fred had previously promised to do. Fred gave his daughter-in-law five dollars, but Forrest and his father got into an argument over the amount, because Forrest thought Fred ought to give him ten dollars. Meanwhile, Cora began berating Forrest and Ethel for running up such a large grocery bill to begin with. 

As the argument heated up, Forrest asked his father to walk down the street a piece so that they could discuss the matter in private, but Cora wouldn't let them leave. Forrest claimed she called him "everything but a white man" and slapped him. 

At this point, Ethel, who was at the store, called her mother-in-law and told Sarah. whose home was only a block or so away, what was going on. The argument was still going when Sarah arrived, and, according to at least one eyewitness, she walked up to Cora and shot her in cold-blood without warning. Both Forest and his father claimed not to have seen the actual shooting, while Sarah denied shooting Cora. 

Cora was taken to the hospital, and Sarah was arrested and charged with assault. After Cora died about 24 hours later, the charge was upgraded to first-degree murder. Sometime after her arrest, Sarah admitted the shooting, but she said Cora was threatening her with an iron bar resembling a car crank at the time. 

So, at Sarah's trial in early 1934, her attorney argued self-defense. He also wanted to make an insanity plea, but the judge ruled that he could not argue both self-defense and insanity. So, he stuck with the self-defense plea. 

Sarah took the stand in her own defense to repeat her iron bar story. She said she acted not just to protect herself but also her son, since Ethel had told her over the phone that her ex-husband and Cora were "killing Forrest down here." During her testimony, though, she broke down in sobs, claiming that "they" would not let her tell her story.

At the end of the trial, the jury came back with a second-degree murder conviction and a sentence recommendation of fifteen years in prison. Cora's lawyer moved for a new trial, and when that motion was denied, he appealed to Missouri Supreme Court. 

Sarah remained free on bond during the appeals process, but after the high court affirmed her conviction in March 1935, she was transported to the state prison at Jefferson City. She was paroled in 1941 after serving about six and a half years of her fifteen-year sentence.

 

Springfield to Carthage Road

For the first several years after my wife and I moved to Joplin from Springfield, we frequently traveled Highway 96 (approximating Old Route 66) between Carthage and Halltown on our trips back to Springfield instead of taking I-44, because we lived on the north side of Joplin. I was always intrigued by the small towns one passes through on that route, several of them no more than wide places in the road and almost completely extinct. 

One might assume that at least a few of those little villages grew up as a result of being located on Old Route 66, and I think I probably assumed that myself at the time I was often traveling that way. If you make this assumption, though, you would be wrong, because almost all of the small hamlets located along Highway 96 between Carthage and Halltown predate the opening of Highway 66. 

Until this stretch of road was officially designated Highway 66 circa 1926, it was known as the Springfield-to-Carthage Road, and it dates at least as far back as the Civil War. Moreover, most of the small towns along the way date at least as far back as the turn of the 20th century.  

Located just over the Greene County line in eastern Lawrence County, Halltown got a post office in 1879, and the town was platted in 1887. It was a thriving little town in the early 1900s, and even today, it still has a population of about 170 people. In fact, it is one of the few villages along the stretch of Highway 96 from Greene County to Carthage that still has the appearance of anything more than a wide place in the road, but its business district, if you can call it that, is a ghostly shell of what it used to be.  

Traveling west from Halltown, the first little community you come to about three miles down the road is Paris Springs. It is actually not on present-day Highway 96, but it was on Old Route 66. Nowadays, you have to detour off 96 to get to it. Originally known as Johnson's Mill because it was the site of a mill on Clover Creek, the place was used for mill power even before the Civil War, but it never amounted to much as a town or village in its early days. The place was also the site of a natural spring that supposedly had healing waters, and its name was changed to Chalybeate Springs shortly after the Civil War when a mineral-water resort was established there. Later the name was changed to Paris Springs, and the place prospered for a while as a healing resort, but by the time the 1917 History of Lawrence County was written, "not much [was] left of Paris Springs." 

Just a mile and half west of Paris Springs lies the village of Spencer, and like the former place, Spencer is on the Old Route 66 road but not on Highway 96.  Spencer was a going little place at least as early as the 1880s, when it had a school, a flour mill, a post office, two churches, and two stores. Nowadays, there are still some store buildings in Spencer that date from its Route 66 days, and tourists often visit the place as a nostalgic curiosity. 

Another five miles west of Spencer is Heaton, more commonly called Heatonville. It was laid out in 1868 by Daniel Heaton and by the following year had ten residences, one store, one blacksmith shop, and a post office. Heatonville, however, "failed to reach the expectations of its sponsor," as the 1917 history says. By that year, Heatonville no longer had a post office and didn't have much else either. During the heyday of Route 66, it did serve as a bus stop, but, as far as I know, it never had much else other than the bus stop (which might have doubled as a store). Nowadays, I don't know whether there is anything at all left even to indicate exactly where Heatonville was located unless you're quite familiar with the area. 

Just a couple of miles farther west from Heatonville on Highway 96 one comes to Albatross, at 96's intersection with Highway 39. I'm not altogether sure, but I think Albatross is the only little village along this stretch of road that does not predate Route 66, because I think it actually started as a bus stop. I'm not sure whether it took Heaton's place as a bus stop or both villages had bus stops simultaneously for at least a while, even though they were very close together. 

The little village of Phelps lies about three and a half miles west of Albatross. Phelps sprang up shortly before 1880, and by that year it boasted a population of about 80 people. By 1890, it had a school, three churches, two general stores, a drugstore, a hotel, a post office, a wagon master, and three doctors. Like Heatonville, though, Phelps did not get "along very far in its endeavor to make a noise in the world," and by 1917 it was already in steep decline.

About eight miles west of Phelps, one comes to Rescue, which began around 1900, although it never really amounted to much more than a wide place in the road. The last time I was through that way, about the only thing remaining to mark the location of Rescue other than a road sign was a building that once served, I believe, as a garage or filling station. I haven't driven Highway 96 lately, though; so, as far as I know, there may not be anything there now. 

Lying another three miles west of Rescue is the little village of Plew. A post office was established at Plew in 1893 and remained in operation until 1904, but like Rescue, the place never amounted to much more than a wide place in the road during its early days. After Route 66 came in, a resort with cabins for travelers was located at Plew, but they closed after I-44 was constructed and most of the traffic bypassed Plew.

Five miles west of Plew is Avilla, in the eastern edge of Jasper County. Avilla was founded before the Civil War, and it was a going little community during the late 1800s. Even today it still has a population of about 100 people and still has the semblance of a small village, but its heyday is long gone. 

In the "old wagon days," according to a 1921 Springfield Leader article, quite a bit of through traffic passed along the Springfield to Carthage road, and the road was kept up fairly well. However, during the early 1900s, stretches of the road had been allowed to fall into disrepair, as folks were only interested in keeping up the roads that led to their own local centers of commerce. About the only attempt that was made to keep the road up was in the Halltown area. Thus, when a legislative road bill was passed in the summer of 1921 to grade and put down a new coat of gravel on the old Springfield to Carthage road, the proposal was greeted as welcome news by people living along and/or using the road on a regular basis. Cost of the project was not to exceed $6,000 per mile. 

The Leader observed at the time that the Springfield to Carthage road contained "probably the longest undeviating section of road in Southwest Missouri." From the line separating Ranges 25 and 26 (just west of Spencer) to the Jasper County line, the road was a straight shot for nineteen miles.     

Woman Owns a Town

In the summer of 1927, Ada B. Clodfelter sold her property in Springfield (MO), where she had run a boarding house, and purchased the entire town of Garber, a tiny village west of Branson in Taney County with the idea of building it up as a tourist attraction. Located in the Shepherd of the Hills country, Garger was where J. K. Ross, the real-life inspiration for Uncle Matt of the famous Harold Bell Wright book, had his post office for many years, and it was less than a mile from his cabin. 

Shortly after Ada took over the town, an official of the Missouri Pacific Railroad visited Garber to arrange for the appointment of an agent and caretaker at the village. The railroad anticipated that the little resort community, which currently had but one store and about five residences, would become a busy place, and it planned to list Garber on its map.

Already the storekeeper by virtue of having bought the town, Ada was not only appointed the railroad agent for Garber, but she was also appointed postmistress and elected mayor of the little village.

Ada Clodfelter from Springfield Press.

Not long after Ada took over Garber, she had a rustic hotel erected, and in the summer of 1929, she started a publication called the Buzzer Magazine, which she put out singlehandedly. The magazine promoted both women's concerns and the Ozarks as a resort region.

Ada had big plans for Garber. She was an aspiring figurine artist and wanted to start a toy factory. She also wanted to establish a church and women's home at Garber. Indeed, an old folks' home (which was an expansion of the women's home idea) was constructed in 1931, but old people did not flock to occupy the home. 

