Bolivar's Greatest Day

I recently visited the RootsWeb genealogy site for Polk County, Missouri, and I noticed the site mentioned the dedication of the statue of Simon Bolivar that took place in Bolivar on July 5, 1948. I wrote an article about this event, sometimes referred to as "Bolivar's Greatest Day," a few years ago for the Ozarks Reader. After taking office earlier in 1948 as Venezuela's first popularly-elected president, Romulo Gallegos wanted to present a statue of Simon Bolivar to the U. S. as a gesture of good will. Bolivar, Missouri, was selected as the site for the presentation because it was one of the more populous towns in the U. S. that was named after Simon Bolivar, and July 5, the Venezuelan Independence Day and only one day after our own Independence Day, was selected as a fitting date. Both Gallegos and U. S. President Harry Truman were present for the occasion, as were the governor of Missouri and other dignataries. The town of Bolivar went all out in preparation for the event, and a crowd estimated as high as 60,000 people turned out. The statue was unveiled in Bolivar's Neuhart Park, and both presidents gave speeches. Perhaps the most memorable thing about the day, however, turned out to be the intense heat, as the temperature soared to near 100. In later years, according to legend, President Truman, who previously had been inclined to use the expression "hotter than hell" when talking about the weather, resorted instead to describing unbearably hot weather as "hotter than Bolivar."

West Plains Dance Hall Explosion

I've been reading a book by Lin Waterhouse entitled The West Plains Dance Hall Explosion. It's about a tragedy that occurred in West Plains, Missouri, on the night of Friday, April 13, 1928, in which 39 people were killed and numerous others injured. A dance was taking place on the second floor of a building on East Main Street just off the square when a tremendous explosion on the bottom floor of the same building (where an auto dealership was located) blew apart not only the building where the dance was taking place but also the two buildings on either side of the dance hall and set them on fire. The dancers, most of whom were young people from prominent families, were blown momentarily upward before plunging down into a large heap of burning debris. Many who were not killed by the initial explosion were trapped in the rubble and burned to death.
What is surprising to me is that, despite the magnitude of the tragedy and despite the fact that I'm a life-long resident of the Ozarks with an interest in the region's history, this is an event that I had never even heard about until the book came out a month or so ago. One of the points Ms. Waterhouse makes in the book, however, is that many people who survived the tragedy didn't like to talk about it, and it became almost a hush-hush subject in subsequent years. So, maybe that is partly why I'd never heard about it. Anyway, the book is interesting, particularly, I would think, for anyone who has a connection to West Plains.

Laclede County Rural Schools

Last time I listed a number of rural schools from the Greene County area that were present on a 1940s topographic map but that have long been gone. I have a similar map showing the southeastern part of Laclede County and a small chunk of western Pulaski County, and it, too, shows a whole slew of rural schools that no longer exist. The ones in Pulaski County are Prospect School, Fairview School, Cave Spring School, and Bellefonte School. The Laclede County schools listed on the map are Prairie Creek, Similin, Rippy, Crossroads, Stockdale, Brownfield, Mt. Salem, Oakland, Nurse, Simpson, Morehouse, Nelson, Harmony, Heard, Barnett, Delto, Franklin, Fairview (not to be confused with the school by the same name in Pulaski), and Success (not to be confused with the Success School in nearby Texas County, which, the last I knew, was still in existence). As far as I know, all of these small, rural schools in Pulaski and Laclede no longer exist. Again, if anybody out there attended one of these schools or knows anything about any of them, I'd be interested in hearing from you.

Rural Schoolhouses

Last time I talked about what I call relics of the rural past; one-room schoolhouses, rural post offices, and crossroads general stores, for example. Following up on that post, I dug out a detailed topographic map, dating from the 1940s, that used to belong to my dad. It was part of a series of such maps put out by the U. S. Geological Survey. This particular one covers the northeast part of Greene County, Missouri (including Fair Grove and Strafford), the western edge of Webster County, the southern part of Dallas, and the southeast corner of Polk. I was struck by the number of small, rural schools listed on the map that, as far as I know, do not exist today. They include Persimmon Grove School, Rock Prairie School, and Union Grove School in Polk County; Hasten School, New Garden School, Old Goss School, and Olive School in Dallas County; Bodenhammer School, Goss School (not to be confused with Old Goss School), Holman School, and Minor School in Webster County; and Bell View School, Hickory Barren School, Ingram School, Liberty School, Locust Prairie School, and Whitlock School in Greene County. And this, mind you, covers just a small area of about 18 by 14 miles.
Of the schools mentioned above the one that was closest to Fair Grove, where I grew up, was Hickory Barren. (Actually Old Goss School might have been slightly closer, but it was in Dallas County.)
I well remember when Hickory Barren closed and was consolidated with Fair Grove. I was starting third grade when the kids who had previously gone to Hickory Barren came to Fair Grove; so this would have been the fall of 1954. Most of the others probably closed about the same time or even earlier. If anybody knows anything about any of the other schools I've listed above, I'd enjoy hearing from you.
By the way, Elkland in Webster County, also falls within the boundaries of this map, and it used to have a high school that, sometime in the late 1950s, consolidated with Buffalo, Fair Grove, and Marshfield. For many years after that, it had only an elementary school, which was part of the Marshfield school system. I'm not sure whether Elkland still has a grade school or not.

