MISSOURI
// (! tittle tit the "Shtw Me" State
MISSOURI
A GUIDE TO THE "SHOW ME" STATE
Compiled by Workers of the Writers' Program
of the Work Projects Administration
in the State of Missouri
ILLUSTRATED
AMERICAN GUIDE SERIES
Sponsored by
The Missouri State Highway Department
DUELL, SLOAN AND PEARCE
NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT 1941 BY
THE MISSOURI STATE HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT
MISSOURI STATE HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT,
STATE-WIDE SPONSOR OF THE MISSOURI WRITERS' PROJECT
FEDERAL WORKS AGENCY
JOHN M. CARMODY, Administrator
WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION
HOWARD O. HUNTER, Acting Commissioner
FLORENCE KERR, Assistant Commissioner
B. M. CASTEEL, State Administrator
Library of Congress Cataloging: in Publication Data
Writers' Program. Missouri.
Missouri, a guide to the "Show Me n Stutt%
Original od. Issued in series: American guide series
Bibliography : p .
1. Missouri. 2. Missouri Description and travel-
Guide- books. 1. Series: American guide series,
F466.W85 1973 917.78' 04.' A 72-84486
ISBN 0-4.03-02175-8
EXECUTIVE OFFICE
STATC or MISSOURI
Zfl"^ Jf"so-C.rv
FOREWORD
The Missouri Guide Book fills a long apparent
need by presiding, in convenient form, a record of
communities large and small as they appear to the
native of the State. The traveler equipped with a
copy of The Guide Book will enjoy an Insight into
the history, customs, and general characteristics of
our towns and cities denied the uninformed visitors.
Within this volume also is found information
presented objectively and dispassionately, through
which may be traced the rise of the arto, the sciences,
industry, agriculture, architecture, and other phases
of Missouri* a cultural, social, and economic develop-
ment.
As Governor of Missouri, it is fitting that I
express tire appreciation of this State to the Federal
Work Projects Administration for creating The Missouri
Guide Book. As a project, It provided useful employ-
ment for many writers; as a publication, it promises
to publicise the many attractions of our State and to
stimulate a wholesome Interest among Mlssourians in
their native State.
Preface
Missourians are notoriously skeptical; they want the facts. Mis-
souri: A Guide to the "Show Me" State attempts to carry on the tradi-
tion. It presents as many facts about the State as the limited wordage
permitted. Because the State is unusually rich in history, because its
resources, its people, and its heritage are extremely varied, it has been
necessary to make a somewhat arbitrary choice from the wealth of col-
lected material which might have been included. Minor details had to
be omitted, descriptions curtailed, interesting legends discarded, for no
single volume has covers wide enough apart to contain all the people,
places, and things that make up the story of Missouri.
In collecting material for the book, members of the project have
had an opportunity to pioneer in the study of certain phases of Mis*
souri's development Field research has revealed architectural, art,
folklore, and music survivals, and historical details hitherto unexplored.
The sifting and selection of this material has been a delicate task, more
particularly because family, county, and State histories do not always
agree, even on such matters as dates; in describing and interpreting
events they frequently vary widely. Particularly is this true of his-
torians of the early period of exploration and of the turbulent Civil
War years in Missouri. Undoubtedly among the readers of Missouri:
A Guide to the "Show Me" State there will be some who can shed addi-
tional light upon the material presented. Suggestions from these will
be welcomed, for through them future editions of the book can be im-
proved.
The book is, as its title indicates, a guide, not a commentary. Every
effort has been made, not to editorialize, but to present the salient facts.
The book represents in a very real sense a collaboration of the people
of the State. Historians, teachers, librarians, and technical experts
from every county have given invaluable assistance. Just as important
has been the interested co-operation of farmers, business and professional
men, old settlers, county officials, newspapermen, and the many indi~
viduals who have kindly lent private papers and put up with visits to
their homes that this book may be as complete a guide as possible to the
State of Missouri.
It would be impossible for the editors to list here all who have
contributed toward the making of this book. To some few, however,
particular credit is due. The staff of the Missouri Highway Depart-
ment, official sponsor of the book, has made useful criticism, read end-
less copy, advised, encouraged, and shown unfailing interest. Maps
for the volume were made by John A. Bergman, who was "borrowed"
from the Highway Department. Members of the various Chambers
of Commerce throughout the State have ferreted out facts, taken pic-
tures, provided statistics, and checked copy with never-ending energy.
The staffs of the St. Louis Public Library, the St. Louis Mercantile
Library, the St. Louis Art Museum, the Missouri Historical Society,
and the State Historical Society of Missouri have given efficiently and
courteously whatever assistance was asked.
In addition, gratitude is due the following for their services as
consultants and technical advisors: Irving L. Dilliard, of the St. Louis
Post-Dispatch, who read a large part of the copy, and who wrote the
essay on People and Character; Professors Courtney Werner, L. F.
Thomas, Frank M. Webster, and W. G. B. Carson, and Assistant
Professor John Francis McDermott, all of Washington University;
Dean Frank L. Martin, and Professors H. M. Belden, Walter D.
Keller, C. T. Pihlblad, Jonas Viles, Maurice G. Mehl, and Jesse E.
Wrench, and Assistant Professor M. M. Brashear, all of the University
of Missouri; Charles E. Peterson, and John A. Bryan of the National
Park Service; Stella M. Drumm, of the Missouri Historical Society;
Dr. Kate L. Gregg, of Lindenwood College; Thomas B, Sherman, of
the St. Louis Post-Dispatch; Paul Alexander, of the Paris Mercury;
E. A. Mayes, of the State Park Board; Jewell Mayes, Commissioner
of the Department of Agriculture ; William W. Anderson, of the Mis-
souri State Planning Commission; Irwin T. Bode, of the Missouri
State Conservation Commission; Earl H. Shackelford, of the Depart-
ment of Labor and Industrial Inspection; W. M. Brandt, Secretary of
the Central Trades and Labor Union; Martin A. Dillmon, of the
St. Louis Union Labor Advocate; Richard Pilant, of Granby; Mon-
signor Charles L. van Tourenhout, and Mr, and Mrs, Jules F. Valle,
of Ste. Genevieve; Francis P. Douglas, of the KXOK News Room,
St. Louis; Major Albert Bond Lambert, McCune Gill, and Donald
D. Parker, of St. Louis; Dr. Edgar Anderson, Geneticist of the Mis-
souri Botanical Garden ; the Reverend C. J. Armstrong, of Hannibal ;
Will Morsey, of Warren County; Mrs. Robert S. Withers, of Liberty;
Professor Carl E. Schneider, of Eden Seminary; Professor W. G,
Polack, of Concordia Seminary; Harry R. Burke, of the St Louis
Globe Democrat; L. A. Kingsbury, of New Franklin ; Hazel Price, of
Glasgow; Ovid Bell, of Fulton; Mr. and Mrs. Clyde H. Porter, of
Kansas City; J. L. Ferguson, of Warrensburg; Edward Sowers, of the
Excelsior Springs Standard; Robert McCormlck Adams, of Webster
Groves; Clarence E. Miller, of the St. Louis Mercantile Library;
James Anderson, of the Native Sons of Kansas City Missouri; Judge
North Todd Gentry, of Columbia; Paul I. Wellman, of the Kansas
City Star; John R. Wallace, of Lexington; Robert H. Johnson, of
Palmyra; S. A. Burgess, Historian of the Reorganized Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter Day Saints, at Independence; and Dr, and Mrs. Her-
man von Schrenk, of Florissant.
Project workers in many branches of the Division of Public Activ-
ities Programs of the WPA have contributed to the interest and factual
accuracy of the book. Particular gratitude is due Dr. U. R. Bell, of
the Kentucky Writers' Project, and Gene Holcomb, of the Mississippi
Writers' Project, who assisted in an early period. We also thank
James W. Gilman, Parker T. van de Mark, and James R. Pheian of
the Illinois Writers' Project, for their help in the first stages of the
book, and the Missouri Historical Records Survey, which did much
to make the Guide possible. The sketches which enliven the pages of
the Guide were provided by the Missouri Art Project, under the direc-
tion of James D. McKenzie. The loyal interest of Eunice L. Stacer,
Dorothy Faye Davis, Alma M. Gilbert, Jessie Eckles, and Werner
Genot, of the Missouri Writers' Project, carried them through what
must frequently have been not only exacting but exceedingly tedious
work. The never failing assistance of Billie S. Jensen, project editor,
who patiently served as advisor and critic, is gratefully acknowledged.
Final work on the Guide was done with the editorial co-operation
of Harold Rosenberg, of the WPA Writers' Program.
CHARLES VAN RAVENSWAAY
State Supervisor
Missouri Writers' Project
Contents
FOREWORD, By Lloyd C. Stark, Governor of Missouri V
PREFACE vii
GENERAL INFORMATION xix
CALENDAR OF ANNUAL EVENTS XXV
Part I. The General Background
PEOPLE AND CHARACTER, By Irving L. Dlllard 3
LAND OF MISSOURI 12
ARCHEOLOGY AND INDIANS 29
HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT 39
AGRICULTURE 60
INDUSTRY, COMMERCE, AND LABOR 74
TRANSPORTATION 95
NEWSPAPERS AND RADIO 106
RELIGION 116
SPURTS AND RECREATION 126
FOLKLORE AND FOLKWAYS 131
LITERATURE 140
THE THEATER 150
Music 158
ART AND THE CRAFTS 167
ARCHITECTURE 178
Part IL Principal Cities
CAPE GIRARDEAU
COLUMBIA
HANNIBAL
JEFFERSON CITY
JOPLIN
KANSAS CITY
ST. CHARLES
STE. GENEVIEVE
ST. JOSEPH
ST. Louis
SPRINGFIELD
Part III. Tours
Toufv 1 (East St. Louis, 111.) St. Louis St. Charles Columbia
Boonville Concordia Kansas City k (Kansas City,
Kan.) [US 40]
Section a. Illinois Line to Columbia
Section b. Columbia to Kansas Line
TOUR 1A Junction with US 40 Augusta Warrenton [State 94,
State 47]
TOUR 2 (Quincy, 111.) Taylor Florida Paris Brunswick
Lexington Kansas City (Kansas City, Kan.)
[US 24]
TOUR 3 (Shepherd, 111.) Hannibal Macon St. Joseph (Troy,
Kan.) [US 36]
TOUR 4 (East St. Louis, 111.) St. Louis Jefferson City Sedalia
Kansas City (Kansas City, Kan.) [US 50]
Section a. Illinois Line to Jefferson City
Section b. Jefferson City to Kansas Line
TOUR 5 (East St. Louis, III.)- St. Louis Rolla Springfield
Joplin (Galena, Kansas) [US 66]
Section a. Illinois Line to Rolla
Section b. Rolla to Kansas Line
TOUR 6 (Cairo, III) Poplar Bluff Cabool Springfield No*ho
(Vinita, Okla.) [US 60]
Section a. Illinois Line to Cabool
Section b. Cabool to Oklahoma Line
199
207
216
225
233
241
260
269
282
293
329
339
361
366
380
389
405
TOUR 7 (Keokuk, Iowa) Cantoa HannibaS Bowling Green
Kirkwood Bonne Terre Farmington Jackson
Sikeston New Madrid Caruthersvllle (Blytheville,
Ark.) [US 61] 438
Section a. Iowa Line to Kirkwood
Section b. Kirkwood to Jackson
Section c. Jackson to Arkansas Line
TOUR 8 (Bloomfield, la.) Macon Moberly Columbia Jefferson
City Rolla Cabool (Mammoth Spring, Ark.)
[US 63] 4^0
Section a. Iowa Line to Jefferson City
Section b, Jefferson City to Arkansas Line
TOUR 9 (Des Moines, la.) -South Lineville Carrollton Wav-
er ]y Sedalia Preston Buffalo Springfield Hollis-
ter (Little Rock, Ark.) [US 65] 473
Section a. Iowa Line to Sedalia
Section b. Sedalia to Arkansas Line
TOUR 10 (Council Bluffs, la.) Maryville St. Joseph Kansas
City Harrisonville Butler Rich Hill Nevada
Lamar Carthage (Fort Smith, Ark.) [US 275,
US 71] 488
Section a. Iowa Line to Kansas City
Section b. Kansas City to Carthage
Section c, Carthage to Arkansas Line
TOUR 10A (Des Moines, la.) Bethany Pattonsburg- Plattsburg
Excelsior Springs (Kansas City, Kan.) [US 69]
TOUR 11 Junction US 61 Jackson Dexter Cardwell (Paragould,
Ark.) [State 25]
TOUR 12 Junction US 61 Fredericktown Greenville Poplar Bluff
(Corning, Ark.) [US 67]
ToUR 13 Junction US 61 Pestus De Soto Potosi Centerville
Doniphan (Pocahontas, Ark.) [State ax A, State 31] 533
TOUR 14 Junction US 66 Cuba Salem Eminence Winona
Junction US 63 [State 19] 544
ToUR 15 (Springfield, 111.)- Louisiana Vandalia Mexico Fulton
Jefferson CHty Eldon Camdenton Hermitage
Eldorado Springs Nevada (Fort Scott, Kan.)
[US 54] 552
Section a, Illinois Line to Jefferson City
Section b. Jefferson City to Kansas Line
TOUR ISA Junction US 54 Camdenton Gravois Mills Versailles
Tipton- Junction 0S 50 [State 5] 57
Part IF. Appendices
CHRONOLOGY 577
SELECTIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY 596
INDEX 629
Illustrations
"OLD MISSOURI"
(Between pages 32 and 33)
Stump Speaker Jesse James 1 Reception
Panel from Missouri Mural, by Portrait of Dred Scott
Thomas Hart Benton The Battlc^pf Lexington
Pioneer Life in Missouri Jefferson City
Interior of Flatboat St. Joseph
Col. Daniel Boone Louisiana Purchase Exposition
Massacre of Mormons at Haun's Missouri Dawn, by William E, L.
Mill Bunn
Mark Twain at Hannibal
THE MISSOURI AND THE MISSISSIPPI
(Between pages 62 and 63)
The Missouri River Interior of the Grand Republic
Up Stream on the Mississippi Modern Excursion Boat
The Levee at St. Louis Steamboat and Eads Bridge, St.
Kansas City Louis
St. Louis Levee Airview of the Mississippi
Municipal Docks, St. Louis Lock and Dam across Upper Missis-
"Stcrnwhcclcr" sippi
The Grand Republic Flood Control
Flooded Farmland
INDUSTRY
(Between pages 92 and 93)
Electric Shwel Loading tt4 Qjr ? , Wtoe vats,
Ore Trairi i Cfeai^pagrte CeUarjt St
HISTORIC BUILDINGS
(Between pages 186 and iSj)
Old Cathedral of St. Louis Holman House, Caledonia
Birthplace of Jesse James Stairway, Locke Hardeman House
Spring House, Daniel Boone Home- Carl Strehley House, Hermann
stead Wathen-Ranney House, Cape Girar-
Old Colony Tannery, Bethel ^ deau
Interior, Old Home of Ccmcordia Rails County Courthouse, New Lon-
Seminary don Drawing Room, Selma Hall
ST. LOUIS: KANSAS CITY
(Between pages 248 and 249)
The Meeting of the Waters, by Carl Civil Courts Building, St. Louis
Milles Municipal Auditorium, Kansas City
City Art Museum, St. Louis Union Station, Kansas City
Lucas Sunken Garden, St. Louis Country Club District, Kansas City
St. Mark's Episcopal Church, St. Nelson Art Gallery and Atkins Mu-
Louis seum, Kansas City
Eleventh St., Kansas City Swope Park, Kansas City
"Muny" Opera St. Louis
IN THE CITIES AND TOWNS
(Between pages 310 and 311)
Str.te Capital, Jefferson City "Old Settlers" Parade, Independ-
Bolduc House, Ste. Genevieve ence
Hermann House, Kimmswick Stores on the Square, Buffalo
Campus Scene, Univ. of Missouri, Thespian Hall, Boonville
Columbia School of Journalism, Columbia
Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, Han- Hall of Waters, Excelsior Springs
nibai The County Traveling Library
Civics Class, Springfield
THE FARMLANDS
(Between pages 372 and 373)
Missouri Mules Herefords
Horse Show Chopping Cotton
Cattle Buying Sharecropper Cabins
Farm Auction Farmer
Silos Tobacco Barn
Wheat Field In the Cotton Field
IN THE HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS
(Between pages 466 and 467)
Lake Taneycomo in the Ozarks Cabin in the Qzarks
The Swimming Hole, Bennett Spring Baptising at Bennett Spring
State Park Sewing Cobs for Pipes
Greer Springs Stripping Cypress Tree
Bagnell Dam and the Lake of the Weaving a Coverlet
Ozarks Ozark Pottery Maker
Post Office, Hilda Ready for an Ozark Fox Hunt
Maps
KANSAS CITY 251
STE. GENEVIEVE 275
ST. JOSEPH 289
ST. Louis 307
ST. Louis AND VICINITY 323
TOUR MAP 338
LAKE OF THE OZARKS AND VICINITY 564
STATE MAP 613-627
General Information
Railroads: Atdhison, Topeka & Santa Fe Ry.; Alton R.R. ; Chicago,
Burlington & Quincy R.R. ; Chicago Great Western R.R. ; Chicago,
Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific R.R. ; Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific
Ry. ; Kansas City Southern Ry. ; Missouri-Kansas-Texas Lines (Katy) ;
Missouri Pacific Lines; Quincy, Omaha & Kansas City R.R. ; St. Louis-
San Francisco Ry. (Frisco) ; St, Louis Southwestern Ry, (Cotton
Belt) ; Wabash R.R, Railroads entering the State only at terminals:
At St* Louis- Baltimore & Ohio R.R* ; Chicago & Eastern Illinois Ry. ;
New York Central System (Big Four) ; Illinois Central System; Illi-
nois Terminal R.R.; Louisville & Nashville R.R.; Mobile & Ohio
R.R.; New York, Chicago & St. Louis Ry. (Nickel Plate Road);
Pennsylvania R.R.; Southern Railway System. At Kansas City
Union Pacific R.R.
Highways:: Five major highways cross the State from N. to S,, five
from E. to W., two from NE. to SW., all paved. A network of roads
brings every point in the State within ten miles or less, airline, of a
national or State highway. Federal gasoline tax 2*/^, State, 2^; addi-
tional tax in many incorporated towns.
Bus Lines: Affiliated Greyhound Lines; Missouri Transit Lines; M,
C. Foster Bus Line; Missouri, Kansas & Oklahoma Trailways; Mis-
souri Pacific Trailways; Missouri-Arkansas Coach Lines; Santa Fe
Traiiways; De Luxe Motor Stages; Tri-State Transit Co.; Crown
Coach Lines; Jefferson Transportation Co.; Interstate Transit Lines;
Burlington Trailways ; Kansas and Oklahoma Coach Lines ; All- Ameri-
can Bus Lines; Arkansas Motor Coaches; numerous small lines through-
out the State.
Air Lines: American Airlines (New York to Los Angeles) stop at
St. Louis en route SW, and W. ; Mid-Continent Airlines at Kansas
City and St. Joseph ; Transcontinental & Western Air, Inc. ( New York
to Los Angeles) at St. Louis and Kansas City; Chicago and Southern
Air Lines (Chicago to New Orleans) stop at St. Louis; Marquette Air
Lines (St. Louis to Detroit) headquarters at St. Louis; Braniff Air-
ways at Kansas City. Charter service available at St. Louis, Kansas
City, Columbia, Hannibal, Jefferson City, Joplin, St. Joseph, Spring-
field, and other points.
Waterways: Barge and towboat service is maintained on the Missis-
sippi River from St. Louis. Barges run N. to the Illinois River, thence
to Chicago. The Missouri River is navigable from West Alton, Mo.,
to Kansas City, Mo., with barge service maintained. The Streckfus
Company and the Golden Eagle Packet Company, operating from St
Louis, maintain excursion steamboat service on the Mississippi from
spring until fall.
Traffic Regulations: Motorists govern their own speed, consistent With
safety, to environs of cities and towns. Highways are well marked.
Each city and town makes its own traffic regulations; speed limit signs
are usually posted at corporate limits. Drivers minimum age 1 6 must
have license from their home State. Watch for signs along highway
warning of "open range" (country in which livestock is permitted to
run fcee). Extreme caution should be used in passing school busses.
Detailed information available from State Highway Department, auto-
mobile clubs, and chambers of commerce.
Accommodations: Acceptable meals and living quarters, from large
hotels to small tourist and trailer camps, in all sections. Hotel or
camping facilities at most State Parks, National Forests, and other
recreational areas. There is one dude ranch, open all year, 4 m. west
of Birch Tree on US 60, then north a short distance on supplementary
route M.
General Tourist Service: Local chambers of commerce, the State
Chamber of Commerce at Kansas City, automobile clubs, hotels, and
service stations supply maps and information on travel, resorts, accom-
modations, and road conditions. The Ozark Playgrounds Association,
Joplin, and the Lake of the Ozarks Association, Lake Ozark, provide
information on the Ozark recreational region. Traffic regulations may
be obtained from the State Highway Department; game laws from the
State Conservation Commission; and State park information from the
State Park Board, all at Jefferson City.
Climate and Equipment; In summer, light clothing Is worn In every
section, although nights in the highlands arc cool and topcoats arc use-
ful. In winter heavy clothing is necessary in all parts of the State. .
Equipment for hiker, hunter, swimmer, or picnicker may be obtained
in all cities and near most recreational areas,
State Parks: Alley Spring (Shannon County), from State 19 on State
106; Arrow Rock (Saline County), from US 40 on State 41; Dr.
Edmund A. Babler Memorial (St. Louis County), from US 50 on
State 109; Bennett Spring (Laclede and Dallas Counties), from US 66
on State 64; Big Lake (Holt County), from US 59 on State in;
Big Oak Tree (Mississippi County), on County A; Big Spring (Carter
County), from US 60 on State 103; Chesapeake (Lawrence County),
on State 14; Crowder (Grundy County ) 3 from US 65 on State 6;
Cuivre River (Lincoln County), from US 61 on State 47; Lake of the
Ozarks (Miller and Camden Counties), from US 54 on County D
and S; Lewis and Clark (Buchanan County), from US 59 on State
45; Mark Twain (Monroe County), from State 26 on State 107;
Meramec (Franklin County), from US 66 on State 114; Montauk
(Dent County), from State 32 on State 119; Mootserrat (Johnson
County), on US 50; Pershing (Linn County), on US 36; Roaring
River (Barry County), from State 37 on State XI2; Round Spring
(Shannon County), on State 19; Sam A. Baker (Wayne County),
from State 34 on State 101 ; Sequiota (Greene County), on US 60 and
US 65; Van Meter- (SaKne County), from State 41 on State 122;
Wallace (Clinton County), from US 69 on State 121; Washington
(Washington County), on State 21; Fort Zumwalt (St. Charles
County), on US 40.
State Wild Life Refuges: Deer Run (Reynolds County), on State 21 ;
Indian Trail (Dent County), from State 19 on State 117.
State Reservation (not developed): Rockwoods (St. Louis County),
from US 66 or US 50, on County B,
Federal Wild Life Refuses: Squaw Creek (Holt County), State 118;
Swan Lake (Chariton County), county roads from US 36; Mingo
Swamp (Stodclard County), State 51.
National Forests: Clark, in southeastern portion of State, consisting
of the Meramec, St. Francois, Wappapello, and Fristoe divisions ; Mark
Twain, in the south central portion of the State, consisting of the
Gasconade, Gardner, Pond Fork, and Table Rock divisions (see State
Highway Map).
Other Recreational Sections: Arcadia Valley (Iron County), State
21, 32, and 70; Black River Region (Reynolds, Wayne, and Butler
Counties), US 60 and 67, and State 21 and 53; Eldorado Springs
(Cedar County), US 54, and State 64 and 8a; Excelsior Springs
(Clay County), US 69 and State 10; Gasconade River (Pultski,
Pfaelps, Maries, Osage, and Gasconade Counties), US 50, 63, 66, tnd
State 17, and 28; Lake Taneycomo (Tancy County), US 65, and
State 76, 80, 86, and 123; Osage River Region (St. Clair and Cedar
Counties), US 54, and State 13, 64, and 82; and the Shepherd of the
Hills Country (Stone and Taney Counties), State 13, 39, 44* 8o ?
and 86.
Fire Prevention: Fire hazard is considerable in both wooded areas
and prairie regions. Tourists and campers are warned against drop-
ping lighted matches and cigarettes. State law and national forest
regulations require that fires be controlled, and all campfires extin-
guished before leaving.
State Hunting and Fishing Laws (digest] : Licenses to hunt and fish
are required of all persons over 17. Combination hunting and fishing
permit, $2.50; hunting permit, $2; fishing permit, $i. Additional fees
for non-residents of Missouri. Licenses obtainable by residents of St.
Louis at License Collector's office at City Hall, and at leading sporting
goods stores ; by non-residents, at City Hall only. Outside St. Louis,
from county clerks and appointed agents. Information on open and
closed season, bag limits, etc., supplied where license is obtained.
Liquor Regulations: State law requires closing of liquor establishments
from i :3<>6 a.m. weekdays ; midnight Saturday to midnight Sunday,
Municipalities may shorten hours of sale. By package only in cities
under 20,000. Sale to minors forbidden.
Miscellaneous: Digging in archeological sites, picking flowers, or
chopping trees in State and national forests and parks is prohibited;
also the destruction of trees and shrubs along highways. No formations
or geological specimens may be broken from caves in State parks.
Admission to Private Houses: Only a few houses in the State are
maintained as museums and open to the public during stated hours.
The majority are "open upon application," that is, by invitation of the
owners. These Missourians are happy to receive the courteous visitor,
even though he may be a stranger, provided that he appears at a rea-
sonable hour, preferably in the mid-afternoon, and does not stay too
long. Houses described in this book as "private 1 * are not open to the
public.
What to Eat in Missouri: In Missouri, as in other States where
entertaining in one's own home is a tradition, the food in private
homes generally excels that in restaurants. Local cookery is a happy
blend of various racial traditions. The French have contributed in-
tricate sauces and soups, and the wide use of vegetables and native
herbs. Certain families still serve crepes on the proper feast days, and
croquignoles. German immigrants have introduced cheese cake, potato
cakes, wienerschnitzel, smoked sausage, and an endless variety of Christ-
mas cookies. The South has added beaten biscuits, pork sausage, smoked
hams, spring greens, and corn dodgers. River catfish is frequently
served, as well as Ozark trout and bass. Several varieties of exception-
ally fine apples, Jonathan, Grimes Golden, Red and Golden Delicious,
and the piquant "Lady Apple," can be purchased from roadside stands
in many portions of the State.
