The Murder of George Patrick

After attending a show in Reeds Spring (MO), 19-year-old George Patrick and his date, 16-year-old Goldie May, were on their way home on the road between Reeds Spring and Galena on the evening of November 1, 1924, when they were hailed by two men on foot. As soon as the car came to a halt, the men jumped in and ordered Patrick, at the point of a gun, to drive. When he refused to turn where they told him to, one of the men conked him on the head and then shot him in the left side.  

Goldie jumped out of the car during the confrontation and took off down the road. Meanwhile, the highwaymen took a watch from Patrick's wrist, pulled him out of his Ford automobile, and sped away in it themselves.

Goldie was rescued by a passing motorist. Together she and the motorist returned to where Patrick had been shot, picked him up, and took him to a doctor in Reeds Spring, where he died within minutes. 

Goldie said the two gunmen were both wearing khaki clothes and had heavy beards and that one was a lot taller than the other, but she was unable to give a more detailed description because the darkness prevented her from getting a good look at them. 

A manhunt for the two murderers was organized, but it turned up no sign of the culprits. After a couple of days, the fugitives were tentatively identified as Ed Young and a man named Cotton who had worked in a cannery in Reeds Springs the previous season. The identification was based on the fact that the two men had called at the home of an aunt of Young's late Saturday night, after the murder, both of them armed with revolvers. The aunt had already heard about the crime, and she suspected that her nephew, whom she knew to have a violent streak, and his companion might be the perpetrators. So, she refused to admit them and called police after they left. 

After another day or two, Young and Cotton had still not been located, and the manhunt was called off under the assumption that they had somehow escaped the dragnet.

On the night of November 8, however, exactly a week after Patrick was killed, the two suspects were arrested at Harrisonville when they were found sleeping in a car that had been stolen at Humansville a few days earlier. Some weapons were found hidden in the vehicle, and the two men were charged with carrying concealed weapons. 

The two suspects gave phony names at first, but the Stone County sheriff traveled to Harrisonville and identified Young and his sidekick, whose name was eventually established as Odess "Cotton" Yandell. The two men were brought back to Stone County and charged with murder. At their trial in early December, they pleaded guilty and were sentenced to life imprisonment, and they were transported to Jefferson City a couple of days later.

Young, 33 at the time of his imprisonment, escaped in mid-November 1932 by walking off a prison farm, but he was recaptured a week later in southeast Missouri and brought back to the state pen. Yandell, who was only 21 when he checked into the big house, was paroled in late 1940, while Young was granted a parole two and half years later. 

Summersville, Missouri

Summersville, straddling the Texas-Shannon County line about 23 miles southeast of Houston, was platted in 1870 and named after early area settlers Jesse and Thomas Summer. The village got a post office the following year and has had one ever since.

In 1885, the population of Summersville was about 100 residents. Businesses in the town included two or three general stores, a drugstore, a hotel, a land agent, a wagonmaker, and a cabinet maker, as well as the post office. The community also boasted a Methodist church and an I.O.O.F. (Oddfellows) lodge.

The population was 187 in 1900, and by the time a Springfield Leader reporter visited Summersville in 1913, the population had grown to about 250. To reach Summersville, the Springfield man traveled first to Cabool (presumably by rail), and from Cabool he took a stage to Summersville. The 35-mile second leg of his trip took nine hours, but he claimed that he enjoyed the scenery so much that he didn't mind the long journey and arrived "without any great fatigue." 

Only about four months before the Leader man's visit, Summersville had suffered a fire that destroyed several business buildings and one "handsome residence." One store had already been completely rebuilt, and a couple of other buildings were under construction. The Springfield visitor opined that the fire had turned out to be "a blessing in disguise," because the new buildings were of better quality and more fireproof than their predecessors. 

Land around Summersville was very good for agriculture purposes, said the reporter, and land close to town was selling for $30 to $50 an acre. Farther out of town, farmland was selling for $10-$25 an acre, while unimproved land could be had for $5 to $10 an acre. Four or five miles outside of town, the land became free range, and cattle were turned out on it during the summer months so that farmers only had to feed their stock about five months out of the year. 