Moreover, the town never took off as a resort the way Ada (and the railroad) had visualized. Its development was handicapped by a lack of good roads to reach the secluded village. For instance, the road from Garber to nearby Marvel Cave, which was already an established tourist attraction, was a mere trail unsuitable for automobile traffic. So, people who visited Garber had to arrive on foot, by horseback, or via the train, which only stopped at Garber if it carried disembarking passengers or if Ada flagged it down to pick up departing passengers. 

Ada died in early 1933 at the age of 58, and her dream of turning Garber into a booming tourist attraction died with her. She was buried in the Evergreen Cemetery at nearby Notch, which was also the final resting place for "Old Matt" and "Aunt Mollie" Ross. 

Waldensians Come to the Ozarks

The Waldensian religious tradition began in France and Italy as an ascetic movement within Western Christianity long before the Protestant Reformation. Like nearly all ascetics, Waldensians emphasized living a simple life of poverty, isolated from the mainstream of society. The Waldensians clashed with the Catholic Church in the 13th century for their refusal to recognize the prerogative of bishops to dictate what should be preached or who was fit to preach. 

The Waldensians were ostracized by the Catholic Church and were declared heretics. Because of their emphasis on the priesthood of all believers (which essentially meant they thought any believer was fit to preach) and similar reasons, the Waldensians more or less foreshadowed the Protestant Reformation, and they were, indeed, absorbed into the Protestant movement in the 16th century.

In the late 1850s, a French-speaking colony of Waldensians immigrated from the Piedmont region of northern Italy, which was under French control at the time, to South America seeking a place to practice their religion free from persecution and discrimination. After enduring hardship for about 18 years, the small group returned to Europe briefly before setting out for the United States. 

Under the leadership of the Rev. J. P. Solomon, a party of 49 Waldensians arrived at Verona, Missouri, on the evening of July 12, 1875, with a view of settling in the Verona vicinity. Accordingly, they proceeded to establish a colony about three miles south of present-day Monett (which did not yet exist) on forty acres of land granted to them by the St. Louis and San Francisco (Frisco) Railroad to be used for "the glory of God."

The first year must have been consumed largely just by efforts to survive, because Solomon did not get around to actually establishing a Waldensian church until over a year later.  On the fifth Sunday in July 1876, the Waldensians and their friends gathered on the colony grounds near Solomon's residence, and he organized the first Waldensian church in the United States, following "the time-honored customs of the Waldensian synod." The church's bylaws or guidelines were written in French, but after a break for a basket dinner, Solomon conducted the first Waldensian service under a nearby arbor in the English language for the benefit of friends of the group who did not speak French. Although the church had few members at first, more Waldensian immigrants were expected during the next few yea

Apparently, the Waldensians were received rather well by their neighbors if editorial comment from a Mount Vernon newspaper can be taken as an indication. The Mt. Vernon Fountain and Journal remarked at the time of the church's organization, "These people will no doubt make the best of citizens, and we should extend to them a hearty welcome."

 In 1877, the Waldensian colony south of present-day Lamar apparently receive an influx of new members. At any rate, several families, including five from France, two from the valleys of northern Italy and one from New York State, expressed their intention of joining the colony.

In the summer of 1879, when a correspondent of the Canton (MO) Press News visited the southwest Missouri Waldensians, the colony consisted of about 20 families. Most had come during the original migration in 1875, but a few families had arrived the previous year. 

Today, the Waldensian Presbyterian Church of Barry County is still going strong, The current church building, erected on a part of the original forty acres, was constructed in 1909. In the summer of 2025, the church celebrated its 150th anniversary, and it is still one of the very few Waldensian churches in the United States.

Urbanette, Arkansas

I've always been fascinated by little towns that flourished back in the old days but that have virtually disappeared or have become little more than wide places in the road in modern times, and the Ozarks seems to have at least its share of them. One that I was not really aware of until recently is Urbanette, located in Carroll County, Arkansas, about five miles northeast of Berryville on Highway 21.

The reason I was not previously aware of it is because I've never been there, or at least I don't think I have. Highway 21 north of Berryville is one of those roads that a person would almost never have cause to traverse unless you lived in the area or had some specific site you wanted to visit. And there aren't many sites in the area that would attract the average traveler (maybe Cosmic Caverns, which is about three miles northeast of Urbanette or four miles southwest of Oak Grove on Highway 21 and which I've also never been to).

Anyway, Urbanette was founded in 1902 by a man named Urban and a man named Bennett, and the town was named Urbanette as portmanteau of the two men's names. Urbanette came into being more or less as a railroad town, because Urban and Bennett built a store, a hotel, a livery, and a restaurant at the location to service workers on the railroad, which had been laid across Carroll County the previous year. Stock pens were built near the train depot, and Urbanette soon became an important shipping center for cattle.

The Urbanette Post Office opened in 1902, and a school was established in the community in 1907. The school consolidated with Berryville in 1948, and the town lost its post office in 1971. Today, not much remains of the once-booming little town of Urbanette but a few residences and a couple of businesses.

The Alleged Murder of Gus Leftwich

   When Gus Leftwich, editor of the Gallatin (MO) Democrat, and his wife, Bertha, were poisoned on Saturday morning, February 12, 1898, by arsenic in their coffee, it was thought at first that both victims would recover, and the poisoning was considered an accident. But after Gus Leftwich took a turn for the worse and died the next day, rumors began to circulate that the poisonings were by design, and a coroner's inquest into Leftwich's death on Monday found that he had come to his death by arsenic poisoning "administered by some party or parties unknown."
   The complete findings of the inquest were not revealed until a day or two later. Those findings revealed that, according to one of the rumors, Gus had called Maria, his fourteen-year-old daughter by his first marriage, to his bedside shortly before his death and accused her of having put poison in the coffee, and the girl ran crying from the room.
   According to the rumor, Leftwich did not want this fact known publicly, and he asked that no investigation into his death be made. However, after he, in fact, died, the supposed confrontation with his daughter leaked out, and it was brought out at the inquest. Maria herself was called as a witness at the inquest. She admitted that her father had questioned her about putting poison in the coffee, but she was not grilled on whether or not she had actually done so, probably because of Leftwich's request that his death not be investigated, thus accounting for the indefinite finding of the coroner's jury.
   Suspicion, though, quickly settled on the daughter. It was thought, however, that she had meant only to poison her stepmother and that Leftwich's poisoning was accidental. Mrs. Leftwich was in the habit of arising early and eating breakfast and drinking her coffee alone, but on the fateful morning, her husband had taken breakfast with her and had drunk more of the coffee than Bertha. "Unhappy family conditions" had apparently existed in the Leftwich home for some time, as Maria and one or more of her siblings did not get along with their stepmother. Maria, in particular, was considered a "wild and willful" girl, and her relations with Bertha were "not at all cordial."
   Many people around Gallatin demanded a more thorough investigation of the matter and suggested that a grand jury look into Leftwich's death. Shortly after Gus died, his brother Dr. Morris Leftwich, superintendent of the masonic home in St. Louis, visited in the Leftwich home. Unswayed by the rumors, Dr. Leftwich came away convinced that Gus's death had been nothing but an accident, pure and simple. He said the accusation that Gus had accused Maria of giving him poison was a canard. Morris took Maria and her 18-year-old brother, Austin, back to St. Louis to live with him.
   In April, a Daviess County grand jury indicted Maria and Austin for the murder of their father, but they were allowed bail of $2,000 each. When their case finally came up in December 1898, the prosecutor decided to drop the charges, saying that there was insufficient evidence even to say for sure that Mr. and Mrs. Leftwich had been poisoned on purpose, much less evidence to prove who did it. The prosecutor said the case had been investigated thoroughly, and that any one of the Leftwich household members might have poisoned the coffee but that there was almost no evidence to suggest that a particular family member actually did so.

The Murder of Wilfred Gerald Brown

On Wednesday morning, November 25, 1964, Mountain View (MO) resident Joseph Brown, after not hearing from his father for several days, went to check on the older man, who lived alone in an expensive home in a secluded area a few miles north of town. Joseph found the body of his father, Wilfred Gerald Brown, lying on a bedroom floor and clad only in underwear, with his feet bound and his hands tied behind his back. 

Authorities who investigated the murder estimated that Wilfred Brown had been dead about a week, not just because of the state of the body but also because all the days of a wall calendar had been marked off up until November 18. Investigators found that about $2,000 worth of guns were missing from the home. Also missing was Brown's billfold, which was thought to have contained about $500. Investigators theorized that whoever had killed the man was familiar with the area, because the Brown home sat at the end of a dead-end road and was not visible to casual passers-by on the main road. 