Calendar of Annual Events
JANUARY
No fixed date at St. Louis American Artists Exhibit
No fixed date at St. Louis Orchid Display, Missouri Bo-
tanical Garden
FEBRUARY
First at St. Joseph Clover and Prosperity Confer-
ence
No fixed date at St. Louis Golden Gloves Boxing Tour-
nament
No fixed date at Kansas City Hospital Charity Ball
No fixed date at Kansas City Better Homes and Flower
Show
No fixed date at Springfield Creative Arts Conference for
Southwest Missouri High
School Students
MARCH
Seventeenth atRolla St. Patrick's Day Celebration
Last week at Columbia State High School Basketball
Tournament
Late at St. Louis Mississippi Valley Kennel Club
All-Breed Dog Show
No fixed date at Kansas City National Intercollegiate Bas-
ketball Tournament
No fixed date at St. Louis Ozark A*A.U. Boxing Cham-
pionship
No fixed date at Kansas City International Pood Fair
No fixed date at St. Louis Greater St Louis Flower and
Garden Show
No fixed date at Kansas City Beaux Arts Bali
No fixed date at Springfield All Ozark Artists Exhibit
APRIL
Third
First week
Midmonth
Third week
Last week
Last week
No fixed date
No fixed date
No fixed date
No fixed date
No fixed date
at St. Joseph
at Cape Girardeau
at Columbia
at Jefferson City
at Joplin
at Columbia
at Springfield
at Columbia
at Kansas City
at Kansas City
at St. Louis
Pony Express Commemoration
Midwestern Folk Drama Festi-
val
State High School Debate
Tournament
Missouri Rural School Exhibit
Fiesta
Missouri Interscholastic Week
Southwest Missouri High
School Students* Music Fes-
tival
Missouri State Historical So-
ciety Meeting and Banquet
Negro Fashion Show
Sportsmen's Horse Show and
Exposition
Fontbonne College Horse Show
MAY
Firs f Sunday at St. Louis
Fourth-tenth
First week
Early
Pentecost Monday
Third Sunday
Last two weeks
TVenty-sixith-
twenty-seventh
Last week
No fixed date
No fixed date
No fixed date
No fixed date
No fixed date
No fixed date
at Warrensburg
at Columbia
at St. Joseph
at Warrenton
at Starkenburg
at St. Louis
at Poplar Bluff
at Joplin
at Excelsior
Springs
at St. Louis
at Cape Girardeau
at St. Louis
at Kansas City
at Springfield
Flower Service at Christ
Church
National Music Week
University of Missouri Jour-
nalism Week
Apple Blossom Festival
Schuetzenfest
Pilgrimage to Shrine of Our
Lady of Sorrows
Iris Show at Missouri Botani-
cal Garden
Ozark Jubilee
Smile Girl Contest
Midwest Bridge Tournament
Spring Horse Show
May Festival
Hole -In -One Golf Tourna-
ment
Heart of America Good Will
Golf Tournament
Rodeo
JUNE
First Sunday
First Thursday
after Trinity
Sunday
First Sunday after
Trinity Sunday
Commencement
week
Last week
No fixed date
No fixed date
at St. Louis
at Ste. Genevieve
No fixed date
at Florissant
at Druesdale Farms
near Columbia
at Arcadia
at St. Joseph
at St. Louis and
Kansas City
alternately
at Grain Valley
Rose Garden Display at Mis-
souri Botanical Garden
Feast of Corpus Christi Proces-
sion
Feast of Corpus Christi Proces-
sion
Christian College Horse Show
Methodist Assembly (three
weeks) begins
Municipal Opera
Missouri Golf Championship
Tournament
Sni- A - Bar Farm Demonstra-
tions
JULY
No fixed date at Kansas City
Kansas City Golf Open Tour-
nament
First week
Last two weeks
Third week
No fixed date
No fixed date
No fixed date
No fixed date
No fixed date
No fixed date
No fixed date
No fixed date
AUGUST
at Vichy Revival Meetings at Church of
God Camp Grounds
at Sedalia Missouri State Fair
near Stockton Fox Hunt
California Moniteau County Fair
atKahoka Clark County Fair
at St Louis Water Lily Display at Mis-
souri Botanical Garden
at Dover "August Meeting" of the Chris-
tian Church
at Butler Little Bit and Bridle Show
at St, Louis Municipal Rowing Regatta
at Charleston Watermelon Festival
AUGUST OR SEPTEMBER
at Eldon Lake of the Ozarks Horse Show
SEPTEMBER
First wtek
First week
Second Sunday
Early
Twelfth-fifteenth
at Fulton
at St. Joseph
at Starkenburg
at Jackson
at Kearney
No fixed date at Kansas City
No fixed date
No fixed date
No fixed date
No fixed date
at Kansas City
at St. James
at Concordia
at Excelsior
Springs
Horse and Cattle Show and
Street Fair
Four-State Harvest Festival
Pilgrimage to Shrine of Our
Lady of Sorrows
Homecoming Celebration
Missouri Valley Fox Hunters*
Association Fox Hunt
Guadelupe Fiesta (Mexican
Colony)
Outdoor Art Fair
Grape Festival and Homecom-
ing
Fall Festival
Mulesta
SEPTEMBER OR OCTOBER
No fixed date at Springfield Ozark Empire Fair (regional)
OCTOBER
First
First week
First week
First Sunday
at Mountain
Grove
at St. Louis
at St. Joseph
near Salem
First Tuesday af- at St. Louis
ter first Monday
Night after parade at St. Louis
Twenty- sixth at St. Louis
Last week at Columbia
No fixed date at Cape Girardeau
No fixed date
No fixed date
No fixed date
at Benton
at Joplin
at Lake of the
Ozarks
National Egg Laying Contest
(52 weeks) begins
National Horse Show
Baby Beef and Pig Show
Convention of Christian Har-
mony Singing School
Veiled Prophet's Parade
Veiled Prophet's Ball
National Home Show
Farmers' Week, College of
Agriculture, University of
Missouri
Southwest Missouri Teachers*
Association Convention
Neighbor Day
Tri-State Kennel Club Show
Fishing Rodeo
OCTOBER. continued
No fixed date
No fixed date
First
First Sunday
Thanksgiving
(odd year)
Twenty-second
Late
Thirtieth
No fixed date
Sixth
Thirty-first
Thirty-first
Late
No fixed date
at Kansas City
at Farm Valley
American Royal Horse Show
Sni - A - Bar Farm Demonstra-
tions
NOVEMBER
atTaos All Souls' Eve Graveyard Pro-
cession
at St. Louis Chrysanthemum Shows, Mis-
souri Botanical Garden and
Jewel Box
at Columbia Homecoming Football Game
at St. Joseph Christmas Parade
at St. Louis Automobile Show
at Hannibal Mark Twain's Birthday Cele-
bration
at Kansas City Automobile Show
DECEMBER
atTaos Feast of St. Nicholas Celebra-
tion
at Ste, Genevieve La Guignolee Festival
and Old Mines
at New Hamburg German New Year Festival
at St, Louis Silver Skates Tournament
at St. Louis Poinsettia Displays, Jewel Box
and Missouri Botanical Gar-
den
PARTI
Tune Background
by IRVING L. DILLIARD
THE spare Ozark hillman, with his rabbit gun and dog, is a
Missouriao. So is the weathered open-country farmer; the
prosperous cotton planter ; the subsistence sharecropper with his
stairsteps family; the drawling sawmill hand; the scientific orchardist
reading his bulletins from the fruit experiment stations ; the lead miner ;
the hustling small-town merchant; the Kansas City business man; the
St. Louis industrialist with one eye on Jefferson City and the other on
Washington ; the smiling filling station attendant who talks to everyone
crossing the continent; the silent riverman who lives in a shanty boat
and sees almost nobody all are Missourians. Most of them say
"needier," some say ^nuther," and a few in the fashionable residential
sections affect the Atlantic seaboard's "nyther."
Missourians have come from unnumbered places from the State's
unusually large group of bordering neighbors : Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska,
Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Kentucky; from Ohio,
Pennsylvania, New York, and New England* They have come from
the Carolinas and from Virginia Howard County is a "Little Vir-
ginia" and there are other counties which are transplantations of
peoples and habits of life from the Mother South. Missouri has fifth
and sixth and seventh generation stock, as permanent as the rocks eve^y-
where in its boundaries. But it also has, if to a much lesser extent,
migrants here today and gone tomorrow. *-**
The State is an amalgam of Old World ingredients. It is German
at vine-draped Bethel, immaculate Hermann, quiet Washington with its
bright gardens, and Dutzow which the Berlin Emigration Society
founded in 1832. German customs prevail in the white frame houses
of New Hamburg, and Altenburg today is not unlike the religious colony
which 600 Lutheran Saxons established more than a century ago. West-
phalia keeps the name of the solid folk who settled along the Big Maries
River, Waldensians developed Veronaj and Bavarians built the homes
on the hillside at Rich Fountain. Ste. Genevieve, St. Louis, and Old
Mines are French in origin. Hawk Point is Bohemian. Taos is Bel-
gian; Vienna, Irish, Other communities have Scotch-Irish, Welsh,
Swiss, and Portuguese backgrounds. The wines of Rosati are pressed
from grapes tended by Italians, St. Louis has its Dago Hill, its Kerry
Patch, its Baden and German South Side; its Czechs and Bohemians,
4 MISSOURI
its families from the changing subdivisions of the Balkan peninsula ; Its
closely packed, happy-go-lucky Negro sections, exulting in Joe Louis,
and proud of Marian Anderson and Paul Robeson and swingband
leaders.
The countryside of Missonri Is as varied as its people. It is the halt-
wild, rugged, valley-cut Ozark plateau worn down from ancient moun-
tain 'heights, where darkness drops quickly on cabin dooryards. It Is
the rich delta of the "boot heel," where great cypress trees are still com-
ing down to make cotton acreage on the State's last agricultural frontier.
It is blue-grass pasture and rolling orchard and the checkerboard of
wheat and corn prairie. It Is eroded bluff country which follows the
waterways and the alluvial bottom land that fringes them. It h far-
spreading areas marked by towering remains of mining operations, vast:
mountains by day and ghostly shapes in the moonlight. It is mile OR
mile of municipal asphalt and two-family flats and apartment houses*
of stores, and office buildings and warehouses.
* Missouri is a network of great rivers and magnificent streams. 4 The
Father of Waters washes every inch of the eastern boundary f rom Keo*
kuk to below Caruthersville. The milk chocolate Missouri goes cease-
lessly about its age-old task of transporting the sunrise slope of the Rocky
Mountains to the Gulf of Mexico. Always cold, the turbulent Cur-
rent River falls seven feet to the mile. Here, too, flow the misnamed
Black River, bright and clear, with its fishing pools and stave milk;
the Gasconade, blue-green and bluff-walled, favorite subject of artists
and photographers; the Grand River, the White, the Big PIney, the
Little Piney, the St. Francis, the Meramec, the Osage, named for
the Indians who lived along its banks in the lyoos.
Missouri has mighty springs that start rivers full grown, and daz-
zling caves which underground watercourses sculptured eons ago, Big
Spring near Van Buren, rushing from its limestone cliff, is one of the
great sights of outdoor America. In the first room of Meramec Cavern
300 automobiles may be parked. Through Missouri Caverns the Lost
River searches its way to the light. In other caves are wonderful
chambers, and stalagmites and stalactites hundreds of feet underground.
; In Maytime the wild crab blooms in Missouri. June and July see
the tasseled corn reaching higher at the end of each day. Its Indian
Summer is the best in the world when minted pumpkins arc piled
among the fodder tepees and sheep crop the late grass and the woods
are scarlet and gold and purple and brown ; when the valleys are filled
with white mist in the mornings and steeped with blue haze as the
sun sinks. Missouri has zero weather, too* and driving, swirling, drift-
ing snow from the Northwest that covers fences and hides rural mail
boxes and packs in the city streets. It has high wind blowing dust from
Kansas and Oklahoma; long weeks of drouth when gardens droop and
PEOPLE AND CHARACTER 5
pastures turn brown and ponds recede. It has day after day of soaking
rain which sends rivers on rampages and bottom dwellers to higher
ground.
Doves and quail and pheasants are at home in Missouri, and ducks
and geese and great flocks of strutting turkeys; flashing cardinals and
screaming bluejays, larks and thrushes and scores of songsters; circling
hawks and wheeling buzzards. Black bass and fighting smallmouthed
bass, goggle eye, rainbow trout, perch, blue gills, crappie, and channel
cat are caught in its streams, where turtles sun themselves on logs and
bullfrogs croak after* dark. In its woods are rabbits and squirrels,
muskrats and raccoons, opossums and minks and foxes; also occasional
bobcats and now and then a wolf. Deer are on the increase. Saddle
and draft horses are raised on model breeding farms, and Missouri's
mule, tough-skinned hybrid holding its own as a beast of heavy burden
even against the coming of machinery, is world famous. The intelli-
gent Missouri hound dog is known to sportsmen throughout the Nation.
Hickory and elm and cedar stand around Rolla; oak and pawpaw
and cottonwood between Cane Creek and Cabool; cypress and maple
and gum below Poplar Bluff; pine and hawthorn and redbud and
dogwood along the Henry Shaw Gardenway; sassafras and sumac on
countless hills. Acres of peonies spread around Sarcoxie ; roses and
dahlias and four o'clocks crowd the German gardens at Washington;
blazing hollyhocks blow in the wind on Cardiff Hill. And the State
is everywhere daubed with wake robin, skunk cabbage, bluebells, wild
hyacinth, bloodroots and Jack-in-the-pulpit in spring; with larkspur,
pale blue chickory, cornflowers, and black-eyed Susan; with Queen
Anne's lace, dog fennel, pennyroyal, golden rod, and mallows in sum-
mer and autumn.
^'Missouri's eating is as good as it comes. Boone County ham
steaks and red ham gravy, ham baked in milk, barbecued ribs and back-
bone, authentic country sausage and genuine head cheese ; fried chicken
and baked chicken and chicken pie and dumplings and chicken soup,
eggs from the henhouse and bacon from the smokehouse; sauerkraut
with squabs, and turnips with spareribs, spring greens from the yard
and roadside, and green beans with fat pork bush beans as long as
they last and then long pole beans until frost. Missouri tables are
loaded with dish on dish of berries strawberries, blackberries, raspber-
ries, floating in cream; with Jonathans, Grimes Goldens, Winesaps,
Black Twigs, Delicio.us; apple pie, apple cobbler, apple strudel, baked
apples and fried apples; homegrown tomatoes and watermelons arid
horseradish grown in the country's horseradish center; an endless num-
ber of pickles, always including pickled peaches and "end-of-the-garden" ;
vast varieties of jellies and preserves ; persimmons sweetened and whit-
ened by frost; popovers, wheatcakes and honey, piping hot biscuits and
6 MISSOURI
melting butter and molasses ; fruit shortcake always with biscuit dough ;
cornbread from yellow meal without so much as one grain of sugar.
Missouri has given American politics some of its most characteristic
types: "Old Bullion" Thomas Hart Benton and his Thirty Years*
View; "Silver Dick" Bland going back to Congress election after elec-
tion from the Ozarks to work for free coinage of silver; Edward Bates ?
Lincoln's trusted Attorney-General; and Franklin P. Blair, battling
the hated "test oath." The corncob pipe and linen duster of Francis
Marion Cockreli, Confederate soldier, were known to the Senate from
1875 to 1905. "Gum Shoe Bill" Stone voted against the declaration
of war in 1917. Champ Clark occupied the Speaker's rostrum during
the World War years, while James A. Reed laid on the lash from the
Senate floor. Whisky Ring scandals, Ed Butler and the Boodle Ring,
Tom Pendergast in Kansas City, are other configurations familiar in
the American political scene; as well as Lloyd C* Stark and Maurice
M. Milligan leading an aroused citizenry against bossism. So, too,
William Henry Hatch devoting his eight terms in the House of Repre-
sentatives to creating the Bureau of Animal Husbandry and govern-
ment-maintained agricultural experiment stations. Behind these per*
sonages lies the frontier democracy which George Caleb Bingham
painted and upon which Mark Twain meditated.
v Missouri's literature has been rich and varied Tom Sawyer* and
Little Boy Blue; The Crisis, The Shepherd of the Hills, The Voice of
Bugle Ann, and West of the Water Tower?" Reedy* s Mirror introduced
American readers to Lord Dunsany and Conrad and Galsworthy, and
presented for the first time such native writers as Zoe Atkins, Fannie
Hurst, Edgar Lee Masters, John Gould Fletcher, Sara Teasdale, Julia
Peterkin and Orrick Johns, many of them Missourians. William Tor-
rey Harris* Journal of Speculative Philosophy printed the first English
translations of works of Hegel and Fichte and Schelling, and afforded
the setting for the literary debut of John Dewey, William James and
Josiah Royce.
Missouri journalism has included Elijah P. Lovejoy, the aboli*
tionist editor who became a martyr in the cause of freedom; Carl
Schurz of the Westliche Post; Joseph B* McCullagh of the Globe-
Democrat, who pioneered in war reporting during the Civil War;
Joseph Pulitzer, who crusaded through his Post-Dispatch, and William
Rockhill Nelson, who built up and beautified his city with the Kansas
City Star. Henry M. Stanley, Augustus Thomas, and Theodore
Dreiser worked as reporters in St. Louis where a young man named
Fiorello LaGuardia obtained an assignment to tell St. Louis news-
papers about the war in Cuba. Many rural newspapers have been
models of their kind, and these include a fascinating group of names
The Clinton Eye, The Ashland Bugle, The Tarkio Avalanche, The
PEOPLE AND CHARACTER
Eminence Current Wtwe* the Jackson Cash-Book, The Illmo
cute, and the Linn Unterrified Democrat.
v- The people of Missouri keep their heritage in play-party games,
candy pullings, pie socials and box suppers and wiener roasts. They
have barn dances with fiddlers sawing away by lamplight; atictionsj
carnivals, medicine shows, home-comings, old settler gatherings, and
family reunions with cousins and uncles and aunts from far and near,
They bring the products of their skill to county fairs, specimens from
field and orchard and barnlot and housewife's kitchen. They fill cathe-
drals and fashionable churches and village meeting houses; they go to
revivals and Sunday School picnics and prayer meetings. Now neon-
lighted movies are everywhere, but showboats are still playing Over the
Hill to the Po or Aofw.*"" Fourth of July at Edgar Springs finds a speaker
extolling the virtues of democracy, and the crowd participating in the
hog-calling contest* the horseshoe-pitching tournament, and the races,
Scott County*$ annual Neighbor Day has a baby show, contests^ and
exhibitions. At the yearly singing convention at Cedar Gap folks come
down from the hills with baskets of food to chant the hymns of their
fathers through the whole of a June day. Masked revelers celebrate
La Guignolee at Ste. Genevieve; German families at Washington eat
herring salad on Christmas Eve so they "will never be in want/*
\ Missouri's places remember people of many kinds of importance. In
Franklin a youth named Kit Carson tired of work in a saddlery shop
and ran away across the Santa Fe Trail, In Columbia thirty-one-year-
old Abraham Lincoln wooed Mary Todd in 1840. Arrow Rock and
its old tavern come down from covered wagon and ox-team days, 1 * Ed
Howe drew the portrait of Bethany in his Story of a Country Town.
In Springfield, where the streets are aisles of gold in autumn, Wild
Bill Hickok served as a Union scout, and in the Battle of Wilson
Creek General Nathaniel Lyon was killed. Boonville has Thespian
Hall, oldest theater building west of the Alleghenies; and Washing-
ton its zither and corncob pipe factories. Independence had hardly
recovered from the Mormon warfare when it was in the midst
of the guerrilla raids of the Civil War. In Lexington inscriptions on
cemetery stones record migrations from the Atlantic seaboard and across
the Atlantic* The grave of "Peg Leg" Shannon of the Lewis and
Clark expedition is in Palmyra, St. Joseph saw William H. Russell
start his colorful, if unsuccessful, Pony Express, and was the scene of
Field's poem, "Lover's Lane, St. Joe/' At Lebanon a preacher named
Harold Bell Wright began to write his stories.
- Mark Twain was born in a cabin in the hamlet of Florida ; "Black
Jack** Pcrshing on a farm near Laclede; George Washington Carver,
Tuskcgcc's great research scientist, of slave parents near Diamond
Grove; William Pope McArthur, hydrographer, first surveyor of the
8 MISSOURI
Pacific coast 9 in Ste. Genevieve; Tex Rickard and Courtney Ryiey
Cooper in Kansas City. Bishop Quayle was born of Manx parents in
Parkville; Thomas Hart Benton, the artist, in Neosho; the Neibuhr
brothers Itt Wright City. The list of native sons and daughters expands
and became more varied, including Victor Clarence Vaughan, distin-
guished medical educator, conductor of the first American bacteriological
laboratory, bom at Mount Airy; Ginger Rogers, and the turfman,
Samuel Clay Hildreth, born in Independence; Marion Talley, born in
Nevada, Rupert Hughes, born in Lancaster; Glenn Frank, born in
Queen City; James Cash Penney, chain-store magnate, born near Ham-
ilton; F. W. Taussig, who ferried the Mississippi on the way to his
chair in economics at Harvard; Bernarr McFaddrn, born near Mill
Springs; and Cole Younger and Robert Dalton and Jesse Woodson
Jaimes.
Men from other soil have since the beginning joined in making
Missouri what it is. Father De Smet carried his faith into the wilder-
ness,, White-haired Daniel Boone rounded out here his long life on
the frontier. Dr. John Sappington dispensed his anti-fever pills to
Missouri malaria victims ; and Audubon tramped the forest in search of
new birds. Young Robert E. Lee built jetties in the Mississippi to save
S*. Louis Harbor; and U. S. Grant was stationed in Missouri posts.
John Wilkes Booth played stock on the stage of Ben De Bar's theater;
while Washington University's Greek and Latin teacher, Sylvester
Waterhouse, urged business men to develop the inland waterways.
Louis D, Brandeis began practicing law a stone's throw from the old
courthouse in St, Louis. Thorstein Veblen, taking refuge in the Uni-
versity of Missouri, wrote his mordant criticism of modern social
institutions.
The history of America speaks through the things and events that
have made Missouri through the creak of high-wheeled wagon trains
grinding up the Boon's Lick Trail; through Portage des Sioux still
renting common fields it obtained from the Kinpj of Spain ; through the
black- robed missionaries and bushwhackers,- jolly flatboatmen and im-
petuous duelists on Bloody Island ; the frontier library of August Choti-
teau with volumes of Rousseau, Diderot, and Voltaire brought from
France. Along these shores the Natchez raced the Robert E. Lee* and
here Louis Sullivan built his pioneer skyscraper,, the Wainwright Build-
ing, Carl Wimar's Indian paintings, Joe Jones 1 murals of wheat
harvests. Carl Mi lies' green sculptures of the meeting of the Mississippi
and the Missouri, call to mind at one time the State and the country as
a whole. Enormous shoe factories, huge department stores, Kansas
City's great Union Station and vast livestock market ; co-operative cream-
eries, closely tended kitchen gardens, basket and chair-bottom weavers,
tobacco fields, patches of cane for molasses, and cross-roads country
PEOPLE AND CHARACTER 9
stores, join Missouri to the life of Eastern big cities, the cattle-raising
West, and the rural Sooth. George Graham Vest moved a jury with
Ms eulogy to the hound dog "Old Drum"; and, today, in a typical
metropolitan setting, 10,000 persons listen to The Chocolate Soldier
at the moonlight-flooded stadium of the St. Louis Municipal Opera*
From Maine to California, Americans have sung Missouri's "Joe
Bowers/' "St. Louis Blues," "Frankie and Johnny" and "Way Down
in Missouri."
Missouri is the delight of those who fancy place names. Among Its
offerings are Pumpkin Center, Jonesburg, Grubville, and Owls Bend;
Chanty 3 Hope, Wisdom, and Worth; Fair Play, Freedom, Liberty,
tnd Loyalty. Clever, Handy, Noble, Peculiar, and Wise; Liberal and
Radical, Sleeper and Pioneer, Novelty and Competition, Joy and Ro-
mance; Advance, Half Way, Eight Mile, Ten Mile, and Seventy Six;
Sinkin, Sank* Aid 3 Rescue, Success, and Safe; Ponder, Kidder, Brag-
gadocio, and Huzzah; Boss, Gang, Racket, Foil, and Paydown; Solo,
Cyclone and Hurricane; Protem, Veto, and Stet; Elijah, Cato, Na-
poleon, and Venus, Also Bearcreek, Birdsong, and Blue Eye; Deep-
water, Doe Run, and Hawk Point ; Musselford, Pansy, and Red Bird ;
Bade and Bern, Dawn and Day, Impo and Ink; Luna, Lupus, and
Lutie; Neck, Nixa, and Nonsuch; Tiff, Timber, and Torch; Yancy,
Yarrow^ and Yount; Zalraa, Zebra, and Zeta; Chloride and Cooter,
Lonejack and Low Wassie, Mammoth, Minimum, Enough and Enon.
Missouri has wealth and beauty, but it is not Utopia. It has dreary
slums in its large cities and tens of thousands of poverty-stricken fam-
ilies in its rural sections* It has underpaid workers in small industries,
and it has pathetic farms on thin, eroded land which should be in pas-
ture, timber, and fruit, """It has a multitude of one- and two-room country
schools which could give better service if they were consolidated. It
has too many children at the low end of the living scale. It has its
share of selfish partisans in politics, feathering their own nests in city
halls, county courthouses, and the State capital. It could profit by
many kinds of legislative reform criminal code, electoral, structure of
the State Government. It sees much of its talent siphoned away from
its towns and smaller cities to the metropolitan areas, and in turn
drawn from the State itself to the seemingly greener fields which lie
East or West. Many of its most promising young men and women go
to other States for their college training and do not come back. Its
State University at Columbia often develops outstanding teachers and
scholars and then loses them to other institutions which pay higher
salaries.
Yet Missouri has a proud record of getting things started in edu-
cation in the New World west of the Mississippi the first State uni-
versity; Jesuit St. Louis University, oldest school of college rank;
IO MISSOURI
Lindenwood, the first girls 9 school, and Culver-Stockton, the first co-
educational institution. Susan Elizabeth Blow opened America's first
public kindergarten in St. Louis in 1873. In St. Louis Calvin Milton
Woodward launched the world's first manual training school in 1880.
John R. Kirk's Normal School at Kirksville pioneered in the idea of
the consolidated school. Slave-born James Milton Turner, going away
to Oberlin as a boy before the Civil War, returned to open the first
Negro school in the State after emancipation. And medicine and
surgery have taken long strides at Washington University's medical
center.
