The Officer Down Memorial Page at www.odmp.org is an interesting website commemorating law officers who have lost their lives in the line of duty. There are several interesting pages at this website about lawmen from the Ozarks region who have been killed in the line of duty. One, in particular, that caught my attention is a page about Bertie Brixey, who was sheriff of Webster County during the early 1910s. According to the Officer Down website, Brixey was killed on November 22, 1914, reportedly by his best friend, whom Brixey was trying to arrest for murder. Later the killer was supposedly lynched by a mob on the Marshfield square. It's fascinating story, if it's true, but so far I've been unable to confirm the more colorful details of the case. Sheriff Brixey was, indeed, killed (in Niangua) on November 22, 1914, but I haven't found anything yet to suggest that the killer was the sheriff's best friend or that he was later lynched on the square at Marshfield. The ODMP is normally pretty accurate, though, and I'm still looking. So, maybe I'll come up with something to confirm the rest of the story.
On a personal note, I've recently learned that my book entitled "Ozarks Gunfights and Other Notorious Incidents" should be released by Pelican Publishing within the next couple of months. Covering both the Old West era and the gangster era, the book describes 25 notorious incidents of the Ozarks, starting with Wild Bill Hickok's shootout on the Springfield square immediately after the Civil War and ending with Bill Cook's mass murder of the Mosser family in the mid twentieth century.
Information and comments about historical people and events of Missouri, the Ozarks region, and surrounding area.
Showing posts with label Niangua. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Niangua. Show all posts
Thursday, May 14, 2009
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Battlefield, Missouri
Battlefield is a small town a few miles southwest of Springfield a mile or so south of the James River Freeway (Highway 60). The town was la...
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The Ku Klux Klan, as most people know, arose in the aftermath of the Civil War, ostensibly as a law-and-order organization, but it ended up ...
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In 2006, I wrote an article for the now-defunct Ozarks Mountaineer about the history of Fantastic Caverns, and a few years later, I posted ...
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A few months ago, I wrote a brief entry about Eldorado Springs in Cedar County, Missouri, and I noted that it was one of many towns througho...