Because of the body's advanced state of decomposition, a cause of death was not immediately determined. However, after an autopsy on Friday, a coroner's jury ruled that Brown had died of shock, brought on by a blow to the head while he was struggling to free his trussed body. Authorities announced, also, that they were seeking four teenage boys who were suspected of having stolen some property from Brown about two weeks before the murder. It was thought that they might have returned to rob him again and ended up killing him. 

A break came in the case when the Mountain View marshal received an anonymous letter with the names of several of the suspects pasted on a plain sheet of paper, and six youths were arrested in connection with the robbery/murder. A crude diagram was drawn on the paper indicating that George Montgomery had struck the fatal blow. Montgomery, David Holly, and Wayne Conley, all of whom were from Belleville, Illinois, and all of whom were 18 years old, were charged with murder, while another 18-year-old and two 17-year-olds were charged with burglary in the case. One of the 17-year-olds, James Davis, had reportedly gone to school at Mountain View the previous year.   

At his first-degree murder trial in September 1965 in Carter County on a change of venue, Montgomery pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of robbery in a plea-bargain deal and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Conley also took a change of venue to Carter County, where he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in another plea-bargain deal and was also given 25 years in prison. Montgomery's conviction was later overturned by the Missouri Supreme Court on the grounds that he could not be convicted of robbery when he had not been charged with robbery. In other words, the prosecutor had put the cart before the horse.

I have not traced what happened at Montgomery's second trial or even whether he had a second trial. Nor have I found any information about Holly's case except a reference to his having filed a motion to vacate the sentence he received (whatever that sentence was). 

Appalachian Decoration Day

    When I was growing up in Fair Grove in the 1950s, nobody I knew used the term “Memorial Day.” Everybody called it Decoration Day.
    I knew the holiday was a solemn occasion, but I didn’t know it was intended to honor those who had died in service to our country. In my family, that wasn’t how we observed it.
    Instead, it was a day to remember all of one’s deceased loved ones. The holiday was more a family occasion than a patriotic one, and it was especially important to my dad, because his parents were deceased.
    So, every year, on the last Sunday morning in May, my family would pile into the old ’51 Chevy and set out from Greene County headed to Bloodland Cemetery, inside Fort Leonard Wood, eighty-five miles away, where Dad’s parents were buried.
    Dad had grown up in Bloodland, but the small town had been demolished when the fort was built in 1940-1941. Bloodland and several other villages were erased from the map. About the only landmarks left were the cemeteries. People living within the fort’s boundaries had to move, but they could return to visit the graves of their loved ones. 
    Former Bloodland residents made a special effort to come back for Decoration Day, to pay their respects to their deceased loved ones but also to renew old acquaintances. Decoration Day was a time of reunion and solemn remembrance, infused with a picnic atmosphere.
   When my family reached Bloodland, it was usually mid-morning, and a makeshift table with outdoor fare like baked beans and coleslaw would already be set up at the edge of the cemetery grounds. Mom always brought along a dish or two, which she added to the buffet. By the time we decorated my grandparents’ graves and Dad paid his respects to other folks, living and dead, it was usually time to eat. There was always a prayer first and sometimes a hymn. Despite the informal air, a spiritual quality imbued the proceedings.
    About mid-afternoon, Dad would say his goodbyes, and we would load up for the trip home. I was always ready to leave, because I hardly appreciated the Decoration Day tradition at the time.
    In the summer of 1969, though, when I took basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, I found myself looking back wistfully on those boyhood trips to Bloodland Cemetery. It had been almost thirty years since anyone had lived at Bloodland, and many of the former residents were now dead themselves. The tradition of gathering there for Decoration Day was already dying out. But during that hot summer of 1969, when we trainees would march south from the barracks at Fort Leonard Wood to the firing ranges where Bloodland had once been, I would glance over at the cemetery as we passed, and I would remember.
    Dad died in 1970, and he was buried at Greenlawn Cemetery in Springfield. Afterwards, our family tradition of visiting the cemetery on Decoration Day moved to Greenlawn. Even though Dad was a World War II veteran, our trip to the cemetery was still more a personal remembrance of a loved one than a patriotic observance. But the gatherings at Greenlawn had none of the atmosphere of picnic or homecoming I’d witnessed as a boy.
    Eventually, I began to think of the holiday in late May as Memorial Day rather than Decoration Day, and I learned it was formalized shortly after the Civil War as a day for remembering those who’d lost their lives in service to the country. The change in how I referred to the late-May holiday roughly coincided with the adoption of the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which established that Memorial Day and certain other holidays would always be observed on a Monday.
    The new law not only helped “Memorial Day” displace “Decoration Day” as the generally accepted term for the late-May holiday, but the three-day weekend provision of the act also gradually caused many people to view the holiday as the unofficial kickoff of summer—a time for going to the lake and having fun. Many Americans today scarcely consider the holiday as a time to honor the deceased.
    I’m not one of the lake-goers, but I’m also not among those who reserve the day for honoring our dead war heroes. Although I long ago adopted the term “Memorial Day” and have come to understand the holiday’s patriotic purpose, I still think of it as a time to remember all my deceased loved ones.
    Since I took basic training, I’ve rarely been back to Bloodland Cemetery. It’s now been almost 85 years since anyone lived in Bloodland, and the tradition of returning to the cemetery for Decoration Day is a faded memory. Yet I still occasionally think about those long-ago family trips to Bloodland, and I get even more nostalgic than I did 55 years ago marching through Missouri’s hot July sun past my grandparents’ graves.
    Only recently did I learn that celebrating “Decoration Day” as a time of reunion and remembering one’s loved ones, as we did at Bloodland, is a tradition that can be traced to Appalachia. Predating even the Civil War, Decoration Day is still practiced in many Appalachian communities today.
    Appalachian Decoration Day got carried to the Ozarks by early settlers, and it flourished here for many years. However, the ritual has melded over time with the more northern tradition of Memorial Day and has been weakened by the secular spirit of the Uniform Monday Holiday Act so that it scarcely exists as a separate, distinguishable tradition.
    But it still lives in the hearts and minds of many of us Ozarks folk who have always thought of Memorial Day not as a day for honoring our military dead but instead as a day for getting together to celebrate our families and remember our loved ones who have gone before us. That doesn’t make us unpatriotic or unappreciative of those who have died in service to America. It just means we’re following a different tradition.

P. S. Last time, I mentioned that I'd started building an author website for the first time and that it was a work-in-progress. I didn't realize just how much of a work-in-progress it was. For instance, I didn't know that you had to format the darn thing especially for mobile devices separately from how you format it for desktops. Anyway, it's still a work-in-progress, but I have made a little progress since last week. Here's a link for anybody who wants to check it out: https://www.larrywoodauthor.com/.

Joe Silvers and His Caged Bird

Around the first of November 1872, 28-year-old Joseph Silvers of Sedalia learned that a young woman was being held in the Missouri State Penitentiary and that the only way she would be released any time soon was if she were to become married. Strange as this might seem, it was apparently true, and Silvers, actuated primarily by concern for the young woman's welfare, promptly wrote a letter to the warden of the prison asking for the woman's name and that of her father's. 

On November 5, a representative of the warden, in the warden's absence, responded that there was indeed a young woman in the state penitentiary, serving a life sentence, with the exception that she could be released upon marriage. The respondent enclosed a picture of the woman and described her as "handsome and intelligent." He said the woman was well educated, and he thought she would make a good wife. He didn't know who her relatives were, although she told him she had a stepmother who caused her to commit the crime that got her incarcerated. 

A week or so later, Silvers appeared unannounced at the Jefferson City prison and asked to see the lady in question. He said he'd come all the way from Sedalia with plans to marry the woman and that he did not intend to leave until the thing was arranged. 

The woman, who was allowed to receive Silver's in the matron's room, was described by a newspaper reporter at the time as "very pretty" with hair done up in "gorgeous style." Silver agreed, later describing her as "handsome as any woman he ever saw." 

Silvers proposed marriage, and the woman agreed and promised to be a good wife, with the stipulation that he never "throw up" to her the fact that she had been in prison. Stating that he was not wealthy but that his love was strong, Silvers promised never to use her imprisonment as a cudgel.

The only thing left to do to consummate Silver's matrimonial plans was to get Governor Benjamin Gratz Brown to pardon the young woman. Thus, he wrote to the governor from Jefferson City on November 13, asking for said pardon. He said he had seen the young woman and that he "loved her on sight." Silvers said he thought he would "go crazy without her love," if Brown refused his request. 

Silvers planned to stay in Jeff City until he had an answer, but knowledge of his strange request soon leaked out, and he quickly became an object of ridicule, among friends and strangers alike. All the publicity surrounding his effort to marry the imprisoned woman so disgusted Silvers that, without waiting for an answer, he returned to Sedalia, where he was met with "taunts and jeers." 