All things considered, Missouri's place in the national family seems
neither exceptionally high nor exceptionally low. Although it is third
in daily newspaper circulation in proportion to population, it is twenty-
ninth in book store business; if it is twelfth in encyclopaedia sales, it is
thirt^r-second in national magazine circulation ; it is eighteenth in amuse-
ment receipts and only thirty-fourth in college and university library
expenditures. It is seventeenth in literate population, twenty-first in
physicians, dentists, and nurses in ratio to its population, twenty-fourth
in average school salaries, thirty-second in farms on hard-surfaced roads,
forty-third in rural population in local library districts.
v If Missouri may judge its future by its past, progress is as certain
as the cream-white petals of the dogwood trees on its hillsides every
April, Missouri may not lead the parade of American democracy,
but neither will it bring up the rear. Many of its people are at work
on accumulated social tasks and they are surveying others with equal
determination to make things better. They and their fathers have
done much, but a s great deal remains to be done by them and their
children.*"* St. Louis* recent conquest of smoke has given fresh hope to
many blighted American cities. Kansas City's political rejuvenation is
proof that cities can rise up and throw off the yoke of municipal bossism.
The adoption of State constitutional amendments which take wild-life
conservation out of politics and lift the State judiciary from the mire
of partisan nominations and elections demonstrates the responsiveness
of the people at large to urgent State needs. Missouri has its head up
and is looking to the -front. A history such as it has is a heritage to be
guarded^ developed, expanded, and continuously shared with the world.
But our definition of Missouri, however detailed, cannot be com-
plete. Missouri will not be catalogued. It cannot be written down.
Missouri is many intangible things spring in Florissant Valley, apple
blossom time at Marionville, a flaming July sunrise on the deep blue of
Lake Taneycomo, a leisurely float down the Current River, and black-
bass suppers around open fires on willow-screened sandbars. It is tale-
swapping in a woodland camp as baying foxhounds follow the scent
PEOPLE AND CHARACTER II
through the brush on frosted October hills. It is firelight and unhur-
ried talk of friends in the room, wind calling down the chimney and
wood smoke on the night air. It is living so that life tastes good each
day. It is Missouri*
of
^tj \3OURI, with 3,784,664 inhabitants, covering 69,420 square
* <'J rules, is tenth among the States in population, and eighteenth
,ti >:nong the States in area, being 3,000 square miles larger
than l , vi ;ole of New England. Bounded on the north by Iowa, on
the ea' * i he Mississippi River, and Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee,
on th* * - ; ' by Arkansas, and on the west by Oklahoma, Kansas, and
Nebr ', ' averages about 282 miles from north to south, and about
335 ! width. The southeast corner of the State thrusts deep into
Ark:< / ad on the east, the Mississippi cuts off a small piece of
Ken; '> , *
GEOLOGY
J t :, the Archeozoic and the Proterozoic eras, representing the
earli ' 'i.^es of the earth's history,, Missouri's igneous rocks were
foi*- t , '' } solidification of molten magma, or subsurface lava, which
pro- ' ' >,' base of the entire continent. These rocks lie at depths as
gre : ,; ;' )OO feet in the vicinity of St. Louis, and extend into the
earl': f'.,: '-/stances of 20 to 40 miles. They are exposed on the surface
onh \;,"*'icheastern Missouri, where they form the low range of the
St. i fl ',i, U, ', ,yi 5 Mountains.
>"- 'v,?*-''ihe last of the rock-forming lava had hardened, the St. Fran-
cois lU'.^'^tain area was slowly thrust upward to a height of about
2,ooV r^e* above sea level, carrying with it the region now known as
the CvMff Highland. Following the Ozark uplift, a long cycle of
eroj.''Y., ti'gan, carving the steep canyons and narrow valleys charac-
ter! '',' ;,'* southern Missouri today. Near the end of the Proterozoic
era, *!<".;''' 500,000,000 years ago, the St. Francois Mountains gradually
saiit. ' '"'ineir former level and were submerged by southern seas that
sw- "'.'"'' j ' nearly a third of the continent.
'; * ' arrival of the seas opened the long Paleozoic era, important
in IH' ,,'. ri because most of the rock strata above the igneous rocks
we;, '>/> isited during this time. Beginning with the Cambrian period,
the /;, Advanced again and again, some of them from the Gulf of
Mt'M, \ f others from the Arctic regions, but each bringing great quanti-
ties - i l^ne and coarse materials gleaned from adjacent lands, Sea-
dwtM>tg organisms added shells, and other sediment was produced by
the cornea! precipitation of mineral matter dissolved in the water.
12
LAND OF MISSOURI 13
Under the pressure of successive layers of deposits, these materials
gradually hardened into rock strata. Most of the stratified rocks are
limestones* dolomites, and cherts of organic and chemical origin, but
there are also conglomerates, sandstones, and shales. The different
layers, each composed of the materials characteristic of the time in
which it was formed, may be seen in the sides of various railroad cuts,
cliffs, and embankments.
Throughout the uniformly warm Paleozoic era the shallow seas
teemed with life. In Cambrian times, the trilobites, creatures distantly
related to crayfish, were common, and some marine snails and brachio-
pods (marine animals with bivalve shells) existed. The remains of
shellfish of various kinds built considerable thicknesses of limestone. In
the Ordovician period, the cephalopods, ancestors of the nautilus and
the devilfish, appeared. The Devonian fishes, principally sharks and
lungfish, emerged in the fourth period. Crinoids, popularly known as
"stone lilies," reached maximum abundance and variety during the subse-
quent Mississippian period. Growing in densely populated colonies of
great extent, on flexible stalks at the bottom of the clear, shallow Missis-
sippian sea, the crinoids probably looked much like fields of waving
grain. Their remains form the major ingredient of Burlington lime-
stone, the predominant surface rock that lies in a broad belt around the
Ozark region, curving westward and southward from St. Louis to the
vicinity of Springfield. Large groups of crinoids are in the study col-
lections at Washington University in St. Louis.
Near the close of the Devonian period, probably about 300,000,000
years ago, a great fracture appeared in the earth's crust from the Mis-
sissippi River near St. Mary's (see Tour ?b) westward to the vicinity
of Weingarten, and thence northwestward to the St. Francois-Ste. Gene-
vieve County boundary, near Lawrenceton. The movement of the
earth's crust thrust the rock along the north side of the fracture upward
to a maximum of 1,000 feet, creating what is known as a fault plane*
After a long interval, probably in post-Pennsylvanian time, a vertical
movement of the earth '$ surface produced a great fracture across the
fault plane, and thrust up the rock on the south about 2,000 feet.
Faults may be observed at several places in Missouri, but the fault zone
crossing Stc. Genevieve County is the most extensive in the Upper
Mississippi Valley.
The last Paleozoic period of which there is a record in Missouri was
the Pennsylvanian, which began perhaps 250,000,000 years ago. The
Pennsylvania!! is considered an important period because it was during
this time that most of the coal of Missouri was formed and immense
quantities of lead, zinc, and barite ores were deposited. The shales,
sandstones, and limestones of the period cover more than a third of the
State. The land was low and poorly drained at this time, permitting
14 MISSOURI
vegetation to accumulate on the swamp bottoms, layer upon layer* to be
gradually converted into coal strata. At the same time, the subsoils of
the swampy, tropical jungles, robbed of their minerals by the roots of
coal-forming forests, were gradually altered to refractory f or fire, clays.
These clays underlie much of St. Louis and are found in abundant
deposits in central Missouri (see Tour 15a)> During this time* also,
the first insects appeared giant cockroaches and dragonflies, many
times the size of their modern descendants. Small, bare-skinned am*
phibians, comparable to some present-day salamanders, crawled over
the land, leaving footprints in soft shale beds. Many of these prints
have been discovered during excavation for roads and buildings in the
vicinity of Kansas City. The beds of fossils in Ste. Genevieve County
have been termed by Dr. Stuart Weiler, of the University of Chicago,
"a veritable Garden of Eden for the aggressive geologist/ 5 because they
offer the most varied assortment in the Mississippi Valley. Dr. Weiler
established a camp for students here in 1915 (see Tour 7b}
In other parts of the United States, large seas were characteristic
features of the Permian history, the last period of the Paleozoic era,
but there is no record of their having invaded Missouri. At the begin-
ning of Permian time, Missouri was exposed to a long period of erosion,
Th; land was low, however, so that a comparatively small amount of
rock was worn away. At the end of the Permian period, the continent
thrust up the Appalachian Mountains along the Atlantic Coast. Prob-
ably at this time 9 a great force exerted in the area from Texas to
Michigan folded a portion of the Mississippi Valley into a series of
parallel wrinkles or anticlines. The Illinois anticlines accumulated
large quantities of petroleum, formed from the fatty tissues of marine
plants and animals. Large areas covering similar formations in north-
west Missouri were leased for possible oil drilling in 1938 and 1939*
The era following the last period (Permian) of the Paleozoic era
is known as the Mesozoic; it probably began about 190,000,000 years
ago. The mountains shut off moisture-laden winds, and the heart of
the North American continent was converted into a desert. Sea crea-
tures disappeared and new species thrived. These were the reptiles,
including dinosaurs, pterodactyls, and swimming reptiles. At the close
of Mesozoic time, the Ozark region was lifted slightly, forming a broad
dome, again highest in the St. Francois Mountain area* This uplift
initiated a cycle of erosion, which produced the present radial drainage
pattern in southern Missouri.
The Cenozoic era, which followed the Mesozoic, began probably
about 55,000,000 years ago and continued through the close of the Ice
Age, some 50,000 years ago, to the present. For Missouri, most of the
Cenozoic era was a time of uninterrupted erosion, which attacked the
rocky surfaces, forming the beginning of the major stream valleys of
LAND OF MISSOURI *5
the Mississippi Valley s including the Ozark Highland. A broad area
of southwestern Missouri, extending northwest of Springfield, was
leveled to the high plateau known as the Springfield Plain.
Since the first , or Tertiary, period of the Cenozoic era, most of
Missouri's magnificent rock formations have been created caverns,
springs, and associated geological phenomena* as large as any in the
Mississippi Valley. The limestones and dolomites cropping out in the
Ozark hills are soluble in acid ? and when rain and snow waters im-
pregnated with vegetable acid percolate down they dissolve the rock,
creating channels which in time become caverns and the courses of
underground springs and river systems, "Undercut** cliff caves are
carved by rivers in any kind of rock, but the upland caverns are re-
stricted to limestone regions where the climate was once moist. In one
stage of cave formation, the chambers are filled with water and are
gradually enlarged. Sometimes when the rooms are exceptionally wide,
the roofs are so thin they collapse^ producing the large sinkholes so
numerous in the State* In the second stage of cave formation, the
caves are open and full of air, Groundwater, charged with mineral
matter dissolved from the rocks above, drips from the caverns* ceilings.
Through evaporation, mineral matter is precipitated s forming clusters
of stalactites, stalagmites^ and other formations. The majority of these
deposits are dripstone or cave onyx, also called Mexican onyx, which is
frequently used for wainscoting, soda fountains, and other decorative
purposes.
Fish and salamanders have lived in some underground pools for so
many generations that blind and colorless species have evolved. The
caves have also yielded the bones of extinct human races. In a cave
near Sullivan, Missouri, where the roof collapsed hundreds of millions
of years ago, forming a deep sink, a swamp developed and coal accumu-
lated to a depth of more than 100 feet. Similar sinks near Rolla con-
tain clays that have been leached of soluble materials, leaving fine
refractory diaspore clays. The pyrite in central Missouri sinks has had
the sulphur removed by solutions, leaving small deposits of hematite iron
ores. Typical zinc deposits of the Joplin district are cave-formed sinks
filled with angular fragments of white flint cemented with zinc min-
erals. Before the roofs collapsed, large calcite crystals were formed,
some two feet long, tinted from white to honey color, amber, pink, and
amethyst.
Probably after the close of the Pliocene epoch, the earth's surface
folded in the St. Francois Mountain area, thrusting the entire region
up in a broad dome to a height of approximately 1,800 feet. This fold-
ing stretched the earth's crust in the adjacent Mississippi Valley region,
producing fractures in the bedrock which initiated a long period of
fault activity, creating the broad lowlands of southeastern Missouri,
16 MISSOURI
Kentucky, Tennessee, and Arkansas (see Tour 7c) In the vicinity 01
New Madrid, the Mississippi River begins its heaviest depositing ^of
silt and, as this accumulates along the river bed and the flood plains
south of here, its weight causes minor faulting from time to time, lower-
ing the flood plains and maintaining the river bed nearly at sea level
The New Madrid earthquake, during the winter of x8iz-i2, was an
aftermath of early faulting.
Following the St. Francois uplift, streams and winds attacked these
rocky heights, and, after many years, all the layers of Paleozoic rock
were worn away, leaving the ancient granites and porphyries exposed
as the highest points in Missouri. From the St. Francois hills, rivers
and streams have carved in all directions steep-walled valleys in the sedi-
mentary rock ? creating the rugged contour of the Ozark Highland,
which, with its caves and rock outcrops, underground rivers and giant
springs, is one of the most attractive regions in the Middle West. 1 he
soils over most of the southern half of the State are residual, formed
by the slow chemical decay of the bedrocks, and are not as^ fertile as
the transported loess and glacial soils north of the Missouri Rivcr^
Near the close of Tertiary time, in what is known as the Pliocene
epoch, the climate of North America gradually became colder. Begio-
ninf with the Pleistocene or Quaternary (last of the Cenozoic era),
possibly 1,000,000 years ago, great glaciers from the Arctic regions
came as far south as the Missouri River, grinding and crushing the
country and forming rolling prairie lands with wide, shallow stream
valleys. Over the prairies, the glaciers deposited a rich drift soil com-
posed largely of finely ground limestone, shale, and sandstone, together
with boulders and fragments of granite, schist, gneiss, and quartzite.
Vegetable and animal remains have given this sail a rich black colon
Four great ice sheets advanced over the northern part of the United
States, but only the first two are definitely known to have reached
Missouri. The first, or Nebraskan, glacier, several hundred to several
thousand feet thick, advanced as far south as the Ohio and Missouri
Rivers. After a warm interglacial period, the Kansan Glacier covered
parts of northern United States, remaining thousands of years before
beginning to retreat to the north. At its melting, the mouth of the
Missouri was choked with ice, forcing the river to overflow, probably
into the Meramec Valley, and to empty into the Mississippi south of St.
Louis. The Missouri also carried a large amount of water from the
northern Rocky Mountains, and must have been a mighty torrent
several times its present size. The glaciers left a thick, heterogeneous
rock waste, which roughly marks the limit of their advance. In lower
Frenchman's Hollow in the northeastern part of Ste* Genevieve County,
Dr. Courtney Werner discovered a four-foot boulder ol granite that
was probably brought in by a small iceberg from the southern lobe of
LAND OF MISSOURI 27
the third, or If linoian, glacier. Pieces of fossil coral from Pike County,
Missouri, were carried by the ice to St. Louis County. After the melt-
ing of the glaciers, tremendous dust storms covered bluffs and uplands
along the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers with a thick layer of fine
yellow or buff-colored soil, known as loess. In some places, the loess
reaches a depth of 70 feet
During the Pleistocene period, mammalian fauna reached its richest
variety in North America. Species of tremendous size inhabited the
continent for thousands of years, retreating southward when ice covered
the country, and thriving farther north during the warm jnterglacial
epochs. Horses, elephants, musk oxen, peccaries, elk, reindeer, and
many other groups that lived during the Ice Age were extinct by the
time the human era opened. Skeletons of true elephants of several
kinds have been unearthed, and thick beds of mastodon remains have
been discovered near Kimmswick, on the Mississippi River. In 1901,
Professor William Henry Holmes of the American Bureau of Ethnology
wrote of them: " . . . they are the most wonderful I have ever seen
it is a page out of the history of the world that has no substitute.'*
Horses were not known to the American Indians until brought here
by the Spaniards, but the genus Equus scotti, which disappeared not
long before the coming of man, was abundant during the Ice Age. A
beaver seven feet long ranged from Missouri to the Atlantic Coast, and
several species of bsson much larger than those of the present day once
lived in herds on the Western prairies. Most unusual were a twenty-
foot ground sloth and a twelve-foot armadillo, which migrated from
the Argentine pampas through Central America. There are indications
that the earliest peoples were contemporaneous with some of the
Pleistocene mammals, but this has not been proved.
TOPOGRAPHY AND CLIMATE
Missouri includes portions of four physiographic provinces: the
Glacial, or Northern, Plains, a great expanse of generally level land,
extending across the State north of the Missouri River; the Ozark
Highlands, between the White River and Missouri River drainage
basins, which cover most of the area south of the Missouri River; the
Great Plains, a broad V-shaped wedge, penetrating the central western
part; and a splinter of the rich, flat Mississippi River Plain that reaches
into the southeastern corner.
The Glacial Plains are composed of the Black Frame, Rolling
Prairie, and Flat Prairie regions. The Black Prairie, in the north-
eastern part of the State, is Missouri's most typical example of early
glacial-deposit topography. Predominantly agricultural, it forms part
of the Cam Belt.
l8 MISSOURI
The Rolling Prairie, in north central Missouri, is drained by the
Grand and Chariton Rivers, whose tributaries for long distances flow
nearly parallel with the trunk streams. Erosion has created a series of
almost parallel north-to-south divides and wide, shallow valleys, some-
what resembling the ridges of a washboard.
;.The Flat Prairie, in northeastern Missouri, has only a thin veneer
of "glacial deposits. The surface, smooth in the central part, is irregu-
larly broken by ravines slanting to the bordering: rivers. Here and
there, a few low-rolling hills indicate the former presence of the ice
sheet. The soil is heavy and sour in most areas, and the flat surfaces
handicap drainage to such an extent that the agricultural system is
shifting from crop farming to livestock, except where glacial soils pre-
vail. Coal and fire-clay mining are typical of certain sections.
In the western part of the State, an extension of the Great Plains,
commonly called in Missouri the Scarfed, or Osage, Plains, has the
monotony of the flat prairies, but Is broken by low rounded hills, with
steep slopes toward the Ozark dome and very gradual ones away from
it. The best use of the land agriculturally is for forage crops. The
soils developed on the coal measures, sandstones, and shales are poor.
In southeastern Missouri below Cape Girardeau, are the fertile
black lowlands of the Mississippi Embayment, an extension of the Gulf
Coastal Plains. These are divided into flood-plain belts, representing
both the present and former courses of the Mississippi River, and are
separated by the low, flat-topped ridges known as Crowley's Ridge,
Sikeston, Dunklin, and Scott County hills. The flat inter-ridge belts
were at one time covered with extensive swamps, some of which remain
to the present day.
The St. Francois Mountains, in the eastern part of the Ozark
Highlands, create a more truly mountainous landscape than any others
in Missouri. The many knobs or peaks of these irregular ancient masses
have been exposed by the wearing away of the younger sedimentary
rocks. Pilot Knob is a striking example. The odd-shaped "potato" or
"elephant" rocks at Graniteville and elsewhere were formed by a type
of weathering called exfoliation, or the scaling off of sharp corners and
edges of once rectangular blocks. The basins, depressions, or valleys
between the knobs are commonly floored with layers of sedimentary
rocks. Some of the major rivers, such as the St. Francis and the Cur-
rent, rush from basin to basin through narrow but deep water gaps or
bluffs of igneous rocks, locally called "shut-ins."
To the north, west, and south of the St. Francois Mountains is a
broad, undulating upland, which forms the tortuous divide between the
Missouri and White River drainage basins. This region has many
subterranean streams, with accompanying sinkholes and springs. The
eastern portion is often referred to as the Big Spring Country because
LAND OF MISSOURI 19
of Its great blue springs, such as Big, Round, Alley, and Meramec*
Big Spring, with an average daily flow of 600,000,000 gallons. Is the
third largest in the United States (see Tour ftr). Along the south-
eastern border^ the plateau terminates abruptly at a low rocky slope*
The western border rises as a range of hills and forms the eastern bound-
ary of the Springfield Plateau, a more level land devoted to the raising
of wheat and cattle.
The Springfield Plateau, or Old Plains, is commonly called a struc-
tural plain, because the easy westerly slope of its surface practically
coincides with the dip of the underlying Burlington limestone. Al-
though the eastern rim of the plateau averages 1,300 feet above sea
level, the surface is gently undulating, with low divides and broad
valleys. The limestone rock has yielded a deep, rich, residual soil that
has been increasingly utilized for grain crops, dairy stock, and poultry
farms.
The White River rises in northwestern Arkansas and crosses into
southern Missouri, where it flows through a series of intricately dis-
sected rock terraces that extend northward to the Springfield Plateau.
Many of its south-flowing tributaries have eroded the terraces so com-
pletely that the twisting divides are knife-edge ridges separating steep-
sided coves. A typical rugged section, now famous as "The Shepherd
of the Hills Country," lies north and west of Lake Taneycomo, an
artificial reservoir and power site.
Near the center of the State, bordering the Ozark Dome, is a belt
of rugged hills produced by the drainage lines of the Mississippi,
Missouri, and Osage Rivers, Here, the usual ravine type of ruggedness
is intensified by cuesta escarpments, or steep faces of rock* The sections
along the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers have been rounded and
smoothed by a mantle of loess. Where large tributaries from the high-
lands cut across the hills, flood plains divide the belt into numerous
segments. The sprawling, octopus-shaped Lake of the Qzarks, with a
length of 129 miles and a shoreline of 1,300 miles, was formed by the
impounding of the Osage River by the Bagnell Dam, and the conse-
quent flooding of the deeply eroded valleys.
Water covers 680 -square miles of the State's area. The maximum
relief from valley floor to hilltop is approximately 1,500 feet. The
highest point above sea level, Taum Sauk Mountain (1,771,7 feet),
and the lowest point, near Cardwell (230 feet), are both in south-
eastern Missouri. Including a soo-mile frontage on the Mississippi,
Missouri has more than 1,000 miles of navigable waterways.
There are 133 known spring localities in Missouri, and nearly 500
springs suitable for drinking water or fish propagation. Besides these,
Missouri has 27 mineral springs, the waters of which are saline, sul-
phuretted, or chalybeate.
20 MISSOURI
Because of its size and its interior position, Missouri has a con-
siderable range of temperature. The northwestern portico has an
average annual temperature of 50 degrees; in the southeastern area it
is 60 degrees. July, with an average temperature of 77 degrees, is the
hottest month ; January is coldest, with an average of 30 degrees. These
are average temperatures, however, and mean little in a State where
even the natives find the weather confusing. Ordinarily, brief periods
of intense summer heat are followed by a mild Indian summer that lasts
well into November, and then, after occasional periods of bitter cold,
the long and lovely spring season begins. But there have been years
when no rule held good ; snow in May, cold in July, and summer heat
in mid-January. The coldest temperature ever recorded in Missouri
was 40 degrees below zero; the hottest, 117 degrees above.
The average precipitation for the State is about 40 inches, with
some rain or snow falling on an average of no days* The southeastern
area has the heaviest rainfall, with an annual average of about 48
inches; the northwestern area averages about 32 inches. The rainfall
is fairly well distributed throughout the year, but is usually heaviest in
the spring. In the last 65 years, 10 severe droughts have occurred, but
few have been State-wide, The wettest year on record (1927) brought
a precipitation of 55.06 inches; the driest year (1901) had 25.28 inches.
Snowfall averages from about 21 inches in the northern section of the
State to about 16 inches in the southeast, but snow rarely stays on the
ground more than a few days.
Northwest winds prevail during the winter; during the remainder
of the year, the air movement is largely from the south and southeast.
The average wind velocities are least during the summer and early fall,
varying from 7 to 9 miles per hour. In the winter and spring months
higher velocities are recorded, averaging from 10 to 12 miles per hour*
Missouri falls within a medium classification in respect to stormhiess.
For each area of 10,000 square miles, the average frequency of tornadoes
is about one a year. The most serious in the history of the State were
the tornadoes that damaged St. Louis areas in 1896 and in 1927.
FLORA
Wide differences in Missouri's climate, soil conditions, geological
history, and topography give its flora interesting variations. Out of
some 2,281 different species listed by Palmer and Steyermark (Flower*
ing Plants of Missouri, 1935), 10 per cent are estimated to be importa-
tions. Some of these, such as the day lily, Queen Anne's lace, hore~
hound, catnip, motherwort, bouncing Bet, and matrimony vine, were
brought in by settlers, who cultivated them for their medicinal or
ornamental value, and have since escaped from the gardens to "go
LAND OF MISSOURI 21
native/ 1 As settlement has increased, more and more plants have been
introduced, many of them accidentally by the railroads and other trans-
portation facilities; these are generally first seen along the rights of
way; occasionally, however, like the white- and yellow-flowered sweet
clover, they spread rapidly over vast areas.
Missouri has a generous number of plants of State-wide distribu-
tion. Black willow, sycamore, red cedar, American elm, many kinds
of oak and hickory, ash, walnut, hazelnut, linden, and certain kinds of
maple grow in nearly every county. Of the flowering or fruit-bearing
trees, honey locust, dogwood, redbud, sumach, hackberry, persimmon,
pawpaw, and the wild plum, cherry, and crab apple are the most fre-
quent. Blackberry, raspberry, strawberry, grape, gooseberry; and elder-
berry grow wild throughout the State. A number of edible greens are
also common: many mustards* dandelion, purslane, lamb's quarter, and
cress. These, and sometimes even slick thistle and poke shoots, are
boiled with the ubiquitous "side meat" of the Ozarks to make the
"greens and pot likfcer" which is so popular with the hill folk. Mint of
many kinds, bergamot, pennyroyal, jimson weed, self-heal, wild ginger,
snake root, May apple, toothwort, and ginseng are among the State-
wide herbs of medicinal or utilitarian value. Chicory can be used as a
coffee substitute,
Besides the common wild flowers, the golden rod, milkweed, spider-
wort, sweet William, and "roses red and violets blue" to say nothing
of white and yellow Missouri has many less familiar ones. Where
picnickers and tourists have left them alone, there are lovely white
bloodroot, columbine, verbena, shooting star, and Jack-in-the-pulpit.
Trumpet vine and bittersweet twine up the trees, and the sunnier spots
are brilliant with cone flower, orange butterfly weed, and orange puc-
coon. Asters In almost infinite variety, blue lobelia, mullein, Venus's-
looking-glass, and Indian tobacco grow In most counties. And then, of
course, there are the socially undesirables poison Ivy, purple night-
shade, beggarVlice, plantain, Spanish needle, burdock, and nettles.
Missouri's State flower is the hawthorn, a shrub with delicate flat
clusters of white apple-like blossoms In the spring, followed by small
edible fruit. Unfortunately, since there are nearly 200 kinds of haw-
thorn in Missouri, it is extremely difficult for the ordinary flower lover
to recognize the official species, Crataegus mollis.
The flora of the southeastern lowland Is probably the oldest and the
most uniform in the State, some of it having apparently existed since
early Tertiary times; it is characteristically of the Gulf Coastal type,
and the region as a whole has Lower Austral combined with the
southern phase of Carolinian plant life. In a few remaining swamps
of this region grow bald cypress, pumpkin ash, corkwood, water locust,
swamp cottonwood, bitter pecan, tupelo, and overcup oak. Below them
22 MISSOURI
are many lovely water plants: shining pondweed, American frogbit 9
spider lily, thalx'a, lady's-eardrops. Along the water edge are found red
iris, pale manna grass, beak sedge, and many other aquatic varieties.
