Youngers & Pinkertons

I mentioned in a previous post a few months ago that I passed through Roscoe on my way to the Sedalia State Fair, and I noted at that time that Roscoe is near where the infamous Younger brothers had a shootout in March of 1874 with agents of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. I co-wrote an article about the shootout that appeared in Wild West Magazine a few years ago, and a similar version of the article appears as a chapter in my book about notorious incidents of the Ozarks.
One of the difficulties I encountered in researching the article was in trying to determine the exact route of the Chalk Level Road, along which the shootout and the events leading up to the shootout occurred. The Chalk Level Road going north out of Roscoe followed roughly the route of present-day Highway E but definitely not exactly the same route. For example, while modern-day Highway E skirts the eastern edge of Roscoe and then angles back to the northwest, the old Chalk Level Road did just the opposite--that is, it started from the center of Roscoe and angled northeast past the Theodrick Snuffer home, which sat almost a mile east of present-day Highway E.
I am currently working on a book about the battles of Newtonia, and I find that I am once again encountering difficulty determining the exact routes of old roads. The routes of some of the roads in and out of Newtonia are fairly well established, but figuring out the routes of others is an inexact science. As I understand it, section lines in Newton County were not drawn until after the Civil War; so most of the old roads simply followed the path of least resistance. But determining exactly where they ran is not easy, since Missouri road maps from the Civil War era are almost nonexistent.

Traveling to the Sedalia Fair

My wife and I made a trip from Joplin to the Missouri State Fair at Sedalia over the weekend, and, taking the shortest route (via Eldorado Springs) we passed through some interesting small towns along the way. Of course, small towns are my favorite kind, especially small towns of the Ozarks.
At Eldorado Springs, we took Highway 82 to Osceola, and along the way we passed through such wide places in the road as Roscoe, which is near the spot where the Younger brothers had their infamous shootout with Pinkerton agents in the spring of 1874. From Osceola, we followed 82 until we came to Highway 83, and we then took 83 into Warsaw, where we picked up Highway 65 for the rest of the trip to Sedalia. Neither Highway 82 nor Highway 83 is what one would call a good road. Both roads are relatively narrow and have a lot of curves and hills, but it is the shortest route.
Coming home, we took 65 all the way to Preston, where we picked up Highway 54 through Eldorado Springs, and then we got on Highway 71 at Nevada for the rest of the trip back. Not quite as eventful as the trip up, but we still saw some interesting little towns, like Weaubleau and Wheatland, and even came within seven miles of Elkton, the hometown of Sally Rand--the same place that I said in a post a couple of weeks ago that I had never visited. I was tempted to take a side trip to Elkton just to say I'd been there but decided I was in too big of a hurry to get home.
Oh, and we did stop at Collins, where we ate at Smith's Restaurant, home of the famous homemade pies. They were out of my favorite, coconut, though; so I didn't have dessert.
It was somewhat of a hectic trip, since we made the journey up and back in the same day, but still kind of fun, because I always enjoy getting out and seeing the Ozarks, especially parts of it that I don't normally visit on a regular basis.