So unbearable did the teasing become that Silvers gave up his plans to marry the woman and left Sedalia to become a "wanderer upon the face of the land." 

On a personal note, I recently started building an author website. I've never had one before, because I was never convinced that it would really do me all that much good, but I decided to give it a try. It's still very much a work in progress, but I went ahead and went live with it, with the idea of tweaking it as I go along. For the curious, the link is www.larrywoodauthor.com.

Fake News, 1874 Style

In mid-November 1874, a report reached Springfield (MO) concerning a fatal affray involving two prominent Taney County residents, J. C. Johnson and Kenneth Burdett. Johnson, who was Taney's current sheriff and had recently been elected to the state legislature, and Burdett, who was a prominent doctor in the community, had allegedly gotten into a shooting affray at Forsyth that left Johnson dead and Burdett mortally wounded. "No particulars of the difficulty" were received, however. 

The reason no particulars of the affray were received is because it didn't happen. But that didn't keep several newspapers across Missouri from reprinting the report that Johnson and Burdett had killed each other in a gun battle. After all, it made a good story. It's even questionable whether such a report actually reached Springfield, since the Springfield papers were not among those that reprinted it.

In fact, both men lived a long time after 1874. J. C. Johnson went on to serve three terms in the state legislature. During this time, he also studied medicine and received a diploma from a St. Louis medical school. Returning to Taney County, he practiced medicine for many years and also continued his public service, being elected Clerk of the Circuit Court and Recorder of Deeds in 1894. He died in 1906.

Meanwhile, Dr. Burdett continuing practicing medicine after his supposed 1874 affray with Johnson. In 1890, he moved to Douglas County and lived on a farm east of Ava. He practiced medicine until shortly before his death in 1903. 

Fatal Affray Near Summersville

A baseball game was in progress at Summersville, Missouri, on Saturday, September 4, 1886, when two players from opposing sides, 20-year-old Jerry Orchard and 24-year-old Riley Martin, got into a heated dispute. Friends had to intervene to prevent "a serious termination of the quarrel," according to a Texas County correspondent.

The following Thursday, September 9, a corn-cutting, to be followed that evening by a dance to celebrate the harvest, was held at a farm near Summersville. Most of the members of the rival ball clubs were present, and "the little brown jug" passed freely among the workers throughout the day.

After the work was done, the womenfolk served a big feast for supper, and then the music and dancing got underway. The dance was "in full blast" when "brawling cries" came from the front yard, and dance-goers discovered that the week-old feud had been revived. Riley Martin was about to come to blows with 18-year-old Zem McCaskill when Jerry Orchard showed up and took McCaskill's side in the dispute. Angry that his old foe from the baseball diamond was trying to interfere, Martin drew his pistol and snapped it at Orchard three times on an empty cartridge.

Orchard took off running, but Martin gave chase. Suddenly, Orchard drew his pistol, wheeled around, and fired three shots in quick succession at his pursuer. Two of the shots shattered Martin's right arm, while the third struck him below the left shoulder, passed transversely through his body, and exited out the right breast.

At this point, 30-year-old James Stogsdale, a friend of Martin's, came up behind Orchard, leveled his pistol at him, and fired. The ball ranged through Orchard's body and came out the right breast.

A crowd gathered around the wounded men, who lay on the ground seriously wounded, and in the confusion, Stogsdale fired another shot, this one at Zem McCaskill. The ball grazed McCaskill on the left side of his chest, cutting a six-inch-long gash in the flesh above his heart about the depth of the bullet.

At this juncture, 24-year-old Lewis Raider, a Summersville druggist, shoved his way through the crowd to where Orchard lay on the ground in an effort to try to prevent more violence. Stogsdale, though, would have none of it. "Goddamn you," he yelled, "I'll give you the benefit of a shot." The gunman then fired a shot that made "a terrible wound" in Raider's right thigh.

The would-be murderer then "broke away from the crowd, leaped the fence and disappeared in the darkness."

The wildest confusion ensued. Men yelled, women screamed, and people from miles around hurried to the scene. The wounded men were taken to nearby residences, and doctors were summoned. The wounds of Martin and Orchard were thought to be fatal, while Raider and McCaskill were less seriously wounded. Martin did, indeed, die from his wounds a few days later, while the other three men, including Orchard, quickly recovered.

It was thought that Stogsdale had escaped to Texas, but this supposition is called into question by later records. At any rate, little effort was apparently made to capture him. As far as I have been able to determine, no one was ever prosecuted for their part in this deadly melee.

Joplin Nightlife Gives a Springfield Fellow More Excitement Than He Can Stand

Joplin began as a wild, lawless mining camp in the late 19th century, and it still had a reputation as a wide-open town where almost anything went even as late as the Depression era and beyond. A Springfield newspaperman, Franklin Rhoades, ventured to Joplin one evening in January 1934 to visit some of the town's raucous nightspots and report on them. Prohibition had put a bit of a damper on the revelry in Joplin for a few years, but the ban on alcohol had recently been lifted, and Joplin was once again Joplin, according to the reporter.

All seven of the spots Rhoades visited were on the outskirts of town rather than in Joplin proper, and the first place he stopped was the Oriole Terrace between Joplin and Redings Mill. It was "free beer night," which meant that for a 25 cents admission charge, you could have all the beer you could drink throughout the evening. There was a big crowd in attendance, a thick haze of cigarette smoke hung in the air, and lots of dancing was going on, with a small jazz band playing popular dance music. "The large pavillion was jammed," and "a spirit of maudlin merriment was everywhere." While men of all ages and walks of life were in attendance, most of the women present were under 30 years old, and scantily dressed girls in their teens, wearing heavy makeup, "flitted from lap to lap." A woman from Joplin who accompanied the reporter pointed out a few of the men present and identified them for Rhoades. A man who was trying to drink from the same glass as a tall, red-headed girl managed a department store, and a young man who had his arms around a blonde girl was a holdup man just back from the penitentiary. 

At 8:30, the pavilion was cleared for a floor show. "Out tripped a big peroxide blonde in black brassiere and bloomers," said the Springfield reporter. "The crowd went wild, and in answer to their applause, the 'dancer' jerked off the brassiere" and then quickly fled to the dressing room. Even the women joined in the "thunderous applause," and the stripper soon reappeared wearing a yellow evening dress that had the "transparency of cellophane." The blonde's underwear was "an imitation fig leaf" which "remained until the end of her act, but the dress stayed only a few minutes during a ten-minute performance." 

The next act was a boy of about 15 who started singing a song, "which lasted about two-thirds of a verse before the guests booed him off the floor." Then "everyone went back to their free beer and wrestling."  

The next place the Springfield writer visited was the Korean Club two miles south of the Oriole Terrace, and he found it to be a "poor night" at the Korean, which was decorated in Oriental patterns. The admission was 25 cents, the same as the Oriole Terrace, but there was no floor show and no free beer, only dancing that featured "a 12-piece negro orchestra." Only eight couples were in attendance, all of whom had come out in a group for the chicken dinner served earlier. 

Since it was a slow night at the Korean, Rhoades soon moved on to the next place on his list, the Tavern, located in a stucco building on West Seventh Street. While there, he saw several women whom he, being a police reporter, recognized as "Springfield's missing ladies of the evening." If the Springfield police still wanted them, said the reporter, they could find a dozen of them at the Tavern, but in the meantime the women seemed to be "doing right well at entertaining 'lonely bachelors.'"

The Tavern hostess joined Rhoades and his companion at their booth and seemed eager to have him give her place a good write-up. A floor show started shortly after the reporter's arrival: "Two small brunets in evening frocks sang and tap danced the first set. Next was a violin solo by a comely blue-eyed girl." 

After the violin solo, the hostess told the reporter to "wait and see what's comin' next." Directly, "a small, shapely young woman skipped out on the floor, wearing high-heeled pumps, and wielding two small fans." Soon she stood erect and dropped the fans, and everyone "clapped, stomped, yelled and whistled." As soon as the fan dancer finished her act, the hostess nudged Rhoades and told him, "Put that in yer paper, Sugarfoot." She added that, when he wrote the place up, he should say that the Tavern had only the best people because she ran an orderly club. "They's men comin' out here what have got nice money to spend--and we see that they has a good time."

The hostess then told the reporter that drinking, dancing, and a floor show weren't the only attractions the Tavern had to offer. Escorting him to an adjoining room, she showed him what he called "the biggest gambling hall I have seen in years." A gaggle of women swarmed around a big roulette wheel, while most of the men were playing faro. Others were playing poker or tossing dice. "Ten grand a week turns over here," the hostess bragged.