On slightly higher ground, the flora is more varied. Yellow pine is the
only coniferous tree in this section, but white hickory, sweet and black
gum, winged elm, and white ash grow in the unflooded parts. Mistletoe
and Christmas holly flourish In the southeastern area, as do giant cane*
moonwort, swamp rose, wisteria, blue indigo, red-flowered buckeye,
rattlesnake master, purple gerardia, green haw, and many others. Sev-
eral rather rare orchis grow here: green wood, showy, yellow-fringed*
and purple-fringed,
Crowley's Ridge, the only real elevation In the southeast, bears many
eastern species not found elsewhere in the neighborhood. Among these
are beech, Spanish oak, tulip tree* cucumber tree, and even an occasional
scarlet oak and beaked hazelnut. Celandine poppies, golden seal, white
baneberry, beech drops, and prickly gooseberry also grow here.
The Ozark region has the most complex and varied flora in Mis-
souri. The valleys have mostly been cleared for cultivation, but on the
slopes the original, rather stunted, oak-hickory forests, mostly of the
Carolinian type, survive. The flora is between the austral and boreal
phases, with the southern species predominating. Most of the herba-
ceous plants here are those commonly found from the Appalachian
Plateau to the Central Plains, but in the more protected spots are some
northern species, while on the western slopes and in rocky glades,
western or southwestern varieties predominate. Elsewhere in the
region, especially where some unusual ecological condition prevails,
plant colonies not related to the general flora of the region are found.
Throughout most of the Ozarks, red or black oak, scrub elm,
chittim wood, hawthorn (Grataegus collina), and witch hazel are com-
mon ; also ferns and bracken in great variety, Virginia creeper, climbing
milkweed, and yellow honeysuckle. Probably no section in Missouri is
richer in flowers. Here grow Dutchman's pipe, hepatica, wild wood's
hydrangea, goatsbeard, false blue Indigo, butterfly pea, snow-on-the-
mountain, passion flower, wood's angelica, and starry rosinweed. The
sunny yellow coreopsis, the holly-like 'possum haw, wild heliotrope^
dogbane, and false foxglove will reward the seeker, as will yellow
ladyVslipper, Solomon's seal, and addei Vtongue, Here too grows
grindelia, a gum plant which is used internally as a specific for bron-
chitis arid asthma, and externally as a cure for poison ivy; and sassafras*
which provides both a flavoring and a tonic.
The Iron and St. Francois Mountains and the surrounding sand-
stone areas have mostly an acid type of soil and furnish a favorable
habitat for many oxylophytes (humus plants). Most of the forests are
stunted. Pine and some red cedar grow here, together with a few of
LAND OF MISSOURI 21
native/ 9 As settlement has Increased, more and more plants have been
Introduced, many of them accidentally by the railroads and other trans-
portation facilities; these are generally first seen along the rights of
way; occasionally, however, like the white- and yellow-flowered sweet
clover, they spread rapidly over vast areas.
Missouri has a generous number of plants of State-wide distribu-
tion. Black willow, sycamore, red cedar, American elm, many kinds
of oak and hickory, ash, walnut, hazelnut, linden, and certain kinds of
maple grow in nearly every county. Of the flowering or fruit-bearing
trees, honey locust, dogwood, redbud, sumach, hackberry, persimmon,
pawpaw, and the wild plum, cherry, and crab apple are the most fre-
quent. Blackberry, raspberry, strawberry, grape, gooseberry, and elder-
berry grow wild throughout the State. A number of edible greens are
also common: many mustards, dandelion, purslane, lamb's quarter, and
cress. These, and sometimes even slick thistle and poke shoots, are
boiled with the ubiquitous "side meat" of the Ozarks to make the
"greens and pot likker" which is so popular with the hill folk. Mint of
many kinds, bergamot, pennyroyal, jimson weed, self-heal, wild ginger,
snake root, May apple, toothwort, and ginseng are among the State-
wide herbs of medicinal or utilitarian value. Chicory can be used as a
coffee substitute.
Besides the common wild flowers, the goldenrod, milkweed, spider-
wort, sweet William, and "roses red and violets blue" to say nothing
of white and yellow Missouri has many less familiar ones. Where
picnickers and tourists have left them alone, there are lovely white
bloodroot, columbine, verbena, shooting star, and Jack-in-the-pulpit.
Trumpet vine and bittersweet twine up the trees, and the sunnier spots
are brilliant with cone flower, orange butterfly weed, and orange puc-
coon. Asters In almost infinite variety, blue lobelia, mullein, VenusV
looking-glass, and Indian tobacco grow In most counties. And then, of
course, there are the socially undesirables poison Ivy, purple night-
shade, beggarVHce, plantain, Spanish needle, burdock, and nettles.
Missouri's State flower Is the hawthorn, a shrub with delicate flat
clusters of white apple-like blossoms in the spring, followed by small
edible fruit. Unfortunately, since there are nearly 200 kinds of haw-
thorn In Missouri, it is extremely difficult for the ordinary flower lover
to recognize the official species, Grataegus mo ills.
The flora of the southeastern lowland is probably the oldest and the
most uniform in the State, some of it having apparently existed since
early Tertiary times; it Is characteristically of the Gulf Coastal type,
and the region as a whole has Lower Austral combined with the
southern phase of Carolinian plant life. In a few remaining swamps
of this region grow bald cypress, pumpkin ash, corkwood, water locust,
swamp cottonwood, bitter pecan, tupelo, and overcup oak. Below them
22 MISSOURI
are many lovely water plants: shining pondweed, American frogbit y
spider lily, thalia, lady's-eardrops. Along the water edge are found red
iris, pale manna grass, beak sedge, and many other aquatic varieties.
On slightly higher ground, the flora is more varied. Yellow pine is the
only coniferous tree in this section } but white hickory, sweet and black
glim, winged elm, and white ash grow in the unflooded parts. Mistletoe
and Christmas holly flourish in the southeastern area, as do giant cane,
moonwortj swamp rose, wisteria, blue indigo, red-flowered buckeye s
rattlesnake master, purple gerardia, green haw, and many others. Sev-
eral rather rare orchis grow here: green wood, showy, yellow-fringed*
and purple-fringed.
Crowley's Ridge, the only real elevation In the southeast, bears many
eastern species not found elsewhere in the neighborhood. Among these
are beech, Spanish oak, tulip tree* cucumber tree, and even an occasional
scarlet oak and beaked hazelnut. Celandine poppies, golden seal, white
baneberry, beech drops, and prickly gooseberry also grow here.
The Ozark region has the most complex and varied flora in Mis-
souri. The valleys have mostly been cleared for cultivation, but on the
slopes the original, rather stunted, oak-hickory forests, mostly of the
Carolinian type, survive. The flora is between the austral and boreal
phases, with the southern species predominating. Most of the herba-
ceous plants here are those commonly found from the Appalachian
Plateau to the Central Plains, but in the more protected spots are some
northern species, while on the western slopes and in rocky glades,
western or southwestern varieties predominate. Elsewhere in the
region, especially where some unusual ecological condition prevails,
plant colonies not related to the general flora of the region are found*
Throughout most of the Ozarks, red or bbck oak, scrub elm,
chittim wood, hawthorn (Crataegus collina)> and witch hazel are com*
mon ; also ferns and bracken in great variety, Virginia creeper, climbing
milkweed, and yellow honeysuckle. Probably no section in Missouri is
richer in flowers. Here grow Dutchman's pipe, hepatica, wild wood's
hydrangea, goatsbeard, false blue indigo, butterfly pea, snow-on-the-
mountain, passion flower, wood's angelica, and starry rosinweed. The
sunny yellow coreopsis, the holly-like 'possum haw, wild heliotrope,
dogbane, and false foxglove will reward the seeker, as will yellow
ladyVslipper, Solomon's seal, and addei's-tongue. Here too grows
grindelia, a gum plant which is used internally as a specific for bron-
chitis and asthma, and externally as a cure for goison ivy; and sassafras,,
which provides both a flavoring and a tonic.
The Iron and St. Francois Mountains and the surrounding sand-
stone areas have mostly an acid type of soil and furnish a favorable
habitat for many oxylophytes (humus plants). Most of the forests are
stunted. Pine and some red cedar grow here, together with a few of
LAND OF MISSOURI 2J
the trees more commonly found in the southeastern section, such as
Spanish oak, black and sweet gum, and willow oak. The dominant
flora of the area, however, is Alleghenian-Ozarkian. The rosy azalea
is typical of the ericaceous plants of the region. Here are exquisite
purple-fringed orchis, nodding wild onion, adder's-mouth, cancer weed
(salvia), blue curls, flax s and saxifrage, which is well named "the rock
breaker/'
Perhaps the most interesting Ozark subdivision Is the rugged area
bordering the White Riven The uplands have a typical Ozark flora,
but along the bluffs and the steep-sided tributary valleys, and on the
bald knobs, many rare plants are found. The valleys are so steep that
the character of the flora depends largely on the exposure. On the
north and northeast exposures the flora is mostly Appalachian; here
grow butternut, yellow wood* nettle tree, sugar maple, and hydrangea*
The south and west exposures, especially on the high bluffs, have, in
contrast, mostly a southwestern flora. Twisted and fantastically gnarled
junipers cling to precarious footholds in the rock. The smoke tree, one
of the rarest of American trees, grows here, sometimes to the unusual
height of 35 or 40 feet. Soapberry, Missouri currant, and the succu-
lent vine, Cissus incisa* are also found.
On the bald knobs along the White River, where very few plants
can adapt themselves to the peculiar conditions of the* open slopes, a few
species have almost a monopoly, presenting spectacular masses of color
when in bloom. Almost the only tree that grows here is the juniper,
but low shrubs like the pasture rose, acacia, and buckbush are fairly
common, as are, too, short-lived annuals and deep-rooted perennials,
such as tall larkspur, large-flowered evening primrose, purple-bracted
horse mint, pink and yellow cone flower, and purple beardtongue. Most
of the flora in these regions is southwestern, with some intermingling
of eastern Appalachian. The small cane which grows in the southeast
is found here, but under very different conditions. This is also true of
the red oak, the fringe tree, and, most remarkable of all, the supplejack
or rattan vine, which usually grows in swamps as a thick vine, whereas
here it is more shrub-like. Other plants found on the bald knobs in-
clude adders tongue, false aloe, flame flower, helmet flower, blazing
star, and blue dogbane.
In limestone and dolomite, and occasionally in sandstone or chert
areas, an exposed rock surface will sometimes prevent the encroachment
of trees and shrubs* Such bare spots are known as glades, and in them
also the flora is quite distinct, especially in the chert glades, which
include sorrel, yellow-flowered stonecrop, St. John's-wort, prickly pear,
wild petunia, portulaca, and the dainty phacelia. In the limestone and
dolomite glades, umbrella wort, widow's cross, western wallflower, wild
24 MISSOURI
hyacinth, the which is locally called polecat bush, Indian bread
root, and the edible ground plum are commonly found.^
Ozark flora merges very gradually into the prairie flora. Before
cultivation destroyed it, forest growth of the general Ozark character
covered the prairie stream banks. The unglaciated prairie just^ north
of the Missouri River, and near its confluence with the Mississippi,
closely resembles the Ozark region in flora,
The glaciated prairie across most of northern Missouri, and in
small areas of St. Louis, Saline, Cooper, Lafayette, and Jackson coun-
ties, was once covered with a never-ending succession of grasses and
perennial herbs, most of which were legumes or composites* C, J.
Latrobe, who traveled west from Arrow Rock in 1832, describes them;
"God has here with a prodigal hand, scattered the seeds of thousands
of beautiful plants. . , . When the yellow suns of autumn incline over
the west, their mild rays are greeted by the appearance of millions of
yellow flowers * . . which seem to clothe the undulating surface of the
prairie with a cloth of gold." Characteristic prairie flowers are white
anemone, meadow rose, turtle-head, white snakeroot, and river-bank
grape* But in the northwestern part, along the loess-covered bluffs of
the Missouri River, grow thimble-weed, locoweed, wolfberry, and wild
licorice, as well as many unusual grasses. Because the loess hills erode
rapidly, and are extremely dry, the forests have not encroached upon
them as they have upon the flora of other sections. In the loess hills of
Atchison and Holt counties are found some plants from the north-
western plains that grow nowhere else in Missouri,
There were originally very few trees in the prairie region, but here
and there along stream borders were cottonwood and black willow,
yellow oak, cork elm, box elder, quaking aspen, black haw, and choke
cherry. Introduced timber at the present time provides many woods
patches*
Along streams and in areas of low relief, particularly in the glaciated
prairies, salt springs and salt licks sometimes occur. These impregnate
the surrounding soil with alkaline salts, producing an unusual flora.
Narrow-leaved cattail, water starwort, horned and fennel-leaved pond-
weed, three-square, bulrush, red spear scale, knotgrass, and barnyard
grass are among the plants common to these salty areas.
In recent years, Missouri has become increasingly interested in pre-
serving her rich heritage of flora. Educational programs attempt to
make the public conscious of its floral wealth and to prevent wanton
destruction. Horticulture societies, garden clubs, and flower shows
maintain the public interest in beautifying the State. Shaw's Garden
in St. Louis, together with its arboretum and wild-flower garden at Gray
Summit,, disseminates information pertaining to all forms of plant
growth, care, and preservation (see St. Louis, and Tour 5). The
LAND OF MISSOURI 25
United States Government has bought 3,319,939 acres of depleted for-
est and submarginal lands In Missouri, out of which the Clark and
Gardner national forests have been created. They operate under the
United States Forest Service, in co-operation with State and local com-
missions, and maintain a program to improve the timber, reduce fire
hazards, and beautify the State and its highways.
FAUNA
Missouri's first white settlers found an almost fabulous number of
birds and animals. Some of these have now entirely vanished; the
rest are becoming constantly rarer. The great herds of buffalo which
once ranged as far east as the Mississippi, and even invaded the Ozark
hills, are gone, the last having been seen in 1850. Holt County saw
the last great concentration of elk in 1841, when at least 500 were
killed by Indians. Black bear, that once prowled throughout Missouri's
forests, were extremely rare by 1880. Panther are thought to be ex-
tinct, though people occasionally "think they saw" one. The antelop
that once swarmed over the western prairie have been gone since 1840.
The badger, fairly common as late as 1850, have likewise been driven
out or trapped.
The incredible early flocks of birds have met the same fate. The
passenger pigeons, whose flight literally blackened the skies, have not
been seen since 1890. The little green paroquets with yellow heads-,
which once made the sycamores they loved "look like Christmas trees, "
are lost to the State. One was seen in 1904, another in 1905, and both
were promptly killed. The Eskimo curlews, whistling and trumpeter
swans, and whooping cranes, if they exist at all, are now extremely
rare. An occasional water turkey, once plentiful, is still found in the
southeastern swamp area.
So great was the early stock of wild life that the State did not
become conscious until the 1870*3 of the depletion caused by hunters
and settlers, and by lumbering and land cultivation. The first conserva-
tion law, passed in 1874, provided for a closed season on deer and the
better game birds and forbade the netting of birds. The passage of
the so-called Walmsley Law in 1905, however, marked the first real
step toward preserving the State's animal life; it established closed sea-
sons, a system of licenses, and a State appropriation. This law, vari-
ously altered, Is still the basis of the State conservation regulations.
Perhaps the biggest step was the provision in 1936 for a conservation
commission. In spite of the establishment of State reservations, and
of efforts to restock or introduce species, however, game is still decreas-
ing in Missouri, with the exception of typical farm game such as quail,
rabbit, and skunk.
26 MISSOURI
A number of animals and birds are common to most sections of Mis-
souri: cottontail rabbits, western fox, squirrel, opossum, common musk-
rat, raccoon, and a few mink and red fox. Civet and skunk are found
everywhere except in the southeastern swamps, where the high water
table prevents their burrowing. Of the game birds, the eastern bob-
white and the mourning dove are State-wide. Mexican quail and ring-
necked pheasant have been introduced in great numbers, but, in spite
of the thousands of dollars spent, neither species seems to be increasing.
Among the transient or rarer game birds are the common Canada goose s
mallard, blue-winged teal, wood duck, mud hen, woodcock, plover 9 and
ruddy duck.
The State boasts an unusually large variety of songbirds, because
of its generally mild climate. The bluebird, official State bird, has a
cheerful whistle, and its bright back and orange breast make it attrac-
tive. Of the 400 species of non-game birds in the State, the most fre-
quent are the bullfinch, cardinal, mockingbird, woodpecker, and the
quarrelsome blue jay. Indigo bunting, whippoorwill, Baltimore oriole,
and goldfinch are fairly general in the more rural sections, and occa-
sionally loon, snipe, and killdeer are seen, and even, at rare intervals,
a "Great God woodpecker/ 5
Among predatory birds, seven or eight varieties of hawk, three or
four of owl, and the common crow are general throughout the State.
The northern bald eagle is frequent in the Ozarks and occasionally
visits larger streams in other sections. Several kinds of buzzard are
common, but these are scavengers rather than predators.
Relatively few predatory animals are now common in Missouri*
Probably the most troublesome, and certainly the most numerous, are
stray dogs and cats. The practice of abandoning these pets in the woods
has led to their multiplying alarmingly. Wild dogs will attack cattle
and deer, as well as small animals, and the cats destroy young animals
and birds. It is estimated that cats kill not less than 12,000,000 birds
a year in Missouri, to say nothing of the eggs they destroy. Of the
native predators, the red fox, the eastern gray wolf, which is now com-
mon only in the southern parts, the coyote of the north and west, and
the fast disappearing bobcat of the southeast are most frequent.
The most malicious predator, as any hiker can testify, is the minute
insect known as the chigger, which looks like a tiny grain of red pepper.
It burrows under the skin, causing itchy swellings of some duration*
Although malaria-carrying mosquitoes still remain in the southeastern
swamps, they are disappearing as drainage progresses.
Of the harmless snakes, the most frequent are water, garter, rib-
bon, black, and bull snakes. The venomous-looking puff adder is in
reality quite harmless. Copperhead, rattlesnake > and the very rarely
seen cottonmouth moccasin are the only dangerous serpents in the State*
LAND OF MISSOURI 27
There are no poisonous lizards, but fence lizards, swifts, and blue-tailed
sklok are numerous. Terrapins are common ; both hard- and soft-shelled
turtles are abundant. Occasionally, the curious-looking alligator turtle
is seen.
Fish, like other wild life, have decreased, but buffalo, cat, and Ger-
man carp are still abundant. Of the many game fish, bass, crappie,
and brook trout are common* So, too, are shad, drum, jack salmon,
perch, sunfish, and bullhead. Crayfish, mussels, and eels abound in
most waters, and, along the less-traveled streams, giant bullfrogs also
are found. Perhaps the most curious of the stream dwellers is the fero-
cious-looking "water dog," or aquatic salamander, which, appearances
to the contrary, is entirely harmless.
Quail, raccoon, and civet, tree-denning rodents and fur bearers, and
bank burrowers live in the northwestern prairie section, which has a
deep, rich loess soil and is widely cultivated. This is the only section
in which the Great Plains muskrat is now common. The greater
prairie chicken, or grouse, are sometimes found. The region of the
northern river-breaks has a more stable wild life, especially birds, because
of its many streams and the fact that the poor soil affords less cultiva-
tion. The most important waterfowl flyway in the central States lies
along the Chariton river-bottom lake country, though in recent years
it has been somewhat reduced by dredging. The northeastern prairie
is more richly wooded and has a more varied edge growth than the
other prairie sections, so that the region is one of the best game habitats
of the State. The New York weasel and occasional Wisconsin gray
fox are found here.
The western prairie, the most typical in the State, is covered largely
with brush and grasses; it therefore affords little protection to larger
wild animals. The jack rabbit, the long-tailed weasel, and the north-
ern coyote live here, as do prairie chicken.
The western prairie merges gradually into the Qzark Highland.
Along this border, fur-bearing animals are more frequent than else-
where. Where the Ossarks merge with the northern prairie, the river
bottoms afford large trees, and a rich soil supports both cultivation
and heavy edge cover. Gasconade County in this section is the best
deer range in the State. The State's few beaver are found in Dent
County. Grey fox also inhabit this area and the central Ozark Plateau
to the south; in the latter, too, are Northern bald eagle, wild turkey,
and the very rare eastern ruffed grouse.
Most of the southeastern region was once a swamp, but at present
drainage has permitted cultivation of some 50 per cent of it. The
5 per cent of timbered area is still frequently under water, so that aquatic
game is abundant. On the slight elevations, good cover and a rich
supply of food supports some animals, including the only remaining
28 MISSOURI
otters in the State. The uncultivated portion is a tangle of cutovet
timber and brush, excellent for all game except borrowers and such
open-field birds as quail and doves. Southern grey squirrel, swamp
rabbit, eastern grey wolf, and the fast disappearing bobcat are found
in this section*
Archeologr and Indians
THE traces of primitive peoples found throughout Missouri have
long attracted widespread interest and speculation. These
remains chiefly consist of village sites,* earthworks or tumuli,
pottery, various types of stone implements, and decorative objects in
stone, shell, pottery, or metal. Many of these were produced by the
Indians of historic times; others, by earlier Indian cultures.
Indian village and camp sites are often identified by the presence
of stone tools and weapons, and chips and flakes of chert or flint. In
some instances, fragments of pottery and animal bones, and beds of
ashes indicate the past location of wigwams and huts. In St. Louis,
Franklin, Morgan, and Saline Counties are well-defined localities where
the Indians quarried the materials needed for tools and weapons. Near
Leslie, an ancient mine of the red and yellow oxides of iron used by
the Indians for paint has been discovered ; its tunnels extend to a depth
of 20 feet or more and are so narrow that only small persons could
have used them.
Earthworks or mounds are still numerous, although many have
been obliterated. These include conical mounds, pyramidal and effigy
mounds, and embankments and fortifications. Although mounds are
found throughout Missouri, the greatest number, and those of the
largest size, occur in the most fertile and accessible areas of the State,
particularly along the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, and in the south-
east. Most of these mounds are from 4 to 5 feet in height, and from
30 to 50 feet in diameter. Many appear singly ; others in various types
of groupings.
The majority of the mounds are conical, built of earth, or of earth
combined with stone. These were usually depositories for the dead,
but burials were also made in pyramidal mounds, and, more rarely, in
effigy mounds. Mounds along the Missouri River often contain rec-
tangular or circular vaults of stone or sometimes of logs. Within
these, bodies were either stretched at full length or partly doubled up.
At times, apparently, the bones were deposited after the flesh had dis-
appeared. It is known that in certain southern tribes, during historic
times, a special group had the task of removing the decayed flesh from
the bones in preparation for this type of burial.
The mounds in southeast Missouri are largely concentrated in
an area from six to ten miles wide, extending south from Cape
29
30 MISSOURI
Girardeau to northern Arkansas. Many of these are conical, but
others are square, oblong, or of various other shapes, some of which
suggest the effigy mounds, having the outline of an animal or reptile
form, found elsewhere in the Mississippi Valley. Probably more than
one culture flourished here before the arrival of the Europeans. The
many remains indicate occupation by an agricultural people over a con-
siderable period of time. The largest Missouri mound is in Pemiscot
County, not far from Caruthersville (see Tour 7c). It is 400 feet long,
250 feet wide, and 35 feet high, with an approach from the south end
leading up to the tpp. The north end is 15 feet higher than the south
end. The sides seem to have been covered, originally, with burnt clay
from three to four inches thick, with split cane laid between the layers.
Near New Madrid is an example of the flat-topped mound, 150 by 200
feet, and 35 feet high, constructed of some sort of soft brick. Other flat-
topped mounds have been found elsewhere in the State, Temples,
the houses of the chiefs, or other public buildings seem to have been
built on these.
Embankments or enclosures, found in various parts of Missouri,
are among the most interesting of the prehistoric remains. These are
often called "fortifications," but so little is known of the purpose for
wh'ch they were built that the title is at best a questionable one. No
two seem identical in outline; examples have been found which are
circular, square, oblong, octagonal, or irregular. Near Hoberg, in
Lawrence County, is a triangular enclosure 500 feet long, protected
by a 2j4-foot ditch on the outside. In Dade County, the so-called
Indian Fort consists of 2 semicircular embankments, about 150 feet in
diameter on the inside. Near by are 2 other semicircles, 600 feet long
and now about 2 feet high, with a clearly noticeable ditch a foot deep
on the outside. Between the ends of the inner semicircle are 2 mounds
10 feet in diameter and 2 feet high. The most interesting enclosure
found in Missouri is in Van Meter State Park in Saline County, It
is located on the top of what was formerly the south bank of the
Missouri River, near the eighteenth century villages of the Missouri
and Little Osage Indians. Similar to Fort Ancient in Ohio, it is 1,300
feet long and averages about 300 feet in width. It is well preserved
and has, in places, a double ditch.
Missouri Indian pottery is classed as either "grit" or "shell, 1 * accord-
ing to its temper or binding material. Many of the examples that have
been found were evidently intended for domestic use. Other pieces,
more decorative, were probably made for burial, religious, or purely
ornamental purposes. The latter type is carefully and delicately fin-
ished and of many unusual forms, such as the slender, bottle-shaped
jar, seemingly peculiar to the southeast Missouri area, and the so-called
effigy pots, made in various human or animal designs. The pottery
ARCHEOLOGY AND INDIANS 31
ranges in color from a rich black through all shades of brown and
gray, white and terra cotta tones. The patterns are either raised or
incised or painted. Excellent pottery collections are exhibited in the
museum of the Southeast Missouri State Teachers College, Cape
Girardeau, and the Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis.
Almost every type of arrow and spear point, from the tiny bird
points to spears over a foot in length, has been discovered in Missouri.
Knives, scrapers, hoes, and axes are also abundant. Discoidals, used
in an Indian game, have been found. The presence of metates or
grinding stones indicates how widely corn was grown. Flint was chiefly
used in the manufacture of smaller objects: arrow and spear points,
and scrapers, hoes, and similar tools. Granites and other igneous stones
were used for the larger and coarser implements. Tomahawks of hema-
tite ore are frequently seen.
Stone carvings of animals, and even of the human head, have been
found in southeast Missouri mounds. Dunklin County yielded a cache
of sheet-copper objects embossed with eagles, double-eagles, and what
appears to be a man-eagle. These objects, as well as specimens of
obsidian, copper, conch-shells, and from a later period iron toma-
hawks of European manufacture, suggest an extensive primitive com-
merce.
At least two main types of culture were present in the Missouri
area. These are known as the Woodland and Mississippi cultures.