According to the Leader representative, Summersville had "a good school system" and "churches of various denominations." There were several church-affiliated societies as well as at least one fraternal lodge.

Among the town's businesses was the Summersville State Bank, which had a capital of $25,000. Other businesses included a pharmacy, a real estate agency, a clothing store, a hotel, a hardware and furniture store, a telephone company, a combination lumber store/insurance agency, two general stores, and a combination livery, feedstore and sale barn.

One of the pressing needs around Summersville was better roads, and a Good Roads movement was underway in the area when the Springfield man visited. On his trip back to Springfield, the reporter took a surrey to Mountain View, site of the nearest railroad depot. The trip took only three hours, and at Mountain View, our man presumably caught the train home to Springfield.

Summersville continued a gradual growth throughout the twentieth century, reaching a peak population of 571 in 1990. It has since decreased slightly in population to 453, as of 2020.

Killing of Vellie Driscoll

On October 5, 1897, the Forepaugh and Sells traveling circus made a stop at Rich Hill, Missouri. That evening during the performance, some local men, mostly miners, got into a dispute with some of the circus employees, and a 16-year-old boy named J. R. "Vellie" Driscoll, son of one of the miners, was hit on the head with a blunt object and killed during the melee. One of the circus men involved in the dispute was quickly taken into custody, and he had to be secretly whisked out of town to prevent a lynching. 

The person spirited away from Rich Hill reportedly implicated Victor Lee, operator of and main performer for one of the circus sideshows, in the Driscoll killing, and Lee was arrested in Joplin on the evening of the October 7 and charged with murder. The blunt instrument used in the killing was identified as a tent stake, but Lee denied killing Driscoll and said he thought the boy was not murdered at all but rather kicked by one of the circus horses. 

Ultimately, Charley Bell, who was manager of the circus and who also operated a candy stand, was identified as the person spirited away from Rich Hill, and he was charged as the actual murderer of Driscoll, while Lee was charged as an accomplice.

The two defendants were tried together in Bates County in early December. Lee claimed he was only drawn into the unfortunate affair because he left a bundle of his belongings at the candy stand, where the melee occurred, and happened to return to the stand to retrieve the bundle just when the fighting broke out. He said he had been questioned and released on the night of the incident because authorities were convinced that he was telling the truth. After relating his story to the jury, Lee was found not guilty and released.

Bell was turned loose before Bell's trial ended, and I have not found a definitive answer to what happened to Bell. From the lack of available evidence to the contrary, I conclude that he was probably also found not guilty.

 

Omaha, Arkansas

There were settlers in the area of Omaha, located about five miles south of the Missouri state line on old Highway 65, well before the Civil War. In fact, when old 65 was built in the early part of the 20th century, it generally followed the pre-Civil War Springfield-to-Harrison road, which passed through the Omaha area. However, it was not until around 1873, when Omaha got its first post office, that the community took on any semblance of a town, and it was not until 1903, about the time a branch of the Iron Mountain Railroad was built through the area, that Omaha was actually platted.

With the coming of the railroad, the town prospered, as it became a stop along the route. The train depot was actually located about a mile southwest of Omaha at a station called Cricket, but the town of Omaha still benefited from the increased traffic through the area and the ease of access that the railroad brought.

When a representative of the Springfield (MO) Leader visited Omaha in December 1912, he found a thriving little town of about a 150 people that boasted, in addition to its post office, a school, a bank, a hotel, a real estate agent, a couple of doctors, two or three blacksmiths, a barber, a carpenter, a shoemaker, and several general stores, including one that had been in business in Omaha for 28 years. The main industry in and around Omaha, though, was timber. The Leader man thought the area around Omaha would be good land for agriculture and stock raising, but for the time being, timber was king.  

I've estimated the 1912 population of Omaha by looking at 1910 census records, but I think my guess of 150 is fairly accurate. The figure seems to jibe with the town's population trend during future decades. Omaha had 146 residents in 1940, but it dropped off to only 91 ten years later. The population rebounded to as high as 207 in 1990, but it has experienced a general downward trend since then, fueled in recent years by the fact new Highway 65, built in the early 2000s, bypassed the town. Omaha's population as of 2020 was only 128 people. However, the town still has a school that serves grades K-12.