Before leaving the Tavern, Rhoades noted that so many drunks were collapsed on tables that a newcomer would have thought all the liquor had already been sold. The clubs Rhoades visited could not legally sell hard liquor, but he said that it was readily available from bootleggers if a person wanted to pay a premium price and that plenty of people seemed eager to pay it.

Farther west on Seventh, the Springfield man stopped at the Cotton Club, Joplin's newest and swankiest nightspot. However, the place was experiencing the same problem as the Korean--very little business. There were about a dozen couples dancing to a 14-piece band, but the manager told Rhoades he was losing up to $250 a week. He said his patrons had spent so much on Christmas that they couldn't afford nightclubs. 

Rhoades went to a few other places, like the Sturgeons and the Trading Post, but they mainly featured food instead of entertainment. 

Back in Springfield, Rhoades wrote his story up under the headline "Joplin Gives Night-Lifers Plenty to Do." A subhead added, "There's Almost More Excitement Than a Simple Springfield Fellow Can Stand." 

The year 1934, of course, did not mark the end of Joplin's lively nightlife. The town was still widely known as a raucous town throughout the World War II era. Toward the end of the war, General Eisenhower, in a radio address announcing that the ban on fraternization between American troops and German women had been lifted, is reported to have said, "Now, Berlin will be like Joplin, Missouri, on a Saturday night."  

Indeed, I still occasionally heard older folks remark on Joplin's rowdy reputation ten to fifteen years after the war when I was growing up in the Springfield area.  

The Oriole Terrace Nightclub

Last time, I wrote about Herb Farmer's shooting of a Newton County deputy at the Oriole Terrace Nightclub south of Joplin in 1934, and I mentioned in passing that the Oriole Terrace was a notorious place. So, I thought I'd go into more detail this time about the nightspot and how it earned its dubious reputation.

The Oriole Terrace was built in 1932 a mile or two south of Joplin's 32nd Street (which is the Jasper-Newton county line) on South Main Street Road. The club opened either late that year or sometime in the first two-thirds of 1933. The first mention of the place that I could find in newspapers was a September 1933 reference to a mother and daughter dance team from Kansas City who had recently performed at the Oriole Terrace.

Presumably their act was a little tamer than that of a "peroxide blonde" stripper who performed for a full house at the Oriole Terrace during "free beer night" one evening in January 1934. Free beer night was a regular Wednesday evening attraction of the Oriole Terrace. It costs 25 cents to get in, but the admission price entitled you to all the beer you could drink from 9 p.m. to midnight. The free beer nights were so successful that the proprietors soon raised the admission price to 50 cents for stags, while couples could still get in for 25 cents a person. Floor shows weren't limited just to free beer nights, and not all of the acts were as risqué as the blonde stripper's performance. They ranged from vaudeville acts to serious musicians, but enough of them pushed the boundaries of decency for the Oriole Terrace to quickly gain a reputation as a disorderly and immoral place. So much so, as I mentioned in last week's post, that a Newton County deputy was assigned to the club on a regular basis to keep order.

The brawl that took place at the Oriole Terrace in September 1934, when mobster Herb Farmer shot and seriously wounded a Newton County deputy, did little to tame the raucous atmosphere at the nightspot. Later in September, the Oriole Terrace featured a floor show that was billed as "the fastest mile-a-minute show in the Midwest."

The shooting incident did, however, increase calls for law enforcement to do something about the place. In early October, only two or three weeks after the shooting, the State of Missouri, on complaint from citizens living in the vicinity of the Oriole Terrace, filed suit in Newton County against the proprietors of the club, Robert Winters and Herbert Sanders, and against the owners of the seven-acre tract of land where the club was located, Edgar and Ruth Brown.

Seeking an injunction to close the Oriole Terrace as a public nuisance, the suit claimed the club was a "lewd, obscene, dissolute and immoral place," that it was "frequented by outlaws," and that it had "no adequate police protection." The suit also alleged that hard liquor was served without a license at the club and that it housed a gambling operation. One of the affidavits filed with the complaint was sworn out by a 17-year-old girl who said that she had danced scantily clad at the nightclub and that she had witnessed "immoral acts" there.

The defendants were granted a change of venue to Jasper County, and, while the lawsuit was awaiting action, the Oriole Terrace continued to operate as usual. As if in defiance of the suit, the club, on Saturday night, October 13, held what was advertised as a "big dance" and a "new floor show" with performances at 11 p.m., 1 a.m., and 3 a.m. On Tuesday night, October 30, the Oriole Terrace held a big Halloween party, followed the next night by its standard "free beer night." In November, the club started staying open until three o'clock in the morning or later, even on weekdays, not just weekends, and in early December, a new floor show was introduced featuring Emaleen, "the girl with the million-dollar smile," and hula dancer Bertha Zuapa. The Oriole Terrace celebrated both Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve with big bashes.

In early January 1935, Winters, Sanders, and a young waitress at the Oriole Terrace were charged with selling liquor without a license, and they paid fines without contesting the charges. The very next night, they were arrested again for the same offense. The young woman again pled guilty and was fined $1 and costs, but the two operators of the club pled not guilty. They were tried in a justice court at Redings Mill, found guilty, and fined $100 each.

A couple of days later, a hearing on the lawsuit seeking to close the Oriole Terrace that had been transferred to Jasper County was postponed because one of the defendants' lawyers, who was a member of the state legislature, was not available.

The Newton County prosecutor responded by immediately dropping the first suit and filing a new complaint in his county, once again seeking an injunction to close the Oriole Terrace as a public nuisance. He cited the latest liquor offenses as well as prior complaints against the club. The judge granted a temporary injunction closing the club and scheduled a hearing for later on whether to make the injunction permanent.

Not easily deterred, Herb Sanders, a day or two after the Oriole Terrace was shut down, applied for a license in Joplin to open a nightclub and liquor dispensary in the 600 block of North Schifferdecker. The city council voted unanimously to deny the application.

In the wee hours of March 19, 1935, the Oriole Terrace, which had been abandoned since its closure in January, burned down from unknown causes. It seems reasonable to conjecture, however, that, given the place's unsavory reputation, the fire might have been a case of arson.

Shortly after being denied a license to open a nightclub in Joplin, Herb Sanders, along with his partner, Robert Winters, took over management of the Silver Slipper, a nightclub on West Seventh outside the city limits of Joplin. Previously known as the Tavern, the Silver Slipper burned mysteriously in the wee hours of May 27, slightly over two months after the Oriole Terrace had suffered a similar fate.

Sanders and Winters disappeared from the Joplin scene after this. Perhaps they decided to seek friendlier climes to conduct their line of business.

Herb Farmer Shoots Newton County Deputy

Herb "Deafy" Farmer was a mobster whose farmhouse south of Joplin near Redings Mill served as a "safe house" for gangsters from the mid-1920s to the early 1930s. He was a particularly close associate of the Barkers, whom he'd known when both the Farmer and Barker families lived at Webb City in the early 1900s. In June of 1934, Farmer was implicated as a go-between in the plot to free gangster Frank "Jelly" Nash, leading to the so-called Kansas City Massacre at Union Station.

While out on bond awaiting disposition of that case, Farmer got into trouble a little closer to home. The Oriole Terrace Nightclub was located between Redings Mill and Joplin, just up the road from Farmer's home, and on Thursday night, September 13, 1934, Farmer; his wife, Esther; and a sidekick named Herb Carter went there to do some drinking.

Shortly after midnight, in the wee hours of Friday, September 14, Carter and the Farmers got into a dispute with another customer, Herbert Keller (I guess everybody was named Herb back in those days), and Carter struck Keller. Newton County deputy Clem Bumgarner, who was stationed at the notorious nightspot to keep order, intervened to break up the scuffle and then called for backup.

An hour or so later, an all-out fist fight broke out between Carter and Keller. By this time, another deputy, E. M. Kimbrough had arrived, and he helped Bumgarner break up the brawl. They ejected Carter and Keller from the club, and they tried to get the Farmers to leave as well. Herb Farmer proved obstinate and exchanged some heated words with Kimbrough. Bumgarner explained to Farmer that Kimbrough was also a deputy sheriff, but Farmer was unfazed. "I don't care who he is," he declaimed.

Herb Farmer from the Kansas City Journal

The deputies managed to get Farmer outside, and Bumgarner bolted the door to keep him and the other two Herbs from reentering. However, Farmer's wife had been left inside.

Farmer went to his car, got a revolver, and returned to the club. He was denied entrance, but he broke the door down, stepped inside, and almost immediately started shooting at Kimbrough, who was in a booth across the dance floor. Farmer emptied his weapon, striking the deputy six times, as about forty patrons scrambled for safety or looked on in horror.

Kimbrough collapsed to the floor, while Farmer grabbed Esther and hurried outside, where Carter awaited. All three jumped into Farmer's car and sped away. Officers went to the Farmer place a mile or two south of the club, but the fugitives were not there. A search was undertaken, but it turned up no sign of Farmer and his companions.