The Woodland is distinguished by the use of pottery tempered with
grit and fashioned in only one shape; burials in low mounds, generally
without grave articles, and with the body flexed; coarsely chipped
arrow points with stems; and grooved axes. Characteristics of the
Mississippi culture are shell-tempered pottery in a variety of shapes;
bodies arranged in an extended position, in low mounds built up by
successive burials; articles buried with bodies; the use of very small
and finely chipped arrow points. Different remains, including those
of the Hopewell culture found in western Missouri* indicate, however,
that a number of variations of these main cultures, or other distinct
Indian cultures, have been present in Missouri, The earliest so far
located is the "Bluff Dweller" culture, found in the caves and rock
shelters of Taney, Stone, Barry, McDonald, and Newton Counties.
These primitive cave and rock shelter dwellers had not learned the use
of the bow and arrow, but they did weave baskets and mats and fine
garments of feathers. A bone decorated with the picture of a mammoth
(now in the Capitol Museum, Jefferson City) was found In Jacob's
Cavern, three miles east of Pineville.
Prehistoric inhabitants of Missouri were long thought to have been
of some ancient and distinct race, later displaced and perhaps exter-
minated by the Indians of historic times. Our knowledge of this early
MISSOURI
Is still fragmentary and confused, but the crafts, burial customs,
and traditions of the later Indians indicate a close cultural relationship
to the prehistoric group, rather than a new race. It is known that some
of the tribes inhabiting the Gulf States, such as the Yuchi, Creek,
Chickasaw, and Natchez, were still using and probably constructing
mounds when De Soto passed through that territory in 15401. The
Quapaw of Arkansas were also using them ; and there is evidence that
the Cherokee and ShaWnee were mound builders. Blue Mound in
Vernon County, Missouri, was for more than a century the burial place
of the Osage, and as late as 1874 niembers of the tribe returned each
year to mourn there.
Much of our confusion regarding the prehistoric period comes from
the fact that the Indians found in Missouri by the first European visi-
tors appear to have been themselves recent immigrants. Migrations
among the Indians seem to have extended over a considerable period
of time. They were .probably induced by the increasing pressure of
certain Eastern and Northeastern tribes, by the spread of French and
English settlement, and by the distribution of European weapons among
the Eastern tribes. Shiftings continued until near the close of the
nineteenth century, when the frontier had disappeared and the rem-
nants had been harried into reservations. Many of these migratory
tribes passed through Missouri, as evidenced by a few place names, and
various half-remembered tales.
The tribes occupying Missouri during the Colonial period repre-
sented two main linguistic groups. The Sauk, Fox, and Illinois tribes
who dominated the northeastern portion of the State belonged to the
Algonquin family, the most numerous of the North American Indian
groups. The remainder was occupied by various Siouan tribes: the
Oto, Iow*a, Osage, Missouri, Quapaw, Kansa, and others. In general,
the two groups were hereditary foes, although the various individual
tribes were constantly shifting their alliances.
Of all the Indians living within Missouri during historic times,
none excited the interest or admiration of the whites more than the
Osage. When the first French explorers visited the region late in the
seventeenth century, this tribe was living near the mouth of the Osage
River. Before 1718, one group moved up the Osage to establish its
villages near the headwaters of the stream. These became known as
the Great or Big Osage, or, Pa-he'tsi, the "campers on the mountains."
The rest of the tribe, together with their cousins, the Missouri, moved
westward up the Missouri River into the present area of Saline County.
Because of their village site in the Missouri River bottom, they were
called the Little Osage, or, U-tsehta, the "campers in the low lands."
The Osage men were of impressive height, averaging six feet or
more. Audubon considered them as "well formed, athletic and robust
"OLD MISSOURI"
SPEAKER, A feinting by Bingttam
PANEL Capitol,
Jtffwspn City, by Thomas Hart Benton
PIONCER LIFE IN MISSOURI IN 1820
INTERIOR OF HS27)
COL
MASSACRE OF MORMONS AT HAUN'S MILL
JESSE JAMES' RECEPTION
OF SCOTT
THE BATTLI OF
JEFFERSON CITY (1855)
ST.
MARK TWAIN AT THE TiMC OF HIS LAST VISIT
TO HIS OLD HOME IN HANNIBAL
LOUISIANA PURCHASE EXPOSITION,
ST. LOUIS (1904)
DAWN, by William E. L. Bonn
ARCHEOLOGY AND INDIANS 33
men of noble aspect.'* The feats performed by their runners were
remarkable, and indeed, it was not uncommon for the Osage to walk
bo miles in a day. Their war parties traveled great distances. They
aided in the relief of the French at Detroit in 1712; and Che-to-ka,
or Whetstone, a Little Osage, claimed that he was at Braddock's defeat
with all the warriors that could be spared from the villages.
The ordinary dress of the Osage men included a breechcloth of
blue or red cloth secured by a girdle, and a pair of leggings made of
dressed deerskin, concealing all the leg except a small portion of the
upper thigh. Unornamented moccasins made of dressed deer, elk, or
bison skin, and a blanket to cover the upper portion of the body, com-
pleted the costume. The women wore moccasins, leggings of blue or
red cloth, a piece of blue cloth draped around the waist, and another
piece of cloth draped over one shoulder.
The villages of the Great Osage were laid out irregularly, and
contained small cone-shaped huts and larger oblong structures. The
latter, described by Z. M. Pike in 1806, were about 20 feet wide, and
varied in length from 40 to 100 feet, in width from 15 to 20 feet*
They were made of a framework of poles covered with a matting of
woven rushes. Smoke from the fires made in the center of the lodge
was allowed to drift through apertures left in the roof for that purpose*
The Osage subsisted chiefly through hunting, but they ann^lly
raised small crops of corn, beans, and pumpkins. The men hunted
from May until August, returning in time to gather the crops left
unhoed and unfenced during the summer. Late in September, the
fall hunts began ; these continued until about Christmas. The In-
dians then remained in their villages until February or March when
the spring hunts commenced; first the bear, then the beaver hunt.
Those who were more fortunate in the hunt provided for the des-
titute, and it was customary to send provisions to the lodges of the
poor, the widows, and the fatherless. This spirit of consideration was
reflected in the government of the Osage. Although authority was
nominally vested in a small number of chiefs, usually hereditary, no
important decision was ever made without consulting the warriors in
council. There was no regular code of laws, but rather a tacit under-
standing of the right to command.
Conspicuous among the various Indian tribes for their general sobri-
ety, the Osage remained for more than a century but little changed by
their association with white traders and visitors. "You are surrounded by
slaves," old Chief Has-ha-ke-da-tungar, or Big Soldier, once remarked
to a white friend. "Everything about you is in chains, and you are
in chains yourselves. I fear if I should change my pursuit for yours,
I too, should become a slave."
The Chouteau family of St. Louis had exclusive trading privileges
34 MISSOURI
with the Osage until about 1795* when they were transferred to Manuel
Lisa. In 1802, through the influence of Pierre Chouteau, a group of
the Great Osage moved south to the Arkansas River, where Chouteau
retained their trade. In 1808, the United States government estab-
lished a military and trading post. Fort Osage, near the present town
of Sibley in Jackson County, to supply the Indians with goods and to
protect them from the northern tribes. Some of the Indians set up their
lodges near the fort, and the friendly relations thus established were
preserved during the War of 1812, although the fort was abandoned
for a few years. In 1821, the United Foreign Missionary Society es-
tablished Harmony Mission about three miles northwest of Papinsville
to educate and Christianize the Osage (see Tour lOb). Four years
later, the Osage surrendered the remainder of their lands in Missouri
and Arkansas, and by 1837, all had moved into Kansas.
The Sauk and Fox Indians, who claimed as their hunting grounds
all the territory north of the Missouri River and east of the Grand
River to the Mississippi, carried on a war for many years against the
Missouri. Although the date of their entry into the State is not clear,
the Sauk and Fox were in undisputed possession of the north Missouri
area early in the eighteenth century, and often attacked their enemies
soi 'th of the Missouri River. They displaced the Peoria, found by
Marquette and Jolliet at and near the mouth of the Des Moines, and
forced them southward. Later, the Peoria, greatly reduced in num-
bers, established villages near St. Louis and Ste. Genevieve, seeking the
protection of the whites against their relentless enemies*
According to Black Hawk, the Sauk or Sac, and the Fox variously
known as Outagamie, Outagamiouek, and Musquakee, and nicknamed
Renard (Fox) by the French lived originally along the St. Lawrence
River, Both tribes were of Algonquin stock. The pressure of the
Iroquois slowly forced them westward. Emigrating independently,
they eventually met at Green Bay, where they formed a lasting alliance.
Intensely savage, rude in manner, and of a roving disposition, these
tribes were constantly at war with their Indian neighbors and with the
French, and proved a severe hindrance to French colonial trade on the
upper Mississippi. Expeditions were sent against them in 1717, 1728,
and 1734. The last, commanded by Nicholas Joseph De Noyalles,
started for the Des Moines country from Montreal in August After
a somewhat dispirited war, an indecisive peace was arranged the fol-
lowing year.
The principal villages of the Sauk and the Fox in 1804 were within
the present State of Missouri, south of the Des Moines; they had other
villages in the present area of Iowa and Illinois. Their mode of living
was somewhat similar to that of the Osage. The Sauk and Fox winter
hunt began in the late fall after harvest and continued until March or
ARCHEOLOGY AND INDIANS 35
April, when the tribe returned to their villages to plant their crops*
Their agriculture was more extensive than that of the Osage. They
cultivated land near the Mississippi and raised as much as 8,000 bushels
of corn, besides beans, pumpkins, and melons. During the summer,
the younger men went on a hunt, leaving the women in the villages
to weave rush mats and bark corn-bags;; and the older men to dig and
smelt lead at the mines in their territory. Lead produced during a
season reached 5,000 pounds. Their surplus products, including furs,
they sold to white traders. This commerce' was long controlled by
the English, although the Spanish traders in St. Louis secured some of
it ; after the acquisition of the Louisiana Territory by the United States,
it was absorbed by St. Louis merchants.
American settlement forced other tribes westward. Many of these
were encouraged to settle in Missouri by the Spanish authorities, who
hoped in this manner to form a bulwark against the unremitting raids
and thefts of the Osage, and against the possibility of American invasion.
The most important of these tribes were the Shawnee and Delaware,
who began emigrating to southeastern Missouri as early as 1784. In
*793 Baron de Carondelet authorized Don Louis Lorimier to estab-
lish these tribes in the province of Louisiana, on the Mississippi between
the Missouri and the Arkansas. Subsequently, the Spanish government
authorized Lorimier to induce them to make a settlement in the Spanish
territory. The Indians" hatred of the Americans, who had conquered
them through the victory of General Wayne and the Treaty of Green-
ville (1795), made Lorimier's task an easy one. In 1797, these Indians
were reported moving into Missouri in large numbers.
The settlements of the Shawnee and the Delaware were principally
made between Cinque Hommes and Flora Creeks above Cape Girardeau.
The tribes were accustomed to act together in important matters, but
they established separate villages. The largest Shawnee village con-
tained about 400 inhabitants, and was built on the top of a hill above
Apple Creek, near the present site of Old Appleton. The Shawnee
usually called their villages Chillicothe, or Chilliticaux, the word mean-
ing "a place of residence.*' Pierre Menard says they named their town
Chalacasa, after their old town on the Scioto. Their houses were of logs
constructed in the French style (see Architecture)* The Shawnee were
active, industrious, and good hunters. They were also good farmers,
cultivating fields of corn, pumpkins, melons, and potatoes, and raising
cattle, hogs, and horses. When they first settled in Missouri they had
frequent wars with the Osage, but by 1802 peace was secured. They
were attentive to dress and used great quantities of vermilion and black
to paint their bodies on feast days. They were unusually careful of
their children.
Among the various Shawnee groups who settled in Missouri was
36 MISSOURI
one band of about 24 warriors of which Lewis Rogers, a white man
taken prisoner in childhood, was chief. During the early Kentucky
Indian wars, Rogers commanded a marauding party of the Ohio River,
plundering boats and murdering the owners who resisted. Following
General Anthony Wayne's victory, Rogers prudently decided to move
into Spanish territory with his loot. Here he developed an interest in
white culture and co-operated with his white neighbors, living at vari-
ous places, including Bridgeton, the Fourche a Courtois in Washington
County, and Franklin County south of Union, where he died. A com-
paratively wealthy man, Rogers offered money to any white man who
would marry his daughter; after the marriage he deferred payment
of the promised dowry, saying he would see if the man proved a worthy
husband (see Tour 1).
Among the Shawnee who settled on Apple Creek was Peter Corn-
stalk Nerupenesheguah son of the celebrated Cornstalk of the Dun-
more war, a war chief and a fluent and powerful speaker. At the age
of 80, he was a conspicuous defender of Shawnee interests in their
lands west of the Missouri State Line. A sister of Tecumseh Tecci-
keapease- who married a Canadian Frenchman at New Madrid about
1808, and other members of the Tecumseh family, also lived here,
as did a brother of the white renegade, Simon Girty, completely Indian
ill his dress, habits, and manners*
About 1808-9, these Indians became possessed with the belief that
witchcraft was practiced among them and consequently burned to
death some 50 women within 12 months. The charges against the
women were usually based upon the report of some one who claimed
he had seen the alleged witch in the form of an owl or some other
bird, or in the form of a panther or beast of the forest. The frenzy
was suddenly quelled by the appearance of Tecumseh, who was then
busy with his plans to form a vast confederacy of all Indians, to check
the advance of the white settlers.
Despite the fact that the Spanish government, and later the Ameri-
can government, granted the Indians title to their lands, the Shawnee
and Delaware slowly moved west before the advance of the whites,
establishing villages successively on White River and Castor River.
They also set up a village on the present site of Bloomfield in Stoddard
County, and another near the present site of Kennett. In 1806, the
Delaware had villages on White River near Forsythe, on James 1 Fork,
and on Wilson's Creek, in present Greene County. In addition, Shaw-
nee and Delaware villages were located on the Meramec and Current
Rivers, on the headwaters of the Gasconade, and at other points in the
interior.
In the treaty made at St. Louis in 1815, the American government
ordered all whites to move from the Shawnee and Delaware lands, but
ARCHEOLOGY AND INDIANS 3?
the measure was only of temporary relief, for ten years Liter the en-
croachment of white settlers compelled the^e tribes to sell their Spanish
grant and leave the State for a home farther west.
The first groups of Cherokee to immigrate into Missouri came at
an early date* According to an old tradition, after the first treaty had
been made with the white people, Yunwiusga'se'ti (Dangerous Man)
foresaw the end, and led a portion of the tribe westward. After the
Revolutionary War, some of the Cherokee who had fought with the
British requested and were granted permission to settle in Spanish ter-
ritory. A settlement was made on the St. Francis River, where other
Cherokee groups joined them. From time to time this tribe waged
war against the Osage, and the Sauk and Fox. The latter directed
their attention toward their "ancient enemy, the Cherokee," and met
them in battle near the Meramec. Black Hawk records that although
the Cherokee were in superior numbers they lost 28 warriors, whereas
the Sank and Fox lost only 3. In 1838, after a forced sale of their
lands in Tennessee and Georgia, the Cherokee Nation was moved west
into present Oklahoma. This exodus, in which they were driven with
unpardonable severity by a United States Army detachment, resulted
in the death of more than 4,000 of the 16,000 Indians who began the
journey. Many of the Cherokee made the long journey on foot, cross-
ing the Mississippi River at or near Cape Girardeau during the winter,
and passing through southern Missouri by way of Springfield. This
trail was subsequently known to the Indians by a word in their language
meaning the Trail of Tears.
During the 3<>year period following the Louisiana Purchase, the
tribes living in Missouri relinquished their claims to Missouri lands
by a series of treaties, and moved south and west into the Kansas and
Oklahoma region. The first of these treaties, entered into November
j, 1804, between the United States and the Sauk and Fox at Portage
des Sioux, was, according to Black Hawk, made without authority
having been given the chiefs who negotiated it. Ill feeling among the
Indians over this treaty, which ceded an extensive territory, caused
a schism between the Sauk and Fox, and was the alleged cause for the
depredations on white settlers during the War of 1812.
In the treaty made by the United States at Fort Osage in Novem-
ber 1808, with the Great and Little Osage, a boundary was agreed
upon, extending south from Fort Osage to the Arkansas River. In
tliis manner the Osage claim to Missouri lands was extinguished, with
the exception of the area now comprising the western tier of counties
south of the Missouri River.
The series of treaties with the Sauk and Fox, made at Portage des
Sioux following the War of 1812, confirmed and ratified the treaty
of 1804 (see History and Government)* Four years later, the Kicka-
38 MISSOURI
poo, in the treaty of Edwardsville, ceded territory in Illinois and Indiana
to the United States, and in return were granted lands in southwestern
Missouri. Although the title was granted the Kickapoo and their
heirs forever, and was confirmed again in 1820, they were forced to
move west of the Missouri State Line by the treaty made at Castor
Hill, St. Louis County, in 1832. At Washington in 1823, the Sank
and Fox relinquished all remaining claims to lands in Missouri, and
the Iowa gave up all claims to the same territory, part of which had
been their immemorial hunting ground. The Great and Little Osage
relinquished their remaining lands in Missouri in 1825, and, at the
same time, a similar treaty was concluded with the Kansas Indians,
whose claims had principally embraced Jackson and Cass Counties.
During the same year, the Shawnee relinquished their Spanish grants
in exchange for land west of the Missouri border, and four years later s
the Delaware, at a council held at James' Fork of the White River,
were removed to the Delaware reservation in the fork of the Missouri
and Kansas Rivers. A final treaty was made in 1832 with the last
remnant of the Delaware and Shawnee in southwest Missouri. This
treaty, together with one four years later, known as the Platte Pur-
chase, by which the Sauk, Fox, and other tribes ceded the area in north-
west Missouri, ended all Indian titles and claims within the present
area of Missouri,
THE story of Missouri has been shaped by the location of the
State at the meeting point of the Missouri, the Ohio, and the
Mississippi Rivers* and by the diversity of its surface features
prairies, alluvial plains, and Ozark uplands. Its geographical position
has given the region a dramatic importance in the history of national
expansion s while its topography has tended to divide its people, its
economy, and its political interests along sectional lines that have often
resulted in confusion*
French colonial trade and exploration spread south and west along
the water highway of the St. Lawrence to the Great Lakes in the
opening half of the seventeenth century, and, after a pause, spilled
beyond into the valley of the Mississippi. The journey in 1658-59 of
Pierre d'Espirit and Medard Chouart, French-Canadian traders, con-
firmed vague stories of the country beyond Lake Michigan, for these
men discovered the "great river that divides itself in two," one branch
flowing from the west, the other southwards toward Mexico. In 1673,
Louis Jolliet and Father Jacques Marquette made a voyage of explora-
tion down the Mississippi, thinly veiling with missionary zeal the hope
of their backers for the discovery of the Northwest Passage, or perhaps
the gold mines of Quivira. The latter aim was not encouraged by
events, but the men learned from the Indians that the Missouri came
a great distance from the northwest, and Father Marquette wrote that
he hoped by this river to discover the route to the Western Sea.
On his exploration of the Mississippi in 1682, Robert Cavelier de
la Salle was likewise assured by Indians that the Missouri was the
route to the Pacific* La Salle suggested that the Missouri was the
main stream, and the Upper Mississippi only a tributary. When he
reached the mouth of the Mississippi he claimed the entire valley for
France, and in honor of the King it came to be known as Louisiana.
Thus, without the inhabitants of the territory knowing anything about
it, France gained a great empire, and European domination of the
region began*
It proved to be a domination not by government officials, but by fur
traders and missionary priests who, by the close of the century, had
explored much of Missouri, mapped and named many of its streams,
and made peace with its Indians. It was, at its best, a vague sort of
rule, depending more on the good will of the natives than on any force
39
40 MISSOURI
of arms. The trader carrying wares to his Indian customers had little
need for a permanent residence. The priests established only semi-
permanent missions on their circuits, and those not often. One such
mission, however, St. Francis Xavier (170003), at the mouth of the
River des Peres within present St. Louis, was Missouri's first white
settlement.
A section of Upper Louisiana, extending roughly from the Alle-
ghenies to the Rocky Mountains, came to be called the Illinois Country
because the early French explorers found the Illinois Confederation of
Indians along the Mississippi River. During prehistoric times, Indians
had mined small quantities of lead in present Missouri and Illinois.
Specimens of ore were shown the early French explorers, and the
existence of deposits along the Meramec, the Osage, and the Laminc
in present Missouri, were well known. In 1700, LeSueur, a French
mineralogist, investigated the mines of the Illinois Country. On the
bases of his reports, Le Moyne d'Iberville petitioned the French king
for a concession of the lead mines in southeast Missouri. His petition
was not acted upon, since lead held no interest for the almost bankrupt
French Court. In 1710, however, a report that large quantities of
silver existed in that region was fostered by government officials. Two
years later, Antoine Crozat, a French banker, was granted a 1 5-year
trade monopoly of Louisiana. He immediately instructed his repre-
sentative, De la Mothe Cadillac, to open the silver mines in the Illinois
Country. Late in 1714 Cadillac was shown samples of silver ore said
to have come from southeast Missouri, but when he visited the Illinois
Country the following spring he learned that the ore had come from
Mexico. At Mine la Motte, named in his honor, he dug for silver
but found only lead. Nevertheless, he reported that an abundant silver
mine had been discovered, and sent several kegs containing ore sup-
posedly extracted from that mine to France. Miners and supplies were
subsequently sent to Louisiana to exploit the silver, but they never
reached the Illinois Country.
In 1717 Crozat surrendered his patent, having incurred heavy
losses. Soon afterward the Company of the West, reorganized in 1719
as the Royal Company of the Indies, was established in France, la
1719 mines were opened here at Mine la Motte and on Mineral Fork
of Big River. Governor Bienville reported that rich silver mines had
been found, and the company's stock soared. Early in 1720, Philip
Renault, agent of the Company of the Indies, arrived in the Illinois
Country with about 50 miners and some slaves. Under his vigorous
supervision prospecting and mining in southeast Missouri expanded,
but he found no precious metals. A few months after his arrival, the
"Mississippi Bubble" burst, and the bankrupt company withdrew
Renault's credit. Harassed by debts and by a desultory war between
HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT 4!
the Fox Indians and the French, Renault continued mining lead until
1744, when he returned to France.
Although French investors lost heavily, the activities of the Com-
pany of the Indies greatly aided the Missouri region. Trade with the
Indian tribes increased. Etienne de Bourgmond had traveled up the
Missouri as far as the Platte River in 1714, keeping an accurate log
of the journey, and becoming the idol of the Indian tribes along the
way. Six years later, when a Spanish military expedition of about 60
entered French territory, they were massacred in the territory that is
now Nebraska by Indians friendly to the French. As a safeguard
against further Spanish trespasses, and to strengthen relations between
the French and the plains Indians, De Bourgmond established Fort
D'Orleans (1723-28) on the Missouri River in present Carroll County.
In 1720, Charles Claude Du Tisne explored southwest Missouri, where
he visited the Osage Indian villages.
About 1750, some Creole families from Kaskaskia, in present Illinois,
moved to the west bank of the Mississippi, and the settlement of Ste.
Genevieve developed along the bank of the river. Trade with Canada
and New Orleans increased. In 1762, the New Orleans firm of Max-
ent, Laclede & Company received a monopoly of the fur trade on the
Mississippi in the area between the Missouri and the St. Peters Rivers.
In 1764, Pierre Laclede, directing the company's activities, assisted
by young Auguste Chouteau, established St. Louis as his headquarters.
Within a few months the village received official notice that by secret
treaty on November 3, 1762, France had ceded its colony west of the
Mississippi, and the city of New Orleans, to Spain. By the* Treaty
of Paris (1763) at the end of the French and Indian War, France
lost Canada and her possessions east of the Mississippi to England.
Missouri's strategic position at the crossroads of this international
boundary gave the region a new prominence, which resulted in rapid
development.
In 1765, St Ange de Bellerive, the commander of Fort Chartres,
the French capital of Upper Louisiana, surrendered his fort and the
territory east of the Mississippi to British officers. Awaiting the formal
transfer of the colony west of the river to Spain, he removed with his
garrison to St* Louis, which thus became the capital of Ppper Louisiana.
St. Ange remained civil and military head until the arrival of Spanish
officials in 1770*
The laws and customs of Paris, which had governed the colony
during the French regime, remained essentially unchanged under the
new government In theory, Spanish was the official language, and
Spanish officials with Spanish titles were substituted for French; but
actually, many Frenchmen were appointed to offices in Upper Louisiana,
and of course French was the native language of the inhabitants. Dur-
42 MISSOURI
ing the entire Spanish period, the only new laws of consequence were
those providing for the acquisition of lands and regulating dower and
intestate inheritances.
The government of Upper Louisiana was not ccmplicated. A lieu-
tenant governor was appointed by the governor general at New Orleans
to superintend the affairs of the entire territory extending from the
Arkansas River to the Canadian Line. The lieutenant governor's
authority was extensive, although his decisions could be appealed to
the governor general. All land cessions had to be approved in New
Orleans. For the more convenient direction of purely local affairs
the settlements along the Mississippi were divided into districts, each
with a commandant appointed by the lieutenant governor and respon-
sible to him. Before the close of the Spanish period, five such districts
were formed in the Missouri area: St. Charles, St. Louis, Ste. Gene-
vieve, Cape Girardeau, and New Madrid. For the most part, the
officials seem to have been well selected and the laws impartially en-
forced.
Settlement and the fur trade increased under this government. La-
clede and other enterprising merchants with headquarters in St. Louis
extended their operations far up the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers.
Thar increasing profits made St. Louis the commercial and cultural
center of the upper valley. Meanwhile, resident priests were with-
drawn from the British villages of the Illinois Country and sent to the
growing Spanish settlements. The Creoles on the east bank, already,
dissatisfied with being subjects of Protestant England, were further
disgruntled by this, and many of them moved into Spanish territory,
The inhabitants of Upper Louisiana were primarily fur traders,
rather than colonists. They suffered from no land hunger, and their
settlements were in reality widely scattered trading posts whose very
existence depended upon friendly relations with the Indians* A yrilty
with the natives was consequently one of the major policies of the
government, especially since the revenue of the colony was insufficient
to support a large army. From the first, the French and Spanish in
this area, unlike colonists elsewhere in America, adopted the practice of
recognizing the Indians' land claims and of living on the friendliest
terms with them. None of their villages was fortified against the In-
dians, yet, so far as is known, very few Creole colonists were killed by
Indians during the entire Colonial period. The Spanish neither took
nor needed any military precautions until the British and Americans
threatened invasion. Then St. Louis was stockaded, and forts and
blockhouses were built throughout the territory.
Life in the colony was seriously disrupted by the American Revolu-
tion. The authorities at St. Louis aided* George Rogers Clark in the
conquest of the territory northwest of the Ohio River, and rallied to
HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT 43
defeat a combined British and Indian attack on St. Louis in 1780.
