Prostitutes in the Ozarks

Last time I wrote about the rowdy character of the town of Baxter Springs and cited the 1870 census as evidence, particularly the fact that the occupation of seven women living in the town at the time of the census was listed as "prostitute." Actually, I got to thinking about this whole subject of prostitution, gambliing, etc. in the early-day Ozarks because it was pointed out to me not too long ago that several women living in Joplin at the time of the 1880 census were listed as prostitutes. I know, too, that prostitution was fairly common around the mining town of Granby immediately after the Civil War before Joplin was even formed. I'm not as well versed on the early history of Springfield, but I'm pretty sure prostitution was fairly common there during the war, because Springfield was a Union headquarters throughout much of the war. Anywhere young single men congregated; be they soldiers, miners, or cowboys; prostitutes were sure to show up.
What strikes me about the census records is the fact the census takers (not necessarily the women themselves) were so open about calling a prostitute a prostitute. Today, prostitutes would more likely show up on census records as "escorts" or some other euphemism.

George Hudson

I've discussed a couple of notorious characters of late nineteenth century Granby, Missouri, in my previous two posts, but the king of the Granby outlaws was, without a doubt, George Hudson. He was rumored to have already killed a man when he was a young teenager in Mississippi before coming to Granby with his parents and siblings in the late 1860s. Then, over the next twenty years, he killed five more men in four known incidents, including a murder for hire on the streets of nearby Joplin, and was rumored to have killed others. Hudson's felonious record was so extensive that it is hard to imagine how he was allowed to go free for so long, but he and his family had such a stranglehold on the lawless town of Granby that few dared to oppose them. Hudson was finally gunned down in his Granby saloon in 1892 by a deputy who was trying to arrest him for a crime he had committed years earlier during a brief sojourn in Colorado.
For a more detailed account of Hudson's murderous shenanigans, look for my article in an upcoming issue of Wild West Magazine on the "autocrat" who sat on the "criminal throne" at Granby.

Hobbs Kerry

Another notorious character who lived in Granby, Missouri during the late 1800s was Hobbs Kerry. The Kerry family moved from Arkansas during the late 1850s, and Hobbs and his older brothers, Albert and Toby, grew up in the rough atmosphere of the booming mining town. In the summer of 1870, Toby Kerry was killed in a fight over a card game while visiting a soiled dove's camp on the outskirts of town. A year later, Albert shot and killed a man named Dunlap in a row that also involved a prostitute. On a December night in 1873, John Cole and Bud Blunt were walking on the streets of Granby when they were ambushed from the dark shadows. Cole died from shotgun wounds, while Blunt made his escape. Albert Kerry, who had recently been made city marshal of Granby, and his brother, Hobbs, were suspected of the crime and arrested but released for lack of evidence.
About two years later, Hobbs Kerry drifted to nearby Joplin, also a booming mining town, where he met Bruce Younger, half-uncle of the infamous Younger brothers, and made the acquaintance of two members of the James-Younger gang. In June of 1876, he and the two gang members rode north to link up with Frank James, Jesse James, Cole Younger, Bob Younger, and one other man. In early July the eight gang members robbed a train on the Missouri Pacific Railroad just east of Otterville in Cooper County. Kerry, though, was quickly captured after he came back home to Granby and started flashing cash around. He received a light sentence in exchange for his cooperation, but by the time he gave his incriminating testimony, the other members of the gang were already headed north on an ill-fated mission to rob a Northfield (Minnesota) bank.
For a more detailed account of Hobbs Kerry's brief outlaw career, you might want to read my article in the October 2008 issue of Wild West Magazine.

Jake Killian

A week or so ago I mentioned the fact that Granby produced a lot of desperate characters during its heyday as a mining town in the mid to late 1800s. One of them was Jake Killian. In fact, all the males in the whole Killian family were a bunch of hard cases. I have an article about the Killians that will be published in a future issue of Wild West Magazine. So, I don't want to steal my own thunder by going into a lot of detail here, but here's a brief version of their story. The Killian family moved from Arkansas to Granby during the mid 1850s. The father, Cy Killian, got beat to death with a whiffle-tree by a drinking buddy on the streets of Granby in the late 1850s. During the Civil War, an older brother of Jake named Mart was taken from a jail in Carthage and strung up to a tree near Spring River by bushwhackers who rode down from Barton County to avenge an outrage on a Lamar saloonkeeper's wife. Jake himself was shot and blinded in one eye during the war while wrestling a fellow soldier named Norton for a gun after getting into a dispute over a card game. After the war, Jake killed William Lake, owner of a traveling circus, when the circus came to Granby in 1869. In 1873, another of Jake's older brothers, Ben, got into a row at a similar traveling show in Granby, and an innocent bystander was killed during the ensuing gunplay. Two years later, Jake's younger brother, Thomas, and two other men killed one of the citizens who had served on the grand jury that indicted Ben Killian for murder. Then in 1878, Jake Killian was killed by William Norton, the same man who'd blinded him during the war, on the streets of Empire City, Kansas (now part of Galena), when he went there in search of revenge. So much for the Killian family.

Desperate Characters of Joplin, Granby, and Galena

Before I moved to the Joplin area from the Springfield area many years ago, I had occasionally heard mention of what a wild, wide-open town Joplin used to be back in its mining heyday, and my study of local history during the years since I've lived in Joplin has confirmed this to be the case. During the Old West era, the James gang and the Youngers visited the Joplin area at least once or twice for sure and probably other times as well, and a passel of lesser-known desperadoes frequented the town with some regularity. During the gangster era of the 20s and 30s, outlaws like Bonnie and Clyde, the Barkers, and Arkansas Tom of Doolin gang fame used Joplin as a hideout. Not until lead and zinc mining started petering out around the middle of the 20th century did the town finally begin to lose its reputation as an anything-goes type of place.
What I have learned in recent years, however, is that, for being a rough-and-tumble mining town in its early days, Joplin had nothing on either Granby or Galena (Kansas). Granby in particular, was home to an unusual number of murderers and assorted other rough characters. I'll be writing about some of them in more detail in future posts.