Meanwhile, Kimbrough was rushed to St. John's Hospital in Joplin, where it was thought at first that his wounds might prove fatal. However, he began to show marked improvement a few days later, and he was released in mid-October after spending about five weeks in the hospital.

Sometime in the fall of 1934, Herb Farmer and his wife surrendered to federal authorities to face the charges against them related to their role in setting up the attempt to free Frank Nash, which led to the Kansas City Massacre. They were both convicted for their part in the conspiracy, and Farmer served two years at Alcatraz. After his release, he returned to Joplin, sold the farm, and moved into town, where he died in 1948 and was buried in Forest Park Cemetery.

Esther later married Harvey Bailey, self-proclaimed King of the Bank Robbers. Both of them are also buried in Forest Park Cemetery.

Kills Her Nephew, Who Was Also Her Paramour

On October 22, 1883, Ella Straub, 27-year-old housewife and mother of four or five children, killed her 21-year-old nephew by marriage, Louis L. During, at the Straub home near Clifton Hill in western Randolph County, Missouri, by beating him to death with a hammer. She proceeded promptly to the county seat at Huntsville and turned herself in. However, she would not say much about During's death except that she'd killed him during a quarrel.

Officers went straightway to the Straub residence and found blood everywhere, attesting to a violent incident, but particulars as to what caused the confrontation were few and far between in the days immediately after it happened. Newspaper reports suggested only that "Family troubles led to the tragedy."

Investigators wondered how a small woman like Ella could have overpowered a strapping young man like During, even with a hammer in her hand, and they also thought it strange that she had no blood or scratches on her when she turned herself in. Under the theory that she might have been shielding her husband, officers arrested 37-year-old William Straub as an accomplice about a week after the killing.

More specifics about the case came out as the investigation continued.

Ella and her husband had gotten married in 1872 when Straub was 26 years old and Ella was only 15. Sometime around 1879, young During, William Straub's nephew, came to live with the couple and work on their farm. Before long, a romance developed between During and Ella, who was described as "small in stature, black hair and eyes, with a rather attractive face and figure."

Ella's illicit intimacy with Straub's nephew "caused trouble between husband and wife," and the trouble came to a head in August or early September 1883, when Straub "slapped his wife severely," leaving her considerably bruised. Ella left home and went to Boonville, taking her kids with her. Straub came after her and brought her back to Randolph County, but she gave him the slip again and took off for Kansas. She wrote to During, who was supposed to meet her and elope with her, but he failed to show up, and she went on without him. While she was gone, During got married and started living with his new bride on a farm not far from the Straub place. When Ella came back to Randolph County in early October, she was reportedly jealous of During and his new wife, and many people thought her jealousy contributed to the murder.

However, that wasn't the story Ella told in mid-November when a joint preliminary hearing was held for her and her husband. While admitting that During was always very attentive to her and that a certain intimacy existed between them, she claimed she never yielded to his "improper proposals." She had been back from Kansas for about two weeks when During showed up at her house on October 22, 1883. When he asked where his uncle was and Ella told him that he was at work in the fields, During said it wasn't Straub he'd come to see anyway--it was her. Ella rose and went into the parlor to get some clothes for her baby but picked up a hammer as she passed through one of the rooms. While she was still in the parlor, During came into the room and "with an oath, demanded that she submit to his fiendish desires." When she refused, he struck at her, and she responded by using the hammer with "frightful effect."

At the close of the preliminary hearing, William Straub was released for lack of evidence, while his wife was held in lieu of $3,000 bond.

At Ella's trial in March of 1884, spectators packed the courtroom in Huntsville to view and hear the sensational proceedings. Ella repeated essentially the same story of self-defense that she'd told at the preliminary. Whether her version of events was true is not known, but since there was no one to refute it, the jury found her not guilty by virtue of justifiable homicide.

Fourth of July Celebration, 1925

Nowadays, a lot of towns hold Independence Day celebrations, and some of them are pretty elaborate affairs. However, I don't think they're any bigger than those held 100 years ago, and, in many cases, they're not as big.

Let's take Joplin, Missouri, as an example. The City of Joplin's official Fourth of July celebration this year will be held (I'm writing this on the morning of the 4th) at the Missouri Southern State University football stadium. Gates open at 5:30 p.m., food trucks open for business at 6:00 p.m., live music is slated to begin at 7:00 p.m., and the festivities culminate with a fireworks display from 9:45 to 10:00 p.m. Sounds like a pretty big deal, but it scarcely compares to the celebration Joplin held in 1925.

The Fourth of July celebration in Joplin in 1925 actually kicked off on Friday night, July 3. All the downtown businesses stayed open late, since they were going to be closed all day on the fourth, and a big crowd gathered downtown on Friday night as normally happened every Saturday night. So, folks were already in a festive spirit when Saturday, the fourth, rolled around.

People gathered for picnics and other activities at all the parks in Joplin on the fourth, others went to nearby swimming holes just outside the city, and baseball games and golf tournaments were held throughout the day in various parts of town The biggest attraction, however, was at Schifferdecker Park, where as many as 15,000 people gathered for afternoon and evening festivities.

In addition to the everyday park attractions, a movie was shown and a dance was held, both sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce free of charge. There was also a concert of live music. Free ice water was furnished for those in attendance. A daylight fireworks display was staged in the afternoon as well as the big finale that night. The "gorgeous fireworks display" put on at Schifferdecker the night of the fourth cost thousands of dollars and was one of the biggest ever held in Joplin.

One thing that was rather noticeably absent from the Joplin Independence Day celebration in 1925, probably to the relief of many in attendance, was speechifying. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, many local celebrations featured long-winded speeches by political office holders or candidates for office. Some people, I guess, actually enjoyed them.

The "Iron Mountain Baby" Skips Town

Called the Iron Mountain Baby, William Helms acquired his unusual moniker after he was thrown from a train along the St. Louis, Iron Mountain, and Southern Railroad near Irondale in eastern Missouri in 1902 when he was just a few days old. The unidentified infant was found by 67-year-old William Helms, nursed back to health, and taken in by the Helms family. His biological parentage remained a mystery, and he took the name of his foster family, who later adopted him.

Young Helms went to a rural school near Hopewell, where he grew up, and then moved to Salem, Missouri, to attend high school and worked as a reporter for the Salem News to help pay his way through school. Bitten by the newspaper/printing bug, Helms moved to Springfield in the mid 1920s to attend the teachers' college there and worked in a print shop in Springfield while going to school.

Around the end of 1926 or beginning of 1927, Helms moved to West Plains and worked as a printer there for a few weeks. He was soon back in Springfield, where he gave an interview to a Kansas City newspaper in mid-January 1927. In additional to discussing other topics, he said he had been hounded all his life by unwanted notoriety related to the sensational story of his infancy. He admitted that he had often wondered who his biological parents were and had even tried for a long time to find them, but he said he no longer cared and that Mr. Helms and his wife were his real parents. Helms expressed a desire to one day buy "a little printing business" of his own.

Helms's second sojourn in Springfield proved brief, as he left town around the end of January 1927 to take a printing job in Tulsa, Oklahoma. By late March of the same year, however, he was once again back in Springfield.

It may have been during this trip back to Missouri that Helms realized his dream of owning a "little printing business" of his own because sometime in the first half of 1927 he purchased a newspaper at Fair Grove, a small town 15 miles north of Springfield. What's known for sure is that Helms was fairly well established as editor and publisher of the Fair Grove Journal by August of 1927, when his position in Fair Grove was noted in Springfield newspapers.

William Helms Shortly Before Move to Fair Grove

In Fair Grove, Helms boarded with the Yandell family, and he took out a loan from the Fair Grove Bank to purchase the newspaper business He made the acquaintance of bank cashier J. I. Grant and other prominent citizens of the community and took an active part in civic affairs. He also participated in church activities, including as a leader in the Epworth League (a Methodist group for young adults) and was well liked in the town. In April of 1928, Helms visited Springfield with Cashier Grant and two other prominent Fair Grove citizens, as noted by the Springfield Leader.

On November 3, 1928, Helms up and left Fair Grove without giving notice to anyone. He left owing the Yandells $101 for board and owing the bank $511 for the mortgage it held on the newspaper plant. Several half-completed jobs were stacked about the printing office. His "sudden departure," said the Springfield Daily News, "comes not only as a surprise but as a shock to the entire community."

Where Helms had gone and why was a complete mystery until Cashier Grant received a letter from the absconder on November 14. Dated November 12 and posted at Eufaula, Oklahoma, Helms told Bryant to take back the printing plant as payment of the $511 debt because he "never expected to see Fair Grove again." He also gave instructions for the return of some "boiler plate" type to a Kansas City syndicate.