This was a significant victory of the American Revolution, for it con-
solidated the defense of the frontier against British expeditions and
Indian raids, at the same time that it preserved the Mississippi-Ohio
route for supplies to the American army. However, the enthusiasm
with which the French residents of the Northwest Territory and the
Spanish officials in the Missouri Territory had greeted the struggle
of the colonies was soon destroyed by the harsh and disorganized gov-
ernment established in the territory won from the British. Even before
the close of the war, great numbers of Creole families moved west
across the Mississippi.
When peace came in 1783, England relinquished her possessions
east of the Mississippi to the victorious Americans, yet for almost ten
years she continued to occupy posts in the ceded area. Her fur traders,
operating from Canada, poached on both American and Spanish ter-
ritory, and gave increasingly serious competition to St. Louis merchants,
who were forced to buy from them at least a portion of their goods
for trading.
To Spanish officials the Americans constituted a threat at this time,
for they had pushed their settlements across the Alleghenies to the very
banks of the Mississippi, and there was no longer a barrier of wilder-
ness between them and the Spanish colony. The territory was too large
and too sparsely settled for defense against serious invasion; conse-
quently the Spanish supplemented their military defenses with diplo-
macy. Like France and England, Spain was involved in various in-
trigues with American citizens to separate the western territories from
the United States. As an additional measure, Spain adopted the policy
of encouraging Americans to become Spanish citizens in the territory,
Circumstances aided this plan. The main revenue of the American
settlements in Kentucky, Tennessee, and the Ohio River Country came
from furs and agricultural products sold on the international market.
The Mississippi was the highway to that market, and Spain controlled
the Mississippi. This control she exercised arbitrarily, opening or
closing the river to American trade without regard to official promises.
The Americans were angry over their own government's failure to
settle the Issue, and many found it expedient to move into Spanish ter-
ritory, where as citizens they could use the river without restrictions.
There were other advantages to moving across the Mississippi.
Spain's land policy was far more liberal than any ever established by
the English or American governments. Not only was land granted
free on the basis of the settlers' individual needs, but no land taxes
were assessed, and settlers without funds were given supplies and equip-
ment. Spain even relaxed her restrictions against Protestants entering
the territory. Moreover, slave-holding families were welcomed, and
44 MISSOURI
these came in Increasing numbers after the passage of the Ordinance of
1787, by which the United States prohibited slavery in the Northwest
Territory. Thus, long before Missouri became a part of the Union,
slavery was an established institution there.
Spain also fostered various colonizing schemes. New Bourbon be-
came a refuge for the French Royalists whose settlement at Gallipolis
had failed, and Colonel George Morgan's grandiose plans for New
Madrid were for a time encouraged by the Spanish. Nor did Spain
neglect the Indians. As the various tribes were forced westward by
advancing American settlement, Spain granted them land in her ter-
ritory. Louis Lorimier, an Indian trader who had been in the pay
of the British and who had led more than one raid on Kentucky villages,
was permitted to enter Spanish territory, and lands in southeast Mis-
souri were granted him and his Shawnee and Delaware Indian friends.
Spain hoped that Lorimier's Indian colony would serve as an additional
bulwark against American aggression, and at the same time would
put a stop to Osage Indian raids along the Mississippi. These Osage
raids were an omen of the trouble to come as American settlement
pushed westward, for the Americans, who had already established vil-
lages along the Missouri, the Meramec, the Big River, and the St.
Francis, settled their score with the Indians without regard to Spanish
policy or Indian rights.
In 1795, by the Treaty of San Lorenzo, free navigation of the Mis-
sissippi River below the thirty-first parallel was reaffirmed, and New
Orleans was opened to Americans as a port of deposit and export. Five
years later, Napoleon, dreaming of reviving the French colonial em-
pire, forced Spain to return New Orleans and the Louisiana Territory
to France. No formal transfer was made for almost three years, and
Spanish officials remained in charge, but the change in owners aggravated
American uneasiness over foreign control of their chief highway. When
the Spanish authorities in New Orleans abruptly closed the port to
Americans in 1802, the frontiersmen demanded that the matter be de-
cided once and for all, either by purchase or by force. Ministers were
consequently sent to France to negotiate with Napoleon for the purchase
of New Orleans. To their surprise, they were offered the entire
Louisiana Territory, for Napoleon was preparing another war on Eng-
land. On April 30, 1803, a treaty was signed by which the United
States purchased Louisiana for $15,000,000,
The Western settlements were delighted, but the people of the East
had some doubts about the purchase. Many feared that the addition
of so vast a territory would destroy the original balance of the Union
by giving too much power to the trans-Allegheny region. The treaty
was ratified, however, and Lower Louisiana was formally transferred
to the United States on December 20, 1803. On March 9, 1804^
HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT 45
Captain Amos Stoddard, acting as agent for both the French Republic
and the United States, received Upper Louisiana from the Spanish
officials in St. Louis at a formal ceremony. Stoddard thus became
governor of the territory, but he retained the commandants and other
Spanish officials, and the laws and customs of the province were not
altered.
The boundaries of the Louisiana Territory were not clearly defined
in the treaty. When Congress established Upper Louisiana as the Dis-
trict of Louisiana in 1804, it was described as extending from the thirty-
third parallel to the Canadian line, and from the Mississippi indefinitely
west. This vast area was put under the control of the Territory of
Indiana, of which Benjamin Harrison was then Governor. The three
judges of the Indiana Territory, who were appointed a legislative body,
supplemented the old Spanish laws with new ones reflecting Anglo-
American mores and procedures, but the last of the Spanish laws was
not abrogated until 1825. The old Spanish districts were continued
as administrative units under the new government. Each was provided
with a commandant, a court of common pleas and quarter sessions,
a recorder, and a sheriff, and provisions were made for appointing jus-
tices of the peace, constables, and coroners for each neighborhood.
The new government was well received at first, but dissatisfaction
soon arose. The people of the territory objected to the new taxes, the
swarm of officials thrust upon them, the endless delays, and, most of
all, the location of the seat of government in Indiana. In the fall of
1804, the various districts sent representatives to a convention in St.
Louis, where they drafted a memorial to Congress requesting specified
changes.
Congress responded by passing the Act of 1805, which divorced the
Louisiana District from the Indiana Territory, and set it up as a sepa-
rate territory with a government of its own. Officials, appointed by
the President of the United States, consisted of a governor, a secretary,
and a legislature the last composed of the governor and three judges,
who were empowered to establish inferior courts and prescribe their
jurisdiction, and to make all necessary laws. Provision was made for
forming; new districts as the need arose, and for appointing additional
magistrates and civic officers. The first governor appointed was Gen-
eral James Wilkinson, but his administration was so bitterly opposed
that on March 3, 1807, he was replaced by Meriwether Lewis, who was
both well known and popular in the territory.
Three years earlier, President Jefferson had sent Lewis and William
Clark on an expedition from St. Louis up the Missouri River to the
headwaters of the Columbia, and from there to the Pacific, to gain
first-hand information about the almost unknown western half of the
LouisiaEa Purchase. After two years, Lewis and Clark had returned,
46 MISSOURI
their expedition a success. Additional information about the newly
acquired land was obtained by Zebulon M. Pike, who explored the
Upper Mississippi and traveled through the southwestern portion of
the territory during the same period.
As governor, Lewis proved efficient and impartial. Realizing that
trouble with the Indians was inevitable, he reorganized the militia and
prepared for the coming crisis on the frontier. An Eastern depression
had caused heavy immigration to Missouri. Settlement had conse-
quently pushed f Either and farther into the immemorial hunting grounds
of the Indians, and a cycle of raids, murders, and acts of revenge had
begun. As early as 1808, open war was threatened when the Osage*
the most powerful tribe in Missouri, began making retaliatory raids on
American settlements. General hostilities were averted by a treaty
made the same year, by which the Osage gave up part of their Missouri
lands on the understanding that the United States would in return
help them to fight off their enemies, the Sac and Fox Indians. To
cement this bargain, Fort Osage was established in present Jackson
County as a United States* trading post. Other tribes proved less
tractable; in i8n, fighting broke out with the tribes along the Upper
Mississippi, and the territorial militia was mustered.
In terms of men killed and battles fought, the Indian War in Mis-
souri was insignificant. It was serious mainly because it coincided
with the War of 1812, in which England aided and partly directed
the activities of her Indian allies. News of the declaration of war with
England reached St. Louis in July of 1812. At that time only 178
soldieis of the regular army were stationed in Missouri. Requests for
additional Federal aid were generally ignored, and the frontier was
forced to defend itself. Forts and blockhouses were built to protect
the major settlements; Fort Mason on the Mississippi and Fort Osage
on the Missouri were abandoned as untenable. Captain Nathan Boone's
mounted rangers patrolled the Missouri River, but the center of mil-
itary activity was at Portage des Sioux in St. Charles County* Occa-
sionally, there were skirmishes elsewhere, and isolated families were
murdered. Alarms and rumors, fears and uncertainty spread through-
out the territory.
The end of the war did little to relieve this condition, for the Treaty
of Ghent forbade all military activity "pending treaty-making with the
Indian allies of the English/ 1 Thus, while the Indians were free to
move, Missouri was hamstrung by international agreement. The bold-
est and most disastrous Indian attacks of the entire war occurred in
1815, during the six months between the Treaty of Ghent and the
signing of the first Indian treaties. Cote sans Dessein, Loutre Island,
Cap au Gris, Femme Osage, and the Boon's Lick Country, among other
places, were attacked. In July 1815, United States Commissioners
HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT 47
Auguste Chouteau, General William Clark, and Ninian Edwards be-
gan treaty conferences at Portage des Sioux with the representatives of
19 tribes. The following year, treaties were made In St. Louis with
ten other tribes who had failed to appear at Portage des Sioux, and
the War of 1812 was at last at an end in Missouri.
With the path of Westward migration open, and the Indian danger
removed, settlers flocked to the territory. Speculation and the expansion
of credit mushroomed the value of land; towns were enthusiastically
platted and counties were organized. In 1818 Missouri petitioned
Congress for authority to frame a constitution prior to admission as
a State.
The request, ordinarily a routine matter, precipitated a national
crisis. The Northern faction in Congress was particularly anxious that
the existing balance between free and slave States should be maintained ;
consequently they fought to have Missouri created as a free State.
After months of debate, the South threatened to refuse Maine's appli-
cation for statehood unless Missouri was allowed to frame a consti-
tution. Permission was thereupon granted, but with the proviso that
slavery should be prohibited in the Louisiana Territory north of 36
degrees and 30 minutes north latitude. An election of delegates was
promptly held in Missouri, and on June 12, 1820, the Constitutional
Convention met in St. Louis. In 32 days a document was drawn up
which briefly defined the respective powers of the governor, the general
assembly, and the judiciary. The governor was to be elected for a
single four-year term. He was authorized, with the consent of the
senate, to appoint a secretary of state, an auditor, and an attorney gen-
eral, each to serve for four years, and a chancellor, and judges for the
supreme and circuit courts, all of whom were to hold office on good
behavior. The bicameral general assembly was to hdve a house of
representatives limited to 100 members, and a senate with a minimum
of 14 and a maximum of 100 members. The representatives were to
serve for terms of two years, the senators for four years. The judi-
cial power of the State was to be vested in a supreme court having
jurisdiction over the court of chancery (abolished in 1822), and the
circuit courts. Every free white male citizen who was 21 years of
age or over, and who had lived in the State for I year and in the
county for 3 months s was to be allowed to vote. Federal and State
officials, and priests and ministers of any religious group, could not be
elected to the general assembly. Slavery was recognized, but the
emancipation of slaves was permitted, and laws provided for their
humane treatment, and gave them the right of counsel, trial by jury,
and parity of punishment with white persons.
The constitution was immediately put into effect. On July 19,
1820, David Barton, president of the convention, issued writs for the
48 MISSOURI
election of State officials and of a United States representative. Alex-
ander McNair, backed by the * 'honest farmers, " was elected governor
in a campaign which evidenced the growing resentment of the rural
districts toward the St. Louis clique of lawyers who had been in con-
trol of the territorial government. The legislature elected David Bar-
ton and Thomas Hart Benton as United States senators.
To Missouri's surprise, when the constitution was returned to
Congress for final approval the old debate over the admission of the
State was revived. The North, still fighting to prevent the extension
of slavery, seized as a basis for argument a clause in the constitution
which required the legislature to pass a law prohibiting free Negroes
from settling within the State. After much controversy, the Missouri
compromise resolution was adopted, by the terms of which Missouri
was to be admitted to the Union and the constitution accepted, on the
condition that the State legislature would, "by a solemn public act,"
declare that the offending clause pertaining to free Negroes would never
be carried out. The Missouri legislature, well aware of the absurdity
of the situation, made the required declaration, and on August 10,
1821, President Monroe proclaimed Missouri's admission Into the
Union.
Meanwhile, in 1819, the depression which followed the Napoleonic
Wars had reached Missouri. In June 1821, the legislature announced
a moratorium on land debts. This gave only partial relief, however,
because of the condition of the currency. The Bank of St. Louis
(1816-19) and the Bank of Missouri (1817-21) had both failed, and
Missourians were suspicious not only of banks, but of all currency issued
by banks. In an effort to save the State from a barter system, the
legislature established loan offices empowered to issue paper based on
the credit of the State, but most officials and merchants refused to ac-
cept this money. Eventually, both the moratorium and the loan offices
were adjudged unconstitutional.
Prosperity gradually returned. The overland trade with Mexico,
begun in 1821, provided both specie and an important new source of
income. The introduction of steamboat traffic on the Missouri River,
at the same time, lowered freighting costs and increased the volume of
shipments. The western terminus of the trade was pushed upstream
from Franklin to Independence, and, eventually, to the great bend in
the river. The opening of the Missouri River also expanded the St.
Louis companies' fur business, the most important in the State. While
the Santa Fe traders were marking the pattern of national expansion to
the Southwest, the fur traders, the "most significant group of continental
explorers ever brought together," were investigating routes to Cali-
fornia and the Northwest. Thus Missouri's interests lay for some
time outside the boundaries of the State. It was not until after the
HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT 49
Civil War, when the West was carved into States and the frontier trails
were destroyed, that Missourians turned their attention primarily to
their own territory.
One result of overland trade and expanded steamboat traffic was
the rapid settlement of western Missouri. In 1836 the Indians relin-
quished their title to the Platte Country, a strip of land extending along
the Missouri River north from present Platte County to the Iowa Line,
and the following year it was added to Missouri. Since the Platte
strip thus became slave territory, its acquisition was in violation of the
Missouri Compromise of 1820. Settlers swarmed into the area, and
within a decade tobacco and hemp culture, thriving on slave labor and
cheap water transportation, were firmly established. In 1831, Joseph
Smith, Prophet of the Mormons, revealed that Independence was to be
the Mormon Zion, and thousands of his followers moved into the area.
Most of the Mormons were from the North, and opposed to slavery.
This, together with their clannishness, their church secrets, and their
rapid increase in number, which soon gave them political supremacy,
aroused the anger and fear of their neighbors. Within a few years,
the Mormons were driven into Clay County, and from there, in 1836,
into Daviess and Caldwell Counties. In 1838, during guerrilla fight-
ing between the Saints and other settlers, Governor Lilburn W. Boggs
ordered the militia either to exterminate the Mormons or to drive them
from the State. In the spring of 1839, tne l ast of them moved from
Missouri into Illinois.
With the increase in trade and settlement, several new institutions
made their appearance. The Bank of Missouri, chartered in 1837 f r
20 years, provided the first sound public banking facilities in Missouri.
The territorial law had encouraged education, and the enabling act of
1820 had set aside land for schools; in 1839 the State made its first
important provisions for education : laws were passed creating the office
of State Superintendent of Common Schools, establishing permanent
school funds, and setting up the State University.
By the early 1840*8, wagon trains were regularly leaving western
Missouri for Oregon, and, shortly thereafter, for Utah and California.
War with Mexico broke out in April of 1846, and when the Army of
the West was organized, it consisted chiefly of Missourians. Colonel
Stephen W. Kearny was put in command, with Colonels A. W. Doni-
phan and Sterling Price in charge of the First and Second Regiments of
Missouri Mounted Volunteers. Under their leadership, the army
marched overland to Santa Fe and occupied New Mexico, where they
set up a provisional government with Charles Bent, another Missourian,
as governor. Doniphan then continued southward, to complete a phe-
nomenal drive of 3,600 miles, without quartermaster, postmaster, com-
missary, uniforms, tents, or formal military discipline.
5O MISSOURI
The acquisition of New Mexico and California again brought the
slavery question to the forefront. Under the law of Mexico, these
territories had been free. The South now urged the extension west-
ward of the Missouri Compromise line of 36 degrees and 30 minutes,
so that all lands south of it should be slave territory. The Missouri
legislature, however, drew up the Jackson Resolutions, in January 1849,
instructing the Congressional representatives of the State to insist that
Congress had no right to decide the boundaries of free or slave areas ?
and that new territories should have the power to settle the question for
themselves; the resolutions also intimated that in the case of conflict
Missouri would stand with the South. Missouri's United States Sen-
ator, Thomas Hart Benton, spokesman for the West and advocate of
free land, refused to accept the resolutions, on the grounds that they
were the expression of a minority group which contemplated secession.
Benton J s devotion to the Union was complete ; he would do nothing that
might endanger its solidarity. His crusade against the resolutions caused
a split in the Democratic Party in Missouri, and ended his 3O-year career
as Senator. In 1850 a national compromise was reached on the admis-
sion of the new territories. California was to be admitted as a free
State ; other territories were to be organized without Congressional legis-
lat : on as to the slavery issue; slavery was to be prohibited by law in the
District of Columbia ; and stronger fugitive slave laws were to be passed.
The Act of Congress organizing the territories of Nebraska and
Kansas in 1854 included clauses repealing the Missouri Compromise of
1820 and leaving the issue of slavery to be decided by the individual
States. It was obvious from the first that Nebraska would choose to
be a free State ; Kansas, on the other hand, was uncertain, and a struggle
to influence Its position began. The North, fearing that if Kansas be-
came a slave State the balance of power would swing to the South, organ-
ized the Emigrant Aid Society and other colonizing groups to finance
free settlers in Kansas. Southern sympathizers in Missouri viewed this
activity with alarm. If the "Yankee slave-stealers** got a hold in Kansas,
they might well advance on Missouri.
Bryant, Whittier, and other New England authors began a vigorous
propaganda campaign against Missouri and the South, in which they
were aided by Horace Greeley and a number of correspondents sent out
by Eastern papers to report on the Kansas-Missouri situation. The pro-
Southern newspapers had only one reporter covering the district along
the border, where conflict was most strenuous, and he suffered from that
great detriment to effective propaganda, a sense of humor. In the battle
of words, Missouri and the South came out second best.
Actual strife began in Kansas with the election of March 30, 1855.
Thousands of pro-slavery Missourians, principally from the western
part of the State, crossed into Kansas, where they elected a territorial
HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT 51
legislature which immediately legalized slavery in the territory,
Although this Missouri vote was illegal, the government so elected was
accepted as official by the Federal Government. The Northern faction
retaliated by forming a rival legislature which attempted to seize
power by force, and petitioned Congress to admit Kansas as a free
State.
Open warfare broke out all along the Missouri-Kansas border.
Pro-slavery Missourians rallied to the support of the Kansas govern-
ment which they had elected. In the guise of a posse summoned by
the United States Marshal, a group of them, nicknamed Border
Ruffians by Horace Greeley, joined forces with the Kansas militia.
In November of 1855 they entered Lawrence, the capital of the free-
State group, and burned the hotel and some houses, destroyed the press,
and arrested several of the free-State leaders. For this act John Brown,
the fanatical abolitionist, retaliated by killing five pro-slavery settlers
on Pottawatomie Creek. Assassination for the holding of opinions had
begun. Before guerrilla warfare was more or less ended in 1858 by the
combined effort of the Federal, and the Kansas and Missouri govern-
ments, some 200 people were killed, and $2,000,000 worth of property
was destroyed.
For a few years there was comparative peace along the Missouri-
Kansas border, but the issues involved had not been settled. The Dred
Scott decision in 1857 had made a major conflict inevitable, since,
basically, it confirmed the contention of the States Rights advocates in
declaring that Congress had no right to pass laws regulating slavery,
and that the States alone could legislate upon the matter. "Now free-
dom and slavery/' as Dr. Culmer points out in his A New History of
Missouri, "opposed each other everywhere without an arbiter in the
government of the United States/ 5
The much publicized border war had given Missouri a reputation
for lawlessness, and as a staunch supporter of the South. As a matter
of fact, however, the average Missourian expressed himself for a com-
promise of national differences, until the outbreak of war forced him
reluctantly to take sides. In 1860, the various beliefs of the minority
who owned the 114,930 slaves in Missouri were represented by a
politically strong pro-Southern faction. Half of the slaves were in
12 counties, and two-thirds of them were in the area along the Mis-
souri River. The pro-Union group, likewise a minority at first, con-
sisted largely of the 160,541 foreign-born in the State, most of whom
lived in the district about St. Louis. They were for the main part
workmen, and their opposition to slavery was strengthened by the fact
that they had had to compete with slave labor. The struggle between
these radical minorities to force Missouri to take sides brought a serious
schism in a State where racial, religious, and economic differences were
52 MISSOURI
already very acute. The split, often affecting small towns and even
families, gave the Civil War in Missouri a peculiar horror.
Claiborne F. Jackson was inaugurated as Governor in January,
1861. In his inaugural address he commented on the rise of the
Republican Party, which seemed to him to be attempting to end, rather
than restrict, slavery. He therefore recommended that a State con-
vention be caUed to sound out the will of the people on the issue. In
February an election of delegates was held, with startling results. Not
one pro-slavery delegate was elected ; a majority of 80,000 votes went
to the Noithern faction. When the convention met, it recommended
the compromise of the secession question, and then recessed, but did not
disband, The citizens of the State were still undecided, though feeling
ran high. Frank Blair, political heir of Thomas Hart Bcnton, co-operat-
ing with the Federal Government, organised the pro-Union forces in
and around St, Louis, where the United States Arsenal was situated.
On May 3, the pro-Southern State Militia established Camp Jackson
on the outskirts of St. Louis, with an eye, perhaps, to the supplies in
the arsenal. A week later, Federal troops under the command of
Capt.ru Nathaniel Lyon forced Camp Jackson to surrender, but the
soldier* were set upon in St. Louis by Southern sympathizers, and 28
pe*'S' us were killed. Despite the intense feeling which the episode
around, another attempt at compromise \\as made. On June II,
Governor Jackson offered concessions, but after Captain Lyon abruptly
ended the meeting by declaring war, Jackson returned to Jefferson City,
and called out 50,000 State troops "to repel the invasion'* of Missouri.
Lyon followed in hot pursuit, Jackson moved the State government
from Jefferson City, but on June 17 his troops were defeated in the
Battle of Boonville. Poorly supplied with arms or ammunition, they
retreated southward in disorder. Later, pro-Southern troops woo vic-
tories at Carthage (July 5), at Wilson's Creek (August 10), and at
Lexington (September 13),
In October, pro-Southern members of the legislature met in Ncosho
and passed an act of secession on the basis of which Missouri was soon
after admitted into the Confederacy, Already the pro-Union State
Convention had reconvened, however, and with the support of the Fed-
eral Government and troops had summarily deposed Jackson and the
refugee representatives, and had set up a provisional government with
Hamilton R. Gamble as governor. Thus was Missouri saved for the
Union, escaping military rule and the problems of reconstruction from
outside the State after the war.
General Sterling Price made an effort to organize a Confederate
campaign in Missouri, but any chance for concerted pro-Southern action
ended when he was defeated in March, 1862, at Pea Ridge, Arkansas.
HISTORY AND GOVERN MBNT 53
After that the Civil War in Missouri degenerated into raids and deeds
of revenge by guerrilla bands.
In the summer of 1861, the Federal Government had authorized
the formation of volunteer Kansas companies. These groups were
commanded by James Lane, Dr. Charles R. Jennison, and James Mont-
gomery, all former leaders of the free-State faction in territorial
Kansas. In the guise of Federal troops acting to weed out Confederate
activity in southwest Missouri, these Jayhawkers, Kansas Freebooters,
or Gallant Knights (depending on the prejudice of the observer) raided
and burned towns, looted, and murdered with a free hand. Many
Missourians had gone off to join one or the other army, but guerrilla
bands, under such men as William C. Quantrill, Cole Younger, and
Bill Anderson, were soon organized for defense and retaliation.
Though for a time Southern sympathizers in Missouri took heart from
the brilliant military maneuvers of these groups, and especially of Quan-
trilPs, the guerrillas never had sufficient strength to strike at Federal
control, and their depredations merely prolonged the miseries of the
State.
In August of 1863, Quantrill captured Lawrence, Kansas, the
abolitionist capital, burned 185 buildings, and killed about 150 inhabit-
ants. In an effort to curb such bushwacker raids, General Thomas
Ewing, commanding the Headquarters District of the Border, issued
on August 25 his famous Order No. n, which commanded the evacua-
tion, with certain areas exempted, of Cass, Jackson, Bates, and part of
Vernon County within 15 days. As a result, the raiders were scattered
into central and southern Missouri, while the innocent inhabitants of
the proscribed counties suffered-
Late in 1864, General Sterling Price made another attempt at a
Confederate campaign in Missouri* He brought his troops up from
Arkansas, through Pilot Knob, and toward Kansas City. He was
defeated at Westport after a three-day battle, and the Civil War was
practically over in Missouri.
In all, 1,162 battles or skirmishes were fought in the State, n per
cent of those fought in the nation, and more than occurred in any other
State except Virginia and Tennessee. Missouri provided a total of
40,000 troops to the Confederacy and 110,000 to the Union, fhe
Western Sanitary Commission, organized in 1861 through the effort
of Dr. William G. Eliot, St. Louis educator and minister, provided
hospital and medical service for much of the Mississippi Valley. To
expand its services, railroad cars and steamboats were used as traveling
hospitals. Public and private groups in the Middle West donated more
than $4,000,000 in money and supplies to support the Commission,
which, besides giving care and equipment, kept a register of the sick,
54 MISSOURI
wounded, and dead, aided refugees, and established several homes for
soldiers, and a home for soldiers' children in St. Louis.
The Union faction in the State had split into Moderate and Radical
Republican groups, each striving for control of the new State govern-
ment. On July I, 1863, the Moderate leaders obtained the passage
of an act of emancipation under which slaves would be freed July 4,
1870. The Radical faction, however, took control in the election of
1864, and at once called a constitutional convention which abolished
slavery immediately and unconditionally. Missouri was thus the first
of the slave States to free its slaves. The convention's next move was
to draft a new constitution, put in force July 4, 1865, which provided
io^ generous aid to public schools, regulated corporations, and pro-
hibited further aid to railroads, since by this time Missouri was dis-
illusioned about government subsidies to railroads. These measures
were overshadowed, however, by the extremist "Test Oath," designed
to keep the Radical Republican minority in power by providing that no
one could vote, hold State office, preach, teach, or practice law in the
State of Missouri who could not take oath that he had never in any
way aided or sympathized with the Confederate cause.
