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 Athletic Dennis Weaver

I think I've briefly written about Dennis Weaver on this blog before but only to comment in a general way about his fame as an actor and the fact that he was from Joplin and has a street named after him here. One thing I did not comment on was the fact that, when he was in high school and junior college in Joplin in the early forties, he was known as a good athlete. I had read this somewhere once before, but I recently ran across a newspaper article that shows he was more than just good--he was an outstanding athlete.

After starring at Joplin High and Joplin Junior High, Weaver entered military service and became a fighter pilot during World War II. When the war ended, he enrolled at the University of Oklahoma as a drama student. At the same time, he also resumed his participation in sports as a track athlete.

In the spring of 1947, Weaver, who was then known as Bill (having not yet adopted the name Dennis), competed for Oklahoma in the decathlon at the Kansas Relays. At the end of the first day, encompassing the first five events, Weaver was in second place with 3,610 points. His strongest events the first day were the high jump, where he cleared six feet, two and a half inches, and the quarter mile, which he ran in 51.3 seconds.

The second day, Weaver won the 1,500-meter race in a time of 4:32.8 and placed third overall in the final standings after all ten events were completed. Weaver's best finishes were maybe not world-class, but they were pretty darn good for a college decathlete in the 1940s. This is especially true considering that Weaver had apparently trained very little for the decathlon. The Joplin Globe reported that many of the events in the decathlon were "total strangers" to Weaver but that he had decided to "give it a whirl anyhow."

The same report noted that, during his time as a drama student at the University of Oklahoma, Weaver had played leading roles in "Kiss and Tell," "Uncle Harry," "The Late George Apley," and "Private Lives." As soon as the school term was over, Weaver had plans to move to New York City with his wife, the former Gerrie Stowell of Joplin, to further his drama training. He would, of course, go on to become famous for his roles in such TV series as Gunsmoke, Gentle Ben, and McCloud, as well as roles in a number of movies.

Church in a Saloon and a Dance Hall in Church

Joplin earned a well-deserved reputation during its early mining days as a wide-open place where whiskey flowed freely and other forms of vice abounded. Saloons sat on nearly every block, and gambling parlors were almost as prevalent. The gambling halls often adjoined the saloons but not always. "Amusement emporiums" like Johnson's Vaudeville Variety Theatre, which I discussed in my previous two posts, offered ribald entertainment, and, for a price, female companionship could be had there and at other houses of ill fame in the downtown area. Almost from the town’s infancy, however, religion thrived alongside the revelry.

In fact, Joplin’s very first church service was held in a saloon. One day in early 1872, several men were discussing the need for a church when Kit Bullock, co-owner of Bullock and Boucher’s saloon on Main Street, offered his business as a sanctuary. Unknown to Bullock, one of the men among the group was an itinerant Methodist minister, and he promptly took the saloonkeeper up on his offer, saying he would hold services the very next day if Bullock meant what he said. True to his word, Bullock cleaned up his saloon, replaced the whiskey bottles with candles, and laid planks across his beer kegs to serve as makeshift pews. The next day, the preacher showed up and delivered a sermon to several solemn and presumably sober worshipers.

Not only was Joplin’s first church service held in a saloon, but the town’s early houses of worship were also often given over to secular use, a practice that some observers found just as unseemly as holding church in a barroom. The Tabernacle, erected at the corner of Fourth and Virginia in 1876, served not only as one of the town’s principal places of worship but also as a sort of town hall that played host to numerous public gatherings, including many that were offered purely for entertainment. For instance, when a roller skating craze swept across the country in 1877, the Tabernacle was turned into a skating rink, and large groups of “Holy Rollers,” as the skaters were often called, would gather each night to participate in their newfound recreation.

Such mixing of religion and merrymaking earned Joplin frequent criticism from its neighbors as an evil and irreverent place. In January of 1880, the Neosho Miner and Mechanic waxed indignant over the indecorous fundraising activities of a Joplin congregation that hoped to build a new church. Calling Joplin a “queer place,” the editor continued,

   The ladies belonging to the church are working with vim. During the holidays they had a festival, at which there  was music and dancing, and several articles of value were raffled off, the whole thing  realizing about a hundred dollars for the cause of religion. To-night they give a grand leap year ball, at  which a magnificent diamond ring is to be drawn, lottery fashion. Some of the most prominent lady members of the church are floor managers, and doubtless they will waltz a good amount of money out of those who attend. We presume the minister will be the beau of the ball, and all the ladies will vie with each other as to who shall have the honor of dancing with him. Thus do Christians in Joplin renounce the devil and all his work, and the vain pomp and glory of this world.

Joplin, though, did not meekly abide such criticism. Responding to the Miner and Mechanic, the editor of the Joplin Herald accused his counterpart at Neosho of being “pious and sanctimonious.”
This story, like my previous two blog entries, is condensed from my book Wicked Joplin.