In late November, the Yandells also received a letter from Helms, postmarked Houston, Texas, promising to pay the debt he owed them for room and board.

Rumors circulated as to what caused Helms to leave Fair Grove so suddenly and as to what his future plans might be. One Springfield acquaintance said Helms had told him he was going to South America. Other friends said Helms had a girlfriend in St. Louis and that they were planning to get married but that he had recently received a letter from her saying she'd changed her mind. This heartbreak, his friends speculated, had caused Helms to "give up his efforts at making a success." Still others suggested that Helms had quit Fair Grove so suddenly simply because he was frustrated that he'd been unable to live up to the high expectations of success he held when he first moved there and purchased the newspaper.

The suggestion of a St. Louis connection seemingly had some validity, because Helms did later marry a young woman in the St. Louis area, but whether she was the same one his Springfield friends had mentioned is not known. The couple subsequently moved to Texas, where they had one child. William Helms, the Iron Mountain Baby, died in Texas in 1953 and was brought back to Missouri and buried in a cemetery not far from the place where he'd been thrown from a train over fifty years earlier.

Rdy 1928

 

A "Tangled Romance" Claims Two Victims

A headline in the January 1, 1962, issue of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat spoke of a "tangled romance" resulting in the deaths of two people. The first sentence of the report told the story in brief: "Two women...were shot to death and the husband of one was wounded Saturday in a series of events involving a love triangle in Jefferson County."

It seems 33-year-old Juanita Smith, a pretty blonde who taught elementary school at Hillsboro, had been having an affair for a couple of years with 40-year-old Ralph Patton, former school board president at Richwoods, where Mrs. Smith had previously taught. On Tuesday, December 27, 1961, Patton left his wife, 37-year-old Esther, and went to stay at the Arlington Hotel in DeSoto. When Juanita Smith told her husband, Clarence, that she also planned to leave him, he grew extremely angry and jealous. He met Patton later that evening (the 27th) at a tavern in Richwoods, where the two men had a heated argument.

On Saturday, December 30, Esther met with her husband and his lover at the hotel to try to iron out the marital difficulties in her family, but Patton informed her that he did not intend to return home unless she became sick and needed him.

The two women then left together about mid-afternoon and drove to the Smith residence at Fletcher a few miles west of DeSoto. After Esther Patton talked with the Smith couple for a few minutes over coffee, she left with the stated intention of bringing her husband back with her so that all four parties could hash out the situation.

Instead of retrieving her husband, however, Esther drove to a spot about two and half miles west of DeSoto, pulled off the side of the road, and shot herself with a .32 caliber pistol. Gravely wounded but still alive, she drove into DeSoto, where she fell out of the car into the street. The pistol was found lying in the car seat. Esther was rushed to a hospital in Festus but died shortly after arrival.

Meanwhile, as Smith and his wife were waiting for Mrs. Patton to return, they got into a quarrel about Juanita "messing around with Patton." After waiting for some time with no sign of Esther Patton's return, Juanita took an aspirin and went to bed, and Smith took two aspirins and two "nerve pills" (i.e. tranquilizers). He later claimed that was the last thing he remembered.

What police were able to reconstruct from the evidence, however, was that Smith called Juanita's brother, Lloyd Nickelson, about dusk and told Nickelson and his wife that he was going to kill himself. They rushed to the Smith home and saw him standing in the doorway with a shotgun. As Nickelson approached the house, Smith retreated from the doorway, and a shot came from inside the house. When Nickelson and his wife entered the house, they found Juanita Smith lying on the kitchen floor dying from a shotgun blast and Clarence Smith on the floor, on the opposite side of a table from his wife, dazed and suffering from a wound across his face, apparently self-inflicted in a suicide attempt.

Juanita Smith died on the way to a hospital, and her husband was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. After his wound, which proved superficial, was treated, he was taken to the Jefferson County Jail at Hillsboro.

Tried at Hillsboro in late May 1962 on a reduced charge of second-degree murder, Clarence Smith was found not guilty after a jury deliberation of only about 45 minutes.

Note: Photo from the Crystal City Jefferson County Press-Times

A Series of Eternal Triangles--Part 3

The climactic act in the three-part tragedy of early 20th century love triangles in the southwest Missouri/southeast Kansas area took place in 1928 in Baxter Springs, Kansas.

Lee Nutt was acquitted of murder for killing his wife's lover in Joplin in 1908, and John Cole was first found guilty and then acquitted on retrial for the 1917 killing in rural Granby of two men who were paying attention to his estranged wife. After Nutt's acquittal, he moved to Granby, where Cole lived, and the two men became close friends. Sometime in the 1920s, Cole, who was now single, started boarding with Nutt and his second wife. He went with them when they moved to Neosho in 1927 and again when they relocated to Baxter Springs a few months later. Both men went to work in the mines there.

In September 1928, Nutt told Cole he could no longer stay with him because he thought Cole was paying too much attention to Mrs. Nutt. A couple of months later, Nutt's wife left him and took their kids to Oklahoma, but Nutt came after her a week or so later, and the couple reconciled and returned home to Baxter Springs.

Another month later, on December 11, 1928, Nutt and his nineteen-year-old son, D. W. Nutt, came home from work and found John Cole and Mrs. Nutt there alone together. The three men started fist fighting and struggling with each other. Cole broke away from the elder Nutt, who had only one good arm, but his son clung to Cole as the latter bolted from the house and started down the street.

Lee Nutt caught up with other two men half a block away, brandished a .41 caliber revolver, and fired three shots at Cole at close range, two of which took effect. Cole died almost instantly, and Nutt promptly turned himself in, readily admitting that he'd killed Cole.

The younger Nutt, who was still holding Cole when his father started shooting, was also arrested, and both were charged with first-degree murder. Tried in Cherokee County Circuit Court in January 1929, the father again pleaded the "unwritten law" and was again acquitted, as he had been over twenty years earlier. The charges against his son were later dropped.

Thus, the three-part drama involving Lee Nutt and John Cole, both of whom had previously killed as a result of separate love triangles, ended in a bit of bitter irony when one of the friends killed the other in a squabble arising out their own private love triangle.

A Series of Eternal Triangles--Part 2

Last week I wrote about Lee Nutt's killing of his cousin, Jake Nicely, in 1908 in Joplin, after Nicely and Nutt's wife had run away together a few months earlier. Nutt was acquitted, and he moved to Granby, where he made the acquaintance of John Cole, who is the primary player in the next chapter of the three-part drama of love triangles.

Cole had been separated from his wife, Eva, for several months when he went to the house of her sister, Mrs. George Corkel, on the evening of July 26, 1917, where Eva was visiting, to try to effect some sort of reconciliation with her. Cole was talking to his wife when two young men named George Kincannon and Ralph Lucas came to the Corkel residence to take Eva and her sister Lulu McCaslin, who was also visiting Mrs. Corkel, out for an automobile ride. Only Kincannon emerged from the vehicle, because Lucas was either asleep or hunched down in the seat, so that Cole did not know but what Kincannon was alone. Lulu left with Kincannon (and Lucas), and Cole remarked to his wife after they left that he should have slapped Kincannon's face.

When they returned a short while later, Cole again made a threatening remark. Kincannon had just shaken hands with Lulu and bade her goodnight when Cole noticed that someone else was in Kincannon's car, and he asked who it was. Kincannon said, "See for yourself."

Cole walked closer to the car, and when he saw that it was Ralph Lucas in the vehicle, he exclaimed, "That's just who I thought it was."

Cole slapped Kincannon with his right hand and drew a .45-caliber revolver. The two men started arguing, and Eva pleaded with them to go away from her sister's house if they were going to fight. A few seconds later, though, Cole fired a shot into Kincannon's chest. Kincannon fell, and Eva ran toward the house shouting for Lucas to run. Cole fired another bullet into Kincannon's head after he was already down and then turned and started shooting at Lucas as he was trying to flee. After Lucas was down, Cole also put another bullet in him for good measure.

Cole immediately turned himself in to authorities, saying only that he was sorry for the conditions that "made the shooting necessary." At his trial in June of 1918 for the killing of Kincannon, he was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to ten years in prison. He was released later in the year, however, under a writ of habeas corpus issued by the Missouri Supreme Court, and, still later, a new trial was ordered.

While the Kincannon case was still pending, Cole was tried in June 1920 for the murder of Lucas and acquitted. The Kincannon case was then later dropped.

The reader might wonder how this case is connected to the Lee Nutt case that I wrote about last time. Admittedly, the connection is pretty thin--only that Nutt and Cole were friends. However, the connection will become much stronger next time when I chronicle the third episode in southwest Missouri's jealousy-driven three-act tragedy of the early 1900s.