To insure the approval of this constitution an ordinance was passed
limning the franchise to those who could take the Test Oath. All
judges of the supreme, circuit, county, and legislative courts of record,
all court clerks, circuit attorneys, sheriffs, and county recorders were
to vacate their offices May I, 1865, and their places were to be filled
by appointment of the Governor for the remainder of their terms.
When the supreme court judges refused to vacate on the grounds that
the ordinance was unconstitutional, they were ousted by force. Minis-
ters, priests, and nuns engaged in teaching were arrested, and in some
cases fined or imprisoned. A Registry Act passed in 1865 provided that
a superintendent elected in each county should be the sole judge as to
who was qualified to vote; three years later, the office was made ap-
pointive.
There was, of course, opposition to these measures, but the Radical
Republican government ignored it and went ahead with its reconstruc-
tion program. Some 27,000 Missouri citizens had been killed, much
private property had been destroyed, and whole counties devastated.
The slaves freed in 1865 represented an investment loss of about
$40,000,000. Railroads, highways, bridges, and public buildings had
been damaged. Taxes were the highest in Missouri's history. The
Radical government set up a Bureau of Immigration which encouraged
settlement, particularly of Europeans, in the State. It created the De-
partment of Agriculture, and employed a State entomologist ; it drew
funds from the general revenue for the support of Missouri University
and of Lincoln Institute for Negroes at Jefferson City; it established
HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT 55
normal schools at Kirksvllle and Warrensburg. On the other hand,
It permitted the sale of railroads foreclosed by the State at less than
the interest due on the loans, so that the State treasury realized less
than 20 per cent on the debts.
In 1866 the United States Supreme Court declared unconstitutional
the clause of the Test Oath which disqualified professional men from
practice, and four years later voters approved an amendment abrogating
the entire oath.
Meanwhile, under the leadership of B. Gratz Brown and Carl
Schurz, a German immigrant who had lived in Missouri only two
years, a Liberal opposition to the Radical faction was taking shape in
the Republican Party. In 1869 Schurz defeated the Radical Republican
candidate for the United States Senate, and the following year Brown
was elected governor of Missouri. The Liberal Republicans then
formed a joint State ticket with the revived Democratic Party, and
won a complete victory over the Radical Republicans in the election of
1872. Once the power of the Radicals had been broken, however, the
Liberal Republican Party disintegrated, and the Democrats began a
long period of domination in Missouri.
In 1875, 60 Democrats, 6 Republicans, and 2 Liberals met In Jef-
ferson City and drafted a new constitution, which was adopted the
same year. Under it, not less than 25 per cent of the general revenue
was to be devoted to maintaining public schools. The governor's
term, and that of nearly all other State officials, was lengthened to four
years, with the provision that the governor and treasurer could not
succeed themselves. A "home rule" charter left special legislation in
cities of more than 100,000 to local vote. A State railroad commission
was created to regulate rates and shipping conditions. Tax restrictions
were placed on State and local governments, and towns and counties
were forbidden to issue bonds for any purpose except public improve-
ment. With some amendments, this constitution is still In use.
Conditions in Missouri had changed greatly during the war years.
There was no more frontier; the old outfitting days were over,
the Santa Fe trade was lost. The fur trade and steamboat traffic
were dying. The new railroads were diverting business from the old
river towns to wide areas far from the waterways. Tenant farmers
had replaced slave labor, and the great hemp and tobacco plantations
were destroyed. St. Louis, grown prosperous on war supplies and as a
railroad terminus, was a sprawling city, ambitious to become the
capital of the United States. Kansas City had developed as a market
for the new States of Kansas, Nebraska, and Texas. The lead mines
of southeast Missouri, and the lead and zinc mines of southwest
Missouri were in the first flush of their rapid expansion. Industry had
begun to concentrate in the cities, and there was rivalry between the
56 MISSOURI
rural and urban centers. With no Western empire to explore or con-
quer, Missourians for the first time concentrated all their vitality on.
their own State.
With a few exceptions, such as the town of Liberty, where the
Confederate flag was flown on the court house until nearly 1870,
Missourians soon forgot their war differences. Some of the former
bushwhackers, however, could not settle down to normal existence.
Turned outlaw, they continued to harass the countryside; between 1866
and 1882, crimes attributed to them included 14 bank robberies, the
Kansas City Fairgrounds' robbery, and many stagecoach and train
holdups. In 1882, Governor T. T. Crittenden began a campaign to
end their depredations. Jesse James, most notorious of the bandits, was
murdered by one of his lieutenants (see St. Joseph and Tour 10A)^ and
his band was broken up.
As industry grew in the cities, foreign laborers were brought in,
with the result that wages fell. At the same time, the cost of living
increased. The resultant social unrest was reflected in Missouri in
the strike of 1877, and in subsequent walkouts. These attempts to
correct abuses by means of organized opposition the workers supple-
mented with the political support of social legislation. The Greenbacks
and ether social reform parties sought a remedy for the Nation's ills in
inflation. Missouri's prophet of this theory was Richard P. Eland,
"Silver Dick," who introduced the bill providing for free and unlimited
silver coinage which Congress passed in 1877, but which was later
modified, and finally repealed in 1893. I* 1 the campaign of 1896, in
which the "free silver" issue was revived as the main plank in the
Democratic platform, Bland was narrowly defeated for the presidential
nomination by William Jennings Bryan. In the general election, the
Nation repudiated both Bryan and "Silver Dick's" economic theories* .
When the United States went to war with Spain, Missouri sent
i light battery company and 6 regiments of infantry, 8,109 men in all.
Only the battery company and one of the infantry regiments saw actual
service, but having contributed to the success of the war, Missourians
increased their demands for reforms at home. A succession of gov-
ernors had warned against the menace of uncurbed big business, but
nothing had been done about the matter. When the St. Louis street-
car workers staged a violent strike in 1900, William Marion Reedy
summed up the situation in the statement: "The disgrace, the tragedy,
the horror of the situation in St. Louis is all due to politics." Soon
afterward, Joseph W. Folk, St. Louis circuit attorney, began an in-
vestigation. He discovered that, under machine leadership, "boodling"
city officials had accepted bribes to grant some $50,000,000 worth of
city franchises and other municipal privileges for about one-tenth of their
value. According to Lincoln Steffens, in The Shame of the Cities, St.
HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT 57
Louis at this time offered an unusual variation on the familiar pattern
of municipal corruption, for leading business and professional men
joined forces with officials to loot the city's assets. On the basis of
Folk's evidence, 39 men were indicted, but, to quote Steffens again, "the
whole machinery of justice broke down under the strain of the boodle
pull/' and few of them were ever punished. Folk, however, followed
the trail of corruption to the State government. In 1903, the Grand
Jury of Cole County reported that legislative corruption "had been the
usual and accepted thing . . without interference." The lieutenant
governor resigned, and several members of the general assembly were
indicted.
In the midst of this turmoil, St. Louis prepared to celebrate the
centennial of the Louisiana Purchase.*' Early in 1904, the World's Fair'
opened, its elaborate French-rococo buildings spreading over the wide
area of Forest Park. All but one of the States and Territories in the
Union had exhibits, and 62 foreign nations were represented. The
sacred shrines of Jerusalem and the native villages of many savage
tribes were reproduced, and a fabulous art collection was displayed*
The Fair was a financial success, and served to advertise the State
widely; for Missourians it was a never-to-be-forgotten event. ^
In 1904, Folk was elected Governor, and his four years in office
were notable for industrial and social legislation. The State-wide
primary law was passed. A railroad law established a maximum freight
rate and a passenger rate of two cents per mile. Anti-lobby, anti-trust,
child labor, public utility, and factory inspection laws were passed.
Direct legislation by initiative and referendum was adopted. Attorney
General Herbert S. Hadley conducted a dramatic prosecution of the
Standard Oil Company and of other trusts and combinations for violat-
ing the State anti-trust laws. As a result, Hadley became the next
governor of Missouri. His administration fostered better roads, wider
education, and penal reforms, and encouraged new industry.
In the presidential campaign of 1912, Hadley was suggested as a
compromise candidate for the Republician Party, which had split into
two factions. When Theodore Roosevelt became the champion of the
Progressive faction, however, Hadley threw his support to Taft, and so
destroyed his own chance for the candidacy. At the same time, another
Missourian was figuring importantly in the Democratic convention.
Champ Clark, then serving his ninth term in Congress and his eighth
year as speaker of the House, ran for the presidential nomination, but
was defeated at the last moment by opposition from Bryan. The can-
didacy went to Woodrow Wilson,
Between 1916 and 1920, when Frederick D. Gardner was Gov-
ernor of Missouri, a tax board and a State prison board were created,
the contract system at the State penitentiary was abolished, and a
58 MISSOURI
mothers' pension was provided. Missouri shared in the general- World
War prosperity, and aided in the national defense. The State over-
subscribed its quotas in all five war loans, and enrolled 140,257
soldiers, one-third of them volunteers. Provost Marshal Enoch H.
Crowder of Grundy County drew up and directed the activities of the
Selective Service Act (the draft). General John J. Pershing of ^ Linn
County commanded the American Army in France. On April 24,
1917, the Missouri Council of Defense, for 21 months the supreme
authority in the State, was organized under the direction of Dean F. B.
Mumford of the University of Missouri. When the National Guard
was called to service, 10,000 citizens were sworn in as a Home Guard-
By June I, 1919, Missouri's casualties totaled 11,172.
The depression which followed the war was felt heavily in Mis-
souri, where farm values crashed and many banks, especially in rural
sections, failed. In the hope of bettering conditions, Missouri shifted
its politics and elected a Republican State government, with Arthur M.
Hyde as Governor. In 1921, nine amendments were added to the con-
stitution* One of these authorized road bonds of $60,000,000 to "pull
Missouri out of the mud." The highway system which was subse-
quently developed provided the basis for the most significant economic
changes in Missouri life since the Civil War (set Transportation, and
Industry, Commerce, and Labor}. Further legislative reforms were
attempted by a Constitutional Convention in 1922-23, but with the
exception of six amendments, the convention's suggestions were rejected
fay the voters.
Notable social reform measures enacted during the 1920*8 included
pure food and drug laws, milk inspection, and further regulation of in-
dustry and corporations; also provisions for the protection of dependent
children, and for more scientific treatment of the socially maladjusted.
In 1928, an additional bond issue oi $74,000,000 for State highways
was authorized.
Since 1932, Missouri has co-operated in the social programs of the
Federal Government, and has established Algoa Farms near Jefferson
City as a model Intermediate penal institution for older first offenders.
During the administration of Governor Lloyd C. Stark (1936-40),
reform was again of paramount interest. In 1938, more than IOO mem-
bers of the Pendergast political machine of Kansas City were indicted
for vote frauds in the city elections and for income tax evasion. Con-
victions followed in rapid order. Once given an opportunity, Kansas
City repudiated the machine government. On June 13, 1939, the legis-
lature approved a bill authorizing State control of the Kansas City
police department.
Instances of corruption, such as the Kansas City scandal and the
earlier St. Louis boodling ring, have been minor in the State. Since
HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT 59
pioneer days, the idealism of the average Missourian has been an im-
plant political factor. Both the city and the rural press have mad*
everv effort to fight corruption. Modern highways, railroads and air
lines have tended to integrate the State, and to break down the racial
and cultural barriers which have existed in the past.
Agriculture
PRIOR to the Louisiana Purchase, agriculture in the territory
now embraced by Missouri was of the simple pattern which
the French colonists had brought from Canada to Illinois and
thence across the Mississippi. The Creole practice was a blend of in-
dividual and collective farming. Each group cleared a large common
field and carefully fenced it against Indians and animals (see Ste.
Geneiieve). The Grand Champ of Ste. Genevieve in the fabulously
rich Mississippi River bottom comprised several thousand acres, in
which each family owned at least one long, narrow strip of land
stretching westward from the river, the tenure being similar to that of
French-Canadian fields along the St. Lawrence River today. To
provide pasture and wood lot, a second tract of land, the "commons,"
was reserved near each village.
This half-collective system of farming and the productivity of the
sol! laid the basis for a leisurely way of life almost unique on the
frontier. Once planted, the growing crop was given no further atten-
tion until harvest* "All the husbandry required," Henry Bracken-
ridge comments in his Recollections* "is to stir the ground slightly
before it is sown, which will alone suffice to produce an excellent crop."
The principal crops of this fertile region were corn, pumpkins, and
spring wheat. Oats, barley, beans, watermelons and muskmelons,
peaches, apples, tobacco, cotton, hogs, and other products were also
raised for local consumption. Grist mills were established in many
villages and dairy products found a wide market Brandy and cider
were commonly made from peaches and apples, and a red wine from
sweet grapes.
In 1 794, Ste. Genevieve and New Bourbon produced 30,980 minots
(a minot was about 39 liters) of corn alone, as compared with 20,150
grown by other French settlements of Upper Louisiana; 2 years later,
they produced 46,190 rainots. One reason for this increase was that
trading occupied less of the settler's time here than in the St. Louis and
St. Charles districts.
As settlement progressed, Spain offered every inducement to immi-
grants. To the French-Canadians in Illinois she promised, In addition
to large land grants, a barrel of corn, an axe, a hoe, a scythe, a spade, a
hen, a cock, and a two-months-old pig for each family. When this
policy failed to draw enough settlers, land grants and commercial
60
AGRICULTURE 6l
privileges were granted to American settlers who would turn Catholic
and swear allegiance to Spain.
Following the transfer of Louisiana in 1804, immigrants swarmed
into Missouri, settling at first in the southeastern portion of the terri-
tory and, after the War of 1812, westward along the fertile Missouri
River valley. To some, it seemed as though Kentucky, Tennessee, and
Virginia were breaking up and moving West ; other settlers came from
the middle States and a sprinkling from "Yorkdom and Yankeedom."
Many were attracted to the Boon's Lick Country by such legends as,
"If you plant a tenpenny nail there at night, hit'll sprout crow bars
by morninV
The Federal and State governments slowly evolved a land policy
to satisfy the demands of these settlers. Wavering and uncertain, this
policy was a series of concessions to the popular urge for more and
cheaper land. It encouraged speculation and overexpansion, permitted
soil waste by careless agricultural practices, and led inevitably to an
alternation of depressions and jubilant good times. On the other hand,
it made possible the settling of the entire State within a single genera-
tion, and aided the building of roads, bridges, schools, and railroads.
In 1805, the United States government established a Board of
Commissioners in Missouri to pass on the Spanish land titles, which in-
volved about 1,721,485 arpents (.85 of an acre) of land. Although the
majority of the titles were clear, many had been incompletely made, or
were fraudulent. Successive Congressional acts eventually recognized
most of the, claims, although the issue was not closed until 1870.
A series 'of earthquakes beginning in 1811 rendered unreliable much
of the land in the New Madrid area. In 1815, Congress issued loose
certificates to the settlers in this region permitting them to take up an
equal amount of land anywhere in the Boon's Lick Country. The result
was pandemonium. Speculators bought up many of the certificates;
swindlers laid false claims. Later, it was asserted that there were five
times as many New Madrid claims as there had been heads of families
in the earthquake area.
Meanwhile, Missouri's land boom continued, produced in part by
the heavy immigration which reached its climax In 1819. At Franklin,
in January, 1819, almost any good quarter brought from $4 to $i2^an
acre, an enormous price for that time. During the same period, im-
proved lands around St. Louis were selling for $20 an acre. By the
fall of that year, however, the Eastern depression which followed the
close of the Napoleonic wars spread westward to Missouri to create
a near-panic among both farmers and speculators. Congress conse-
quently passed laws to relieve those who had purchased land on credit
by extending the time of forfeiture and reducing the payments. In
addition, Governor McNair granted in 1821 a moratorium for a two-
62 MISSOURI
and-a-half-year period, which was known as the stay law. This, how-
ever, offered only partial relief to the debtor landowners. The Mis-
souri legislature therefore passed an act providing for the establishment
of a Loan Office for the issue of interest-bearing paper money based
on the credit of the State, in an attempt to furnish a satisfactory cur-
rency and to enable landowners to borrow at a fair rate of interest.
Most merchants and officials refused to accept these notes, however,
and both their issue and the stay law were subsequently ruled uncon-
stitutional.
Other efforts were made to relieve the farmers. Agricultural so-
cieties, organized during 1821 and 1822 in St. Louis, St. Charles, and
Franklin, planned fairs and factories to furnish a market for home
products, but their immediate effect was slight. The crisis was already
passing and free land was abundant. Any man could "squat*' on the
public land, and by the frontier code such occupation was generally
equivalent to ownership.
During the worst days of the depression, an overland trade route,
opened from Franklin in the Boon's Lick Country west to Santa Fe
New Mexico, provided an outlet for Missouri foodstuffs and brought
silver and gold, mules and horses into the settlements. This trade was,
perhaps, the greatest single factor in the settlement of western Missouri,
It established Missouri as a supply base for the flour, beef, pork, and
other foodstuffs needed by the expanding empire of the Far West.
The gradual return of prosperity increased the demand for land.
A bill formulated by Thomas H, Bentors in 1824 was finally passed in
1842, granting 1 60 acres to settlers who should establish themselves
under carefully guarded terms as to residence and cultivation. Much of
the less desirable land in Missouri was eventually sold for 12^4 cents
an acre. Not until the early 1920*5 was all the government land in
Missouri occupied.
The frontier agriculture of the American settlers was In marked
contrast to that of the Creoles. Many of the first settlers were
"families whose roving, inconstant mode of living [was] not suited to
a permanent settlement/* and who formed, as Duke Paul of Wurttem-
berg observed in 1823, "the transitional link between civilization and
the unrestrained wilderness." Occasionally, they raised "a patch of
corn" and some pumpkins and beans, but on the whole they were
nomadic hunters rather than agriculturalists. The more permanent
Missouri frontier farmers either occupied Spanish grants or New
Madrid claims, or "squatted" on the public lands until the govern-
ment patented their titles. At first, the danger of Indian attack and
the need for mutual assistance in the clearing of land and building of
homes fostered a co-operative social organization somewhat similar to
the Creole type. In the Boon's Lick country during the Indian
THE MISSOURI
AND THE MISSISSIPPI
UP STRIAM ON THI MISSISSIPPI
THE MISSOURI RIVER
THE LiVEE AT ST. LOUIS
iff ! ; V ;/ ! , '
' ' '
ST. LOUIS LEVEE
WXJKS, ST. iOUIS
THE REPUBLIC Built In Pittsbiirg, 1867, and
was the largest steatwbocif in the world. Burned 187?
OF THE
)',,;:. I ,VNO S^OS SRiDGE,
OF THE \T ST,
AND DAM
AT ALTON,
CONTROL, A Lumber Mattress Is Constructed
as Revetment
FARMLAND A
AGRICULTURE 63.
troubles, great common fields were cultivated under the protection of
guards sent out from the fortified cabin groups which supplanted iso-
lated dwellings. With the coming of peace, however, the settlers took
up the typically American system of individual farming.
The country was naturally suited to agriculture. "There is no
part of the western country that holds out greater advantages to the
new settler than the Missouri Territory/' states an immigrants' guide
of 1820. "Here the trees are not more abundant on the upland than
would be necessary for fuel and for fences. They naturally stand at
a sufficient distance from each other to admit a fine undergrowth of
grass and herbage/' During the first winters, many families along the
Missouri River pastured their livestock on islands, or in the low bot-
toms whose rank growth of rushes (Equisetum hyemale) provided ex-
cellent forage. Wheat, corn, rye, barley, and buckwheat were planted
from the first, and as the turmoil of the frontier period gave way ta
permanent settlement, orchards, vineyards, and vegetable gardens were
developed.
Despite the general fertility of the soil, the early Missouri farmer
had his troubles. Wolves prevented sheep raising in certain districts.
A Mrs. Spencer of St. Charles County reported that during frontier
days "wild cats and catamounts'* sometimes ate holes in the shoulders
of her cows. Swarms of locusts and army worms appeared to "cut
down and devour every green thing." Droughts were recurrent. After
1850, the great herds of Texas cattle driven north to market through
southwest Missouri spread the "Spanish, or Texas fever" to Missouri
stock, and thousands died before the borders were closed to the con-
taminated cattle after the Civil War, In 1858, Vernon County stock*
men alone estimated their loss for that year at more than $100,000.
Marketing their produce constituted another major problem. In
the absence of good roads, most products were shipped by boat on the
Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. In 1815, James Barnes of Boon's
Lick took a flatboat of nine "different kinds of wild meat, besides.
honey, corn, potatoes, onions, furs, hides, deer and elk horns, etc.," to
New Orleans. Such flatboating was not expensive, but it was extremely
slow (see Transportation).
Early production was limited by poor equipment. Some farmers
cultivated their land with a mattock hitched to a horse. In the absence
of harrows, the ground was sometimes dragged with brush. Trace
chains of cow hide and plow lines of hemp were common. Sacking
pins, sacking needles, and pitchforks were of wood. Harness hames
were often made from the crook of an elm tree, and wagon wheels
were fashioned by sawing off sections of a log from four to six inches
wide.
Along with the crudity of early agricultural methods went a wealth
64 MISSOURI
of superstition. A common farm saying advised, "If you would not
scow! on a mug of sour or musty cider, grind and press your fruit in
fair weather, when the wind blows from the N.W., and never put the
juice in foul casks." One farmer testified that having washed the
exposed roots of weak peach trees in warm, soapy water, "the next
year they bore abundantly." Salt was considered by some to be an
excellent manure. To rid barns of rats, a piece of dog's tongue plant
was bruised and laid in the barn. A letter to the Missouri Farmer*
published in St. Louis, in 1841, recommended the use of a "large warty
toad" to cure a fistula on a horse: "Rub its back slightly over the
effected part, and continue to rub it thus for an hour, by which time
the toad will be dead and should be buried."
Nonetheless, there was some scientific farming in Missouri from
the earliest settlement. Families from Kentucky, Virginia, and Ten-
nessee brought with them slaves, adequate tools, and a wide knowledge
of farming as a capital industry. Many experimented with the possi-
bilities of Missouri soil and climate. Perhaps the earliest of these
experimenting gentlemen farmers was John Hardeman, a Tennessee
lawyer, who laid out a formal garden on a tract of land in the Mis-
siouri River bottom just west of Franklin. He collected trees and
shrub i, flowers, vegetables, berries, ajid grains from various parts of
the continent, and endeavored to discover those best suited to Middle
Western culture (see Tour 8).
The common belief that "corn won't grow where trees won't/*
together with the danger of prairie fires and the lack of wood, had
caused most of the early settlers to shun the prairie region in favor of
the forested river bottoms. In 1826, General T* A. Smith, a Virginian
who had come to Missouri after the War of 1812, purchased a large
tract of land on the Saline County prairies near present Napton, which
he named Experiment Farm. Here he succeeded in exploding the
theory that prairie land was unfertile. William Muldrow performed
a similar experiment in northeast Missouri, with results that, according
to Wetmore, in his Gazetteer of Missouri (1837), "produced a new
era in the State, and ever since intelligent farmers have regarded a
prairie farm as the best in the world, provided they can procure at no
great distance, timber enough to fence it."
The Southern type of plantation developed 10 Missouri mainly
along the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, where the soil was par-
ticularly suited to the cultivation of hemp and tobacco. These were
the only portions of the State in which slave labor proved profitable.
In the period before the Civil War, the plantations were centers of a
highly cultured life. In 1849, St. Louis received from this section
49,000 bales of hemp, ranging in price from $80 to $130 a ton. Glas-
gow served as the port for back country Chariton and Howard County
AGRICULTURE 65
farms, shipping during that year 380 tons of hemp and 5,230 hogsheads
and 4,047 boxes of tobacco. Wheat, apples, pork, lard, hides, cattle,
and other farm products from these areas found an increasing American
and foreign market.
In areas where the soil was not fertile, or where the distance from
water transportation made shipping changes prohibitive, stockraising be-
came an important industry. Steele's Western Guide Book and Emi-
grant's Directory (Buffalo, 1838) proclaimed Missouri:
The country for raising cattle, horses, hogs and sheep. Vast herds of
cattle are raised on the western borders of the State; and thousands are
there slaughtered and the meat salted and exported by way of New Orleans
to the eastern states, or to the West Indies; whilst the tallow and the hides
preserved in a dry state, are sent to the tanneries in the upper part of the
Valley, or to the eastern cities. The extensive prairies of this entire region,
will make it always the land of great pastoral ^wealth. From this part of
our country, the markets of Philadelphia, Baltimore, and other Atlantic
cities, will derive many of their supplies, whilst our shipping will here
receive its salted and jerked beef.
Thoroughbred stock was imported in the 1830*3 including Alderney
and Jersey cattle, Shorthorn, and Aberdeen-Angus, a black beef-type
cattle with short legs, and a short, wide head. By 1850, the center
of the State's cattle industry shifted to the southwestern prairies. The
cattle were driven to Missouri river ports, particularly Boonville, for
export to market. Soon the Ozark region also began to ship salted
meats, cured hides, tallow, and lard. Warsaw utilized the Osage River
to export bacon, hams, shoulders, lard, pork, hides, and leather.
After the Civil War, settlers took up much of the grazing land
in the Ozarks; and the construction of railroads having overcome the
earlier transportation difficulty, grain cultivation more or less sup-
planted cattle. Gradually, the State's livestock farming region be-
came a large "T/ J the vertical bar of which extended along the
Missouri River from St. Louis to Kansas City, and the horizontal from
Kansas City north to St. Joseph and south almost to the Arkansas
Border. St. Joseph in particular during the period 185070 took ad-
vantage of the high beef prices in California, Colorado, and other por-
tions of the West to purchase and drive there great herds. Introduced
even earlier than the breeding of fine cattle was the breeding of fine
horses. Thoroughbred stock was brought from Kentucky, Virginia,
and New York, and often from England. Race tracks were laid out
in many communities by Kentucky and Virginia Immigrants almost
before churches and schools were built The popularity of the sport
encouraged the breeding industry, which still flourishes, particularly in
Callaway, Audrain, Moniteau, and Jackson Counties.
In these central Missouri counties, the raising of mules became a
major industry following the introduction of jacks and jennets from
66 MISSOURI
New Mexico. An expedition returning to Howard County in 1823
brought back 400 mules, jacks, and jennets; in 1832, Captain Dent &
Company returned with "about 1,300 mules, 17 jack asses, 35 she
asses." Mules, valued at first only as pack animals for the long over-
land trains, soon proved superior to either oxen or horses for heavy
farm work.
The pioneer farmers saved their own seed and grew their own
seedlings, but as the country was settled, stores and nurseries developed,
supplying seed and plants from the East and abroad. One of the most
interesting horticultural innovations was the Osage Orange, originally
found on the Kansas plains and used by the Osage Indians for the
making of bows; Pierre Chouteau planted a few trees in St. Louis
County in 1799, according to his letter to Thomas Jefferson in 1804.