Relics of the Rural Past

I have long been fascinated by what I call relics of the rural past. By that phrase, I mean institutions, buildings, and other objects that used to be common in rural areas and small towns but that are now either extinct or almost so. Examples are one-room schools, general stores, and rural post offices.
There was a time in America when almost every rural intersection of any importance at all had a general store and a post office. Some of the post offices operated as separate entities, but many were housed in the general store with the storekeeper often serving as the postmaster. Increased automobile travel and the rise of city supermarkets around the middle of the twentieth century spelled the doom of the general stores. The general store may have been convenient, but it couldn't compete with the cheaper prices that consumers could find at the supermarket. A number of factors, including the Unites States Post Office's desire to streamline its service, led to the demise of the rural post office about the same time that general stores were also disappearing from the scene.
One-room schools also used to dot the countryside, and some of the same factors that led to the passing of general stores, such as better roads and increased travel, also contributed to the disappearance of the one-room schools. It's not just rural one-room schoolhouses, though, that I tend to get nostalgic about. The movement in education toward school consolidation, especially during the early and middle 1900s, also left many small communities that formerly had high schools without such schools. Often when the school left, the town died, too. An example from my immediate area that comes readily to mind is the small community of Prosperity. At one time in the early 1900s, it was a booming little mining town with a two-year high school. The school consolidated with Webb City during the middle part of the twentieth century, and the town gradually died out to the point that very little remained except for the old, abandoned two-story school building. I remember taking pictures of the building and writing about it when it was little more than a deserted shell and the lot surrounding it was overgrown with weeds and brush. (The photo of Prosperity School accompanying this blog entry was taken during the mid to late 1970s.) About ten years ago the building was restored as a bed and breakfast, and it now looks nice and well maintained. I believe a couple of the rooms at the B&B are named for former teachers at the old Prosperity School.

Quantrill's Buried Treasure

According to Ward Schrantz's Jasper County in the Civil War, Quantrill and his large band of guerrillas (estimated at nearly 400 men) camped on Spring River near present-day Oronogo on the night of October 5, 1863, on the property of Judge Onstott as they were headed south to Texas just six weeks or so after the Lawrence Massacre. One of the judge's sons, Abraham Onstott, who was just a boy at the time, later claimed that a couple of members of the guerrilla band buried some valuables at the site that had been taken during the Lawrence raid. Years later, after it was concluded that the the men who buried the treasure were never coming back for it, a search for the buried cache was made but it could not be located.
Stories similar to this seem to abound in the Ozarks (and probably elsewhere as well). For instance, I think I recall hearing about some money taken in a bank or train robbery that Jesse James supposedly buried somewhere. I don't place much stock in most of the lore of buried treasures, but reading or hearing about the stories is still interesting.
By the way, on the morning after Quantrill's band camped in Jasper County, they crossed Shoal Creek at Grand Falls and turned west into Kansas, where they came upon an encampment of Federals stationed at an incomplete fort at Baxter Springs. After being repelled at the fort, they rode out on the prairie and met General James Blunt and his escort coming from Fort Scott. Thinking the guerrillas (many of whom were clad in Federal blue) composed a party sent out to greet him, Blunt was surprised and virtually annihilated at what became known as the Baxter Springs Massacre.

Winter's Bone

I had intended to read Winter's Bone a few years ago when it first came out but never got around to it. Then I recently saw the movie and decided I needed to get off my duff and finally read the book, too. I'm just now finishing it up.
Daniel Woodrell is an exellent writer, and I liked both the movie and the book. However, I have to agree with Dick from Blue Eye, Missouri, who, in the Mail Box section of the current issue of the Ozarks Mountaineer magazine, said that if the characterizations in the movie are true to Ozarks life, "those people need to stop reproducing immediately."
I think the type of people portrayed in Winter's Bone do exist in the Ozarks, and I would even agree that they might be more prevalent in the Ozarks than in some other parts of the country. However, I think what Winter's Bone does is give credence to the idea that violent, clannish people are common and, indeed, almost the norm in the Ozarks.
Although the fact that the people in Winter's Bone are involved in the illegal production, sale, and use of meth obviously contributes to their insularity and their suspicion of outsiders, the way they are portrayed in both the book and the movie, I think, still perpetuates the stereotype of Ozarkians as hillbillies. The only difference between now and a hundred years ago is that, instead of running moonshine stills, these modern-day hillbillies are manufacturing meth.
The fact is that, even though meth production and trade in Missouri and the Ozarks has become what law enforcement calls an epidemic, very few entire clans are involved in the activity as the Dollys are in Winter's Bone, and most people in the Ozarks, even those in isolated areas, are friendly and welcoming.