  

A Series of Eternal Triangles--Part 1

A series of three related love triangles in the southwest Missouri-southeast Kansas area over a period of twenty years in the early part of the twentieth century resulted in the deaths of four men. The first act in this three-part tragedy was staged at Joplin in October of 1908, and the principal players were thirty-two-year-old David Lee Nutt, his wife, and his cousin.

About nine months earlier, Nutt and his wife, Blanche, were living on a farm near Neosho when Nutt's cousin Jake Nicely came to live with the couple and their three children. Nicely, who was of "prepossessing appearance" and about ten years younger than his cousin, "proved attractive" to the twenty-eight-year-old Blanche, and a friendship grew up between them.

In 1900, just two years after he and Blanche were married, Lee, as Nutt was usually called, had been involved in a mining-related dynamite accident that put out one of his eyes and blew off one of his hands. Whether Lee's disfigurement had anything to do with Blanche's disenchantment with her husband is unknown, but, for whatever reason, the relationship between Blanche and Nicely soon "ripened" into something more passionate than friendship.

One day in July, the clandestine lovers took off together, leaving Nutt to take care of the children alone. Nutt at first swore vengeance, but when the illicit couple was located in Kansas City, he and other relatives pleaded with Blanche to come home. "The efforts of the peacemakers were spurned," however, and the illegal lovers stayed together.

On October 25, 1908, Nutt came to Joplin on business and met his wife on the street that evening. He again pleaded with her to come back to him, but she still refused. He spent the night in a Joplin hotel ruminating over the treachery of his wife and his cousin. The next day, Nutt, who was carrying a revolver, again saw Blanche on the street and followed her into Church's shoe store. Discovering that Nicely was in the store with her, Nutt was overcome with anger. He fired several shots at Nicely, at least two of which took effect, and Nicely died almost instantly.

Nutt was arrested at scene without resistance. At his trial in 1909, Nutt pleaded self-defense, claiming that Nicely had physically assaulted him when he first entered the store and tried to speak to his wife. How much stock the jury placed in Nutt's version of what happened in the store is not certain, but they came back after only 45 minutes of deliberation with a verdict of not guilty, citing the "unwritten law" in addition to the self-defense claim.

A short time after this episode, Blanche divorced Nutt, and Nutt moved to Granby, where he remarried and where he made the acquaintance of one John Cole, who figures prominently in the next act of this three-part drama. (To be continued.)

Kingdom City

Most of the towns of Missouri and the Ozarks were founded in the 1800s or very early 1900s near bodies of water, mineral ore deposits, or mineral springs. A few were founded as county seats at the time their respective counties were formed.

Some towns, mainly small ones, were also founded in the early days at the intersection of two roads. This phenomenon of towns springing up as a result of road building continued well into the twentieth century, after automobiles had replaced horses and buggies as the primary mode of transportation and after most railroad building, mineral exploration, and other activities that provided the early impetus for the formation of towns had largely ceased.

I can think of several examples of towns in Missouri and the Ozarks that formed as a result of road construction during the first half of the twentieth century, but one the one I want to discuss today is Kingdom City, a small community in northern Callaway County.

When US Highway 40 and US Highway 54 were being built through Callaway County in the mid-1920s, Fulton in the central part of the county and McCredie in the northern part, both located along the planned route of Highway 54, hoped that Highway 40 would come through their respective town. Instead, it ended up passing a mile or two south of McCredie and intersecting with Highway 54 at that point.

The intersection soon had a gas station with more businesses likely to follow, but it had no name other than just the Y. The people of McCredie wanted to name the place South McCredie, while those from Fulton wanted to name it North Fulton. In November 1927, the Fulton Oil Company, owner of the service station, suggested naming the place Kingdom City as a reflection of Calloway County's nickname, Kingdom of Callaway, and Kingdom City it became.

The crossroads community grew rapidly after that. Within a year or so, Kingdom City boasted three filling stations, three cafes, a hotel, two garages, and a grocery store, and a department store was planned.

When I-70 was built through Callaway County in 1965, it passed a little bit south of the route Highway 40 had followed, but not far enough away to completely bypass Kingdom City, and the town still benefits from the patronage of travelers along I-70.

In 1967, Kingdom City was incorporated as a village, and the former unincorporated village of McCredie was absorbed into Kingdom City. The McCredie Post Office moved to Kingdom City near the same time.

Today, Kingdom City sports quite a few businesses and a population of about 145 people, while McCredie, as a separate place, exists mainly in memory.

The Fair Play Fire

Fair Play, a small railroad town in western Polk County (MO), had a population of about 250 people when it was visited on Sunday afternoon, September 19, 1887, by a fire that destroyed nearly all the business district.

Initial reports said the fire originated on the premises of S. L. North and Co. General Store and Bankers and could not be contained. Efforts were concentrated on removing all the goods that could be saved, and the North general store and adjoining bank, the lumberyard, and a millinery in the upper story of the North building were the only businesses that were unable to remove their stock.

A later report said that the only buildings to escape the fire were the McAckran and Co. Hardware store, a blacksmith shop, a small grist mill, and a few dwellings. Businesses, in addition to those mentioned in the previous paragraph, which were burned out were B. S. Brown & Son General Store; Brown and Hopkins Drugstore; Fox, Potts and Paynter General Store; Gordon & Drake General Store; P. D. Spraque Jewelry; W. Vanzant Hotel and Restaurant; and W. Robenstine General Store. Total loss was estimated at between $30,000 and $40,000.

Fair Play rebuilt rapidly after the fire, and today it is still a flourishing little town of about 450 people.

Marion C. Early High School

When I attended Fair Grove High School many years ago, we occasionally played Morrisville in basketball or baseball, but the school was called Marion C. Early High School, not Morrisville High School, and I remember wondering why. Why didn't the school simply have the name of the town in its title like nearly all the other small-town high schools I knew about?

I'm pretty sure I could have learned the answer if I'd been inquisitive enough to do a little research or even to ask a few people who might be in a position to know, but I did neither of those. Recently, though, I learned the answer without really trying. I was just scrolling through some Springfield newspapers when I came upon a 1925 article about Marion C. Early's donation of the land and buildings for the school.

Born in 1864, Early, a St. Louis lawyer, grew up on a farm near Morrisville. Although limited educational opportunities were available to him, he managed to obtain enough early schooling to enroll in Drury College in Springfield. After working his way through Drury, he studied law at Washington University in St. Louis, earned his law degree, and was admitted to the bar.

Although Morrisville did not have a high school during the early 1900s, it did have a junior college, Morrisville-Scarritt College, which was founded in 1909 with the merger of Morrisville College (previously Ebenezer College) and Scarritt College of Neosho. The deed to the land on which the college was located stipulated that it had to be used for educational purposes.

However, when the college closed in 1924, the people of Morrisville could not afford to purchase the land. Mr. Early, who had been a trustee of Morrisville-Scarritt College, bought the eight-acre tract of land and the college's four brick buildings for an estimated $100,000 and donated them to the town of Morrisville for use as a high school. A consolidated school district was organized, and the town's first public high school opened in September of 1925 as Marion C. Early High School.

Gasconade Bridge Tragedy

Construction of the Pacific Railroad west of St. Louis began in 1851. The road was supposed to become the first transcontinental railroad, and by the fall of 1855, it had reached the Missouri state capital at Jefferson City. To mark this milestone, a celebration was planned in Jefferson City for November 1, and early that morning an excursion train of 12-14 cars carrying about 600 passengers left St. Louis to attend the festivities.

The trip to Jefferson City was about two-thirds complete when, shortly after one o'clock in the afternoon, the train approached a wooden bridge over the Gasconade River at the present-day town of Gasconade. The bridge was not yet complete, but it was supported by a temporary trestle that was thought safe. However, as the train started across the bridge, the structure gave way, precipitating the front locomotive and ten of the passenger cars into the river. The bridge was about thirty feet above the river, and the water that the train cars plunged into was as much as twenty feet deep.

The rear locomotive and one of the passenger cars became disengaged from the rest of the train and were thus saved. In addition, some of the passengers had gotten out of their respective cars before the train started across the bridge in order to inspect the bridge and to observe the crossing. They, too, were saved, unless they happened to be on the bridge as the train started across it. Still, over thirty people were killed in the disaster, and another 100 or more were injured.

The rear locomotive raced back the way it had come to give an alarm, but details about the disaster were slow to reach the cities. As information about the tragedy trickled into St. Louis over the next couple of days, the entire city was thrown into "a dark time of distress."

A reporter for a Jefferson City newspaper reached the Gasconade bridge on Saturday morning almost 48 hours after the disaster. He described the scene as "such a heap of ruin as few mortals ever before gazed upon."

The Gasconade tragedy was the first major bridge collapse in American history with large-scale casualties.