Smith-Parker Feud of Iron County

On Monday, July 28, 1913, Jim Smith and his father, John, went to the home of B. Lunsford at Bixby, Missouri, in the western edge of Iron County, where they confronted 23-year-old Richard Parker. Pointing at Parker, Jim Smith, 24, told his father, "There he is; do what you want to."

When John Smith stooped to pick up a couple of rocks, Parker pulled a gun from his pocket and shot the younger Smith, who fell to the ground. Parker started to flee, but he'd taken only a few steps when the mortally wounded Smith raised up and unloaded a shotgun at the retreating man. Parker collapsed and died almost instantly, while Jim Smith lived another six hours.

Both of the deceased young men worked in the timber camps of southeast Missouri, and it was assumed that there had been prior trouble between them, but exactly what that trouble might have been was not brought out at the inquest held over Parker's body later on the same day as the killings. It was expected that John Smith would be charged as an accessory before the fact in the death of Parker.

The uproar over the double murder had scarcely calmed when a report surfaced that the feud between the Parkers and Smiths had erupted into violence again, resulting in what was described as a "cold-blooded and brutal murder." On August 5, barely a week after the first incident, John Smith supposedly shot and killed Richard Parker's younger brother at Greeley, about 20 miles from Brixby in neighboring Reynolds County. Only 16 or 17 years old, young Parker had heard that Old Man Smith was making threats against him, and he left Iron County. However, John Smith started in pursuit and overtook the kid at Greeley. The boy begged for his life, but Smith gunned him down with a Winchester rifle.

It was revealed at the time that both the Parker family and the Smiths were originally from Crawford County and that the trouble between them had apparently started with a dispute over ownership of a cow. Shortly after the cow dispute, the mother of the Parker boys had found Old Man Smith asleep at a picnic "--presumably the worse for liquor--and hit him over the head with a club." For this, John Smith and his son vowed revenge.

The stated cause of the feud between the two families is perhaps accurate, but the problem with the story about the elder Smith shooting and killing the teenaged Parker is that it seemingly never happened. There appears to be no further mention of such an incident in any regional newspapers after the initial report. However, John Smith was tried in late December 1913 for being an accessory to the murder of Richard Smith. He was convicted of manslaughter, sentenced to two years in the Missouri state pen, and released after a year and half under the three-fourths law.