In the 1850*8, the tree began to be cultivated as a hedge by prairie
farmers, and it now forms a characteristic feature of the Missouri
landscape.
The heavy German immigration (about 1830-70) brought to Mis-
souri many farmers trained in scientific methods, particularly in various
phase ci of horticulture. Through their efforts, the cultivation of fruits
and berries, particularly of apples and grapes, became a major industry.
Grr.oe production for wine, including the Isabella, Catawba, and Mor-
ton's Virginia grape, became the most important activity of the German
communities near Hermann. The soil was warm and well drained,
and the bluffs afforded protection from unseasonable frosts. In 1848,
Hermann produced 10,000 gallons of good-quality wine which sold at
$1.50 per gallon; by 1856, production had been increased to 100,000
gallons. Although prices soon fell, grape culture remained profitable
and Missouri wines became famous. Smaller vineyards were developed
in and near Boonville, St* Louis, St. Charles, and Ste. Genevievc, where
''some very good grapes have long been cultivated by the old French
inhabitants/ 1
Experiments with grape culture were also made in various parts
of the Ozark plateau, where Swiss, Italian, and German immigrants
successfully planted vineyards. In 1867, Hermann Jaeger, a Swiss
resident of Newton County, crossed Virginia grapes with the wild
Ozark variety. By 1870, he had 50 acres of hardy and productive
vines on his farm near Neosho. Learning a few years later that French
vineyards were being destroyed by phylloxera, or grape louse, he sug-
gested to the French government the use of cuttings and seeds from the
wild grapes of the Ozarks as new roots for their vines. The offer was
accepted, and within 3 years Jaeger sent more than 17 carloads of cut-
tings to France, and was given the cross of the French Legion of
Honor. In 1868, George Hussmann began publishing in St* Louis
67
The American Grape Culturht, the only periodical in the United
States at that time devoted solely to grape culture and wine making.
German improvements were adopted by progressive American
farmers. Annual fairs, publications of various types, and the manu-
facture of mechanical aids increased. By 1840, most counties had agri-
cultural societies which held spring and fall meetings and exhibitions.
In 1855, the St. Louis Agricultural Society combined with the Mechan-
ic's Fair Association, and for many years they held successful joint fairs;
in 1857, they offered over $16,000 in premiums, including prizes for
essays on such subjects as "On Rearing and Managing Cattle." Among
the various types of farm machinery displayed were plows, cornplanters,
threshing machines, corn-cutting machines, portable hay presses, corn
shellers, and reapers and mowers, many made in Missouri on Missouri
patents. Representing specialized agricultural and horticultural in-
terests were such organizations as the St. Louis Horticultural Society,
established in 1847, the St. Charles County Wheat Growers' Associa-
tion, and the Annual Wine Fair in St. Louis. The Missouri State
Horticultural Society, organized in 1859, and incorporated by an act
of the legislature in 1893, * s today a progressive association of fruit
growers.
Newspapers and magazines early discussed problems of increasing
and preserving fertility; around the 1850*8, articles described methods of
subsoil plowing and terracing, hybridization, manuring, and the uses of
agricultural chemistry. In 1851, Joseph Ormrod, a Scotchman of
Cooper County, solemnly warned against soil depletion resulting from
"the miserable system of farming steadily pursued by eight-tenths of
all the farmers of this country since its first settlement ; a system which
proceeds upon the principle of taking as many crops from the land with
as little manure as possible until the productive powers are exhausted,
and then emigrating to some part of the country where they can apply
the same practice to the new soil.
"And so they build canoes and railroads, and bring from the West
millions of bushels of grain, and send not one fertilizing atom back to
restore the lands, and in this way we shall bye and bye make the
fertile prairies barren." The most vital of the agricultural publica-
tions was Caiman $ Rural World, edited by Norman J. Coiman (1827-
1912), who in 1889 became the first U. S. Secretary of Agriculture.
The State urged the founding of a school of agriculture for several
years before Congress granted lands in Missouri for this purpose in
1862. Eight years later, the college of agriculture was opened as a
department of the University of Missouri. The State Board of Agri-
culture, established in 1863, was organized in 1865; serving on it were
a group of German immigrants who had for more than 20 years urged
scientific farming methods. The first report of the board in 1866 found
68 MISSOURI
agriculture in Missouri to be in a transitional state: **A system of
depletion, a constant drawing of wealth from the soil with little or no
effort to secure continued fertility" had forced the adoption of a pro-
gram **of improved agriculture, which recognizes the great law of nature
that the soil cannot continue to give without being replenished." The
board advised deeper plowing, under-draining, careful selection of seed,
improvement of stock, the development of dairying and cheese-making,
more sheep raising, and the use of improved farming implements.
Further, Missouri agriculture had been "nearly prostrated during the
War . . . and ... we have been undergoing the transition from a
slave labor system to one of free labor,"
Certainly, Missouri's economic pattern had been disrupted by the
Civil War. Funds and resources, buildings, equipment, herds, and
orchards had been destroyed. Real property values had decreased by
$45,000,000 between 1860 and 1865, and taxes had multiplied; many
farmers had lost their land.
Nor was it the war alone that ruined the farmers. The simultane-
ous growth of cities and of industry drew wealth and population from
the rural areas. At the same time the construction of railroads brought
a realignment of markets. Hemp culture was destroyed by the intro-
ducjon of cheap substitutes, and tobacco production declined as soil
depletion and the elimination of slavery made Its culture less profitable,
The period of readjustment was slow and difficult, but several
measures worked toward improvement. Immigration from Europe
was solicited, and many farmers from the South and the North were
encouraged to come West. The rapid development of the Far West
gave Missouri a wider market, so that land values increased and taxes
were gradually reduced. Scientific agricultural methods were encour-
aged by an increasing number of public and private agencies.
Farm population declined relatively, however, from 5* P er cent in
1860 to 44 per cent in 1880. The Beard of Labor Statistics reported
a shortage of farm labor for 1884. At the same time, individual owner-
ship of farms also showed a recession, which went farther as the supply
of new agricultural lands was exhausted, and as panics followed succes-
sive periods of inflation.
The western livestock trade gradually gave way, in importance to
the production of grain, dairy products, poultry, and fruits* Corn has
been a consistent leader since 1860; wheat reached its peak in 1880.
These and oats, constituting Missouri's three major grains, attained
their maximum in the Missouri and Mississippi river regions within a
decade or two after the introduction of farm machinery, and there
has been little variation in output since 1890.
Since the Civil War, Missouri leaders have worked for agricultural
improvements. State Entomologist C. V. Riley pioneered in Insect
AGRICULTURE 69
control. Colonel William Henry Hatch crusaded for the establish*
ment of Federal agricultural experiment stations (approved by Presi-
dent Cleveland in 1887), and fought against tobacco trusts, and for
a national sanitary law with regard to infectious and contagious diseases
in domestic animals. The annual Missouri State Fair held since 1901
at Sedalia has made important contributions. During the 1939 fair,
prize cattle, poultry, grains, fruits, and other products of the State were
exhibited to approximately 250,000 visitors.
Some of the post-Civil War farm organizations have been active
in politics. Most important of these was the Patrons of Husbandry, or
the Grange, which held its first national convention in St. Louis in
1873. At one time, the Grange had nearly 3,000 local lodges.
By 1900, Missouri agriculture had taken on the general structure
it has today. The bankrupting of many large landowners during the
Civil War resulted in the breaking up of their holdings into smaller
farms, many of which were purchased by returning soldiers or by immi-
grants. In 1850, the average Missouri farm contained slightly more
than 200 acres; in 1890, 136.5. By 1900, the average had increased
again to 146.2, and has since continued to increase. The traditional
method of intense cultivation, largely by family labor, had begun to
give way to the cultivation of larger tracts by mechanical means. In
1900, Missouri ranked second among the States in the number of
farms, and fourth in the total of improved acreage. Almost one-third
of these farms were cultivated by tenants.
Despite the general diversity of Missouri's crops in 1900, livestock
was the chief product on more than half the farms in the State, Texas
and Tennessee alone exceeded Missouri in the production of mules;
and swine, asses, and burros remained important. With the spread of
the railroad system, butter making increased, particularly in the Ozark
areas; in 1900, Missouri produced nearly 47,000,000 pounds of butter.
Poultry, too, had increased; in 1899, Missouri ranked second in poul-
try and sixth in eggs. Hay and grains provided the chief crop for
about one- fourth of the farms, Missouri ranking fifth in corn produc-
tion,
The agricultural trends indicated in 1900 continued during the
period of prosperity which culminated in the inflation of farm values
during the World War. During this period, small-grain production
was increased at the expense of corn and cattle. Sub-marginal land was
turned to cultivation. After 1920, the boom collapsed, and during the
early years of depression much of the land was left idle. But by 1935,
the total acreage of Missouri farms had risen to a new high of more
than 35,000,000 acres, comprising 278,454 farms. Between 1930 and
1935, farm incomes gradually increased, partly as a result of benefit
payments, and the number of farms mortgaged was reduced from 44.9
JO MISSOURI
per cent to 36.1 per cent. The number of farm owners also grew and,
at the same time, the number of tenant farmers* In 1939* despite the
peak acreage, the total number of farms was almost 70,000 less than
in 1900. With the passing of the drought years, production increased,
and although prices were low, Missouri's crop value in 1939 rose almost
20 per cent over that of the previous year, and livestock values also
showed a minor gain. Strawberries, grapes, peaches, and vegetables in
the Ozark highland, and cotton in the southeastern portion of the
State, have grown in importance. Cotton, the production of which is
virtually limited to seven counties, is now Missouri's third largest crop.
Poultry raising continues to be an important phase of farm economy,
and the income from eggs remains a mijor item* Much of the poultry
yield is from small-to-medium flocks on average-sized farms* so that the
hen has been called the "mortgage lifter of the Ozarks." The Mis-
souri State Poultry station at Mountain Grove co-operates with poultry-
men by testing rations and sponsoring projects. It also distributes
literature about feed, sanitation, worm and disease control, methods of
culling and judging, and similar problems.
At the present time (1940), one-third of the State's population is
dependent in some way on stock farms* Livestock improvement has
consequently become of primary importance, and many organizations for
this purpose have been developed* Among these are the Missouri Live-
stock Association, the Saddle Horse Breeders' Association, and the Mis-
souri Dairy Association.
Dairying began in Missouri as a sideline, but since the development
of good roads and rapid transportation, and the invention of the cream
separator and the milking machine, it has become a major industry.
The St. Louis region and the southwestern areas offer mild winters,
abundant grass and water, and convenient markets. Organizations
have been formed for the importation of registered stock, the selection
of animals, and the testing of cows for butter-fat production* Typical
are the activities of the Missouri Dairy Clubs, originated by the State
Dairy Commission. In 1916, the first club was organized in Jasper
County, which imported 105 Holstein heifers from Wisconsin* Within
7 years, it had bought 14 carloads of heifers, 8 carloads of which were
purebred Jerseys.
In several parts of Missouri, interesting experiments in co-operative
dairying have been made. The Missouri Farmer's Association, estab-
lished in Chariton County in 1914, under the leadership of the late
William Hirth, editor of the Missouri Farmer, has financed the build-
ing of elevators and exchanges in more than 300 towns, and ha$
inaugurated a co-operative system for handling eggs, poultry, and cream
which saves Missouri farmers hundreds of thousands of dollars an-
nually. At Springfield, the association operates the largest co-operative
AGRICULTURE 71
creamery in the world. Locally owned co-operative creameries are at
Sweet Springs, Emma, and Concordia.
Today, Missouri farmers are protected by a feed law, providing
for inspection of all livestock and poultry feeds; an egg law, requiring
the licensing and inspection of all traffickers in eggs; a seed law, revised
in 1938, insuring the purity of seeds; a farm warehouse act, providing
for the sealing and warehousing of grain on the farms where it is
grown ; a dairy law, providing for the licensing and inspection of milk
and cream-buying stations and dairy-products manufacturing plants
under the department of agriculture; and a plant and insect-pest law,
insuring the inspection and certification of nurseries. In 1935, Mis-
souri became a State-Federal Accredited Tuberculosis Free Area, all
counties having had their cattle tested for tuberculosis. The office of
the State Veterinarian provides for co-operation in the control and
eradication of livestock and poultry diseases. In 1933, the Missouri
State Department of Agriculture was created by an act of the General
Assembly, to succeed the State Board of Agriculture.
Assisting Missouri farmers to utilize the most modern scientific
methods is the Missouri College of Agriculture, at Columbia, which
maintains county extension agents throughout the State, and home
demonstration agents in two-thirds of the State, besides offering courses
on all phases of scientific farming. Members of its extension staff
annually give practical home Instruction and counsel to 21,000 boys
and girls enrolled in 4-H clubs, which are semisocial groups designed to
interest youth in farming. More than 400,000 bulletins and circulars
are mailed annually from the offices of the college.
A much-needed program for conservation of natural resources has
also been inaugurated. Soil erosion of both sheet and gully types has
seriously affected some 34,000,000 acres of what was once good farm
or pasture land. In the Ozark region, water erosion is conservatively
estimated to have removed 6 inches of the topsoil, in spite of the $47,-
000,000 spent by land owners for flood control and drainage. Although
restoration in many places is impossible, surveys have been made to
determine causes and cures, and bulletins have been distributed by
county farm agents, in an effort to educate the people, and to secure
legislation to check further devastation.
In southeastern Missouri the largest land-development project ever
undertaken without State or Federal aid has been in operation for some
years. Extending along a narrow line between Cape Girardeau and the
Arkansas border is a strip of land comprising some 550,000 acres,
acquired under the Swamp Land Act of 1850, which was formerly
considered valueless, in spite of its rich alluvial soil, because of constant
floods. In 1905, however, the Little River Drainage District was or-
ganized with local capital to drain the area. Now, this rich soil is in
72 MISSOURI
cultivation, and the malaria-carrying mosquitoes which once caused
settlers to spend more for quinine than for flour have been exterminated.
Among other causes of soil erosion are the destruction of the forests,
and the common practice among farmers of burning off underbrush.
Of the 15,000,000 acres of forest in Missouri, only 250,000 of virgin
timber remain. This is the result of several early abuses. Toward the
end of the nineteenth century, large lumber companies began operations
in the Missouri forests on the "cut out and get out" policy. When the
best of the timber was gone, these companies moved on. Smaller saw-
mill operators contributed to the devastation by taking the best trees,
and leaving only the inferior grades to reproduce. Under the common
misapprehension that burning the underbrush improves pasturage, many
farmers continue unwittingly to add to the destruction. Such burning
destroys trees and soil humus and the protective leaf covering, so that
the fertile top soil is washed away by rains. It also destroys the habi-
tats of wild birds and animals. To conserve forest resources and pre-
vent erosion, State laws were passed in 1931, and amended in 1934,
to permit the establishment of national forests.
Since 1932, the Federal Government has been increasingly inter-
ested in farm relief. It has made provision for seed loans, payments for
crop reduction, erosion control, and rehabilitation programs. In 1933,
the Missouri Agricultural Advisory Council was appointed to co-
operate with the Federal Farm Credit Administration to help local
farmers refinance mortgages. At LaForge, near Sikeston, the Farm
Security Administration has established a large resettlement project.
On 6,700 acres, improved at a total cost of approximately $700,000,
live more than 100 families, white and Negro. Each family has leased,
for a 34-share of the cotton produced, a tract of from 55 to 65 acres,
with a 4- or^-room house, barns, and outbuildings of prefabricated ma-*
terial. Each unit cost less than $2,000, Sums ranging from $230 to
$1,000 have been advanced to each family for the purchase of food,
livestock, and equipment. The acreage in cotton is restricted to about
50 per cent, with the remainder planted to corn, soy beans, lespedeza,
and pasture crops. Large machines are owned and shared by groups
of farmers; the cotton gin, blacksmith shop, and general store are man-
aged co-operatively by the community. The financing plan for the
community calls for the repayment of the original $700,000 loan within
33 years. The Osage Farms in Pettis County, established in 1938, are
another government experiment to aid farmers. A 5,329-acre tract has
been divided into small units, each with its own house, sold on long-term
agreements.
Missouri's worst agricultural problem at present, aside from the
national problem of shifting markets and economic uncertainty, is that
of the tenant farmer and sharecropper. Little attention was given to
AGRICULTURE 73
the tenant problem until the census of 1880 pointed out that 25.6 per
cent of the farms In the United States were operated by tenants, and
that Missouri was above the national average, with 1 8.1 per cent of the
farms operated by sharecroppers, and 9.2 by cash tenants. By 1920,
there were 75,727 tenants on Missouri farms; in 1930, there were
89,076; in 1935? there were 108,023.
Tenant farming is a system whereby an owner rents his land for
cultivation in return for some specified payment. Sharecropping is that
form of tenancy under which an individual engages himself to provide
the labor to produce and harvest a crop for a percentage of the returns
from the sale of the crop. The sharecropper is the most precariously
situated of the tenant class, since he is entirely dependent upon crops
which may, and often do, fail.
The farm-labor problem was reflected In a sharecropper demonstra-
tion which began January 10, 1939, attracting national attention. De-
claring that they had been evicted, 1,161 tenants, including many
Negroes, organised by the Reverend Owen H. Whitefield, a Negro
sharecropper of La Forge, Missouri, camped along the side of US 61.
In March, a State organisation of sharecroppers was formed. An
F.B.I. Investigation later intimated that the Southern Tenant Farmers
Union had held out to the squatters the possibility of government
grants of 40 acres of land, tools, a home, and a "dug" well. Some 500
of the "strikers" were eventually given permission by their former
landlords to return to their farms; approximately 450 others were
moved from the highway Into swampland, which the sharecroppers
named "Homeless Junction"; the remainder found homes on a 9i-acre
tract near Poplar Bluff, purchased with funds supplied by the Missouri
Agricultural Workers Union, a C.I.O. affiliate, and other groups.
In January, 1940, a conference of representatives of landowners and
tenants was called by Governor Lloyd C. Stark, and a plan was de-
veloped for the establishment of subsistence homesteads and the allot-
ment of WPA work to supplement the earnings of day laborers In the
cotton fields. The Federal Farm Security Administration has also taken
steps towards rehabilitating these people! and housing, home-labor, and
farm projects have been planned.
SOON after Father Jacques Marquette and Louis Jollict made
their voyage down the Mississippi in 1673, voyageurs and cou~
reurs des bois (forest traders) explored the Missouri, the Osage,
the St. Francis and other Missouri streams (see History and Govern-
ment)* The immediate result of these journeys was the extension of
the fur trade, but with their furs these men brought back tales of vast
silver deposits and hidden gold mines in the Missouri wilderness. Small
quantities of copper were actually found, and fortune hunters hastened
to the new El Dorado. When the illusion cleared, these turned to
raining lead, the one mineral their prospecting had located* Thus were
the first capital investments and the first settlers brought to the State.
For over a century, the lead mines yielded no great profit, but they
aided in attracting farmers, traders^ and missionaries to the little vil-
lages which grew up near them,
'''he lirst permanent settlement was at Ste. Genevieve (before
1750) a strategic location. Very shortly, the village was shipping
lead, furs, salt, flour and grain, pork, lard, bacon* bear grease, feathers,
and other products to distant markets.
The fur trade expanded rapidly under the domination of French
trading monopolies. In February of 1764, Maxent, Laclede & Com-
pany established St. Louis as a "company town," and leading fur mer-
chants began to operate from that center* Laclede soon controlled the
Indian fur trade of the Missouri, the upper Mississippi, and the nations
near La Baye, Lake Michigan, and along the Illinois River. After
his death in 1779, much of Laclede*s trade was carried on by the
Chouteau brothers. During the British occupation of the territory east
of the Mississippi (about 1765-80), however, French and Spanish
traders were largely restricted to the Mississippi below the Des Moincs,
and to the Missouri. When St. Louis traders again attempted to ex-
pand their activities into the upper Mississippi and Great Lakes region,
they met with vigorous competition from John Jacob Astor*s Northwest
Company, and the British Hudson's Bay Company. In 1794, Lieuten-
ant-Governor Zenon Trudeau promoted the Spanish Commercial Ex-
ploration Company to exploit the fur trade of the upper Missouri.
This company combined the capital and energies of leading St. Louis
merchants, and was subsidized by the Spanish government. According
to Auguste Chouteau, Sr., the average annual proceeds from the furs
74
INDUSTRY, COMMERCE AND LABOR 75
sold by St. Louis merchants between 1789 and 1804 were $204,750,
more than half being from deer and beaver.
The lead industry experienced little change until near the end of
the Spanish regime. Some lead was used locally, and irregular ship-
ments were made to New Orleans, but profits were small, and work
was sporadic. The high cost of transporting the lead from the mines
to Ste. Genevieve prevented any large scale mining. In general, the
mines seem to have been worked only from after the August harvest to
just before Christmas, and few if any of the miners lived at the "dig-
gings."
In 1798, just before the close of the Spanish period, improved min-
ing and smelting methods were introduced by Moses Austin, one of the
insatiable, roving frontier capitalists who "knew a good thing when
he saw it." Austin came from Virginia inr the winter of 1796-7 and
visited Mine a Breton, which had been worked for several decades.
Impressed with the richness of the deposits, he obtained a Spanish grant
of one square league. The following year he began operations, bringing
workmen and equipment from Virginia. Austin sold much of his bar
lead and shot in Ste. Genevieve and Kaskaskia, but he also sent some
directly to New Orleans, Louisville, and the Ohio River markets.
Permanent settlements at the mines now grew rapidly, despite the con-
stant threat of Osage Indian raids. Outside capital was attracted, and
after nearly 50 years of haphazard efforts Missouri's lead industry be-
came profitable.
Specie was scarce on the frontier. Paper money issued by various
banks, even though regarded with suspicion, enjoyed a wide circulation,
and Mexican silver coins, brought to Missouri after the opening of the
Santa Fe Trail, were common for many years. Most prevalent, how-
ever, was the barter system, used until long after the Louisiana Pur-
chase. The best-selling furs, beaver arid shaved deer skins, were a
standard of value, a pack of the same kind of skins having a definite
weight and a fairly definite price. A pound of shaved deer skins was
worth about 40 cents. According to Captain Amos Stoddard, in 1804,
a I co-pound bundle of beaver skins was worth $189, lynx $500, otter
$450, marten $300, a buffalo robe $6, and a. bear skin $3. For small
transactions, Missouri Colonial merchants issued a currency redeemable
in shaved deerskin and other produce called "peltry bon," or "good for
furs." Among other products taken in trade were tobacco, beeswax,
potash, maple syrup, salt, feathers, bear oil, venison, fish, wood, and
lead. Many of these items were processed before being shipped out-
side the area.
In return for these country products the merchant supplied neces-
sities, and luxuries imported from the East or South, many of which
had come originally from Europe, Asia, or the West Indies. Thus,
76 MISSOURI
cotton material from England, sheeting and blankets from Russia* coffee
from Brazil, tea from China, sugar from Cuba, steel from Germany,
laces and silks, books and fine porcelain from France, and wines and
liquors from many nations, found their way to Missouri. The examina-
tion of a page in any frontier merchant's day-book shatters the illusion
of primitive pioneer tastes.
When the Louisiana Territory was transferred to the United States
in 1804, St. Louis was the center of the government, and controlled the
fur trade and investment banking; Ste. Genevieve was the lead shipping
point, and an agricultural center. Settlers began to arrive in great
numbers, bringing with them new needs. Villages boomed overnight;
speculation piled upon speculation ; unconfirmed land titles were bought
and sold many times; business was chaotic and unsettled. Important
landowners and early investors in the fur trade and the lead industry
found the value of their holdings tripled and quadrupled.
In 1808, Moses Austin and Samuel Hammond laid out Hercu-
laneum at the mouth of Joachim Creek, in Jefferson County,^ as a lead
shipping point, and began to manufacture shot in towers built on the
high bluffs (see Tour 7b}. In 1819, Herculaneum shipped half the
lead produced in the State, and Ste. Genevieve suffered accordingly.
Other inland areas were developed. It was not, however, until after
the Civil War that large companies were formed. The southwest Mis-
souri mines, first opened about 1850, grew to importance during this
period. The St. Joseph Lead Company, which was soon to dominate
the southeast Missouri field, was incorporated in 1864.
The fur trade likewise saw changes. The single trader gave way
to large companies with resources sufficient to outfit many hunters and
agents, and to lobby for favorable legislation. Although the Chouteau
family remained important, particularly through their control of much
of the Osage trade, the industry in St. Louis seems to have been domi-
nated by Manuel Lisa. In 1809, he aided in organizing the St. Louis
Missouri Fur Company, his partners including Pierre and Auguste P.
Chouteau, William Clark, Pierre Menard, Andrew Henry, and others.
This combination changed in form and membership from time to time,
but under Lisa's direction the St. Louis merchants retained their inde-
pendence. John Jacob Astor made tentative arrangements with some
of them as early as 1817, but not until 2 years after Lisa's death in
1820 did he establish in St. Louis the branch of the American Fur Com-
pany known as the Western Department. This, with his success that
same year in having the United States trading factory system (Govern-
ment trading posts) abolished, gave Astor a virtual monopoly of the
United States fur trade.
Meanwhile, other Missouri fur traders had developed new areas.
Some of these were independent, working on a shoe-string capital and
INDUSTRY, COMMERCE AND LABOR 77
enduring terrific hardships and dangers; others formed companies.
William Henry Ashley formed a fur company which opened to explora-
tion and trade the great middle area of the Far West. During the
period 1822-6, Ashley's proceeds totaled $250,000. In 1826, he sold
out to Smith, Jackson, and Sublette, who pushed the trade through the
mountains to the Pacific Coast, from California to the Columbia River.
In 1834^ when Astor withdrew from what he sensed to be a dying
industry, his interests in the Western Department were purchased by
his former St. Louis partners, who organized the firm of Pratte, Chou-
teau, and Company. Subsequently reorganized as P. Chouteau, Jr., and
Company, the firm was continued until about 1866. The fur trade
declined rapidly with the settlement of the West and the decimation
of its wild life, but it did not die. About 1880, certain furs, such as
coon and skunk, until then of little value, began to be shipped directly
to St. Louis commission houses. In 1914, the Fouke Fur Company
received the United States government appointment to dress and dye
all the United States Alaska sealskins. These two factors have helped
St. Louis to continue as the center of the raw-fur market in America,
though the trade is no longer one of the major ones of the State.
During the Colonial period, leading residents in Missouri had had
agents in Montreal, or more often in New Orleans, who sold their
produce and sent in supplies. Later, when the Ohio River was opened
to traffic and Pittsburgh developed as a forwarding point for Eastern
merchants, most of the trade followed this route. Up to the Civil War,
Missouri dealers went at least once a year to purchase goods in Phila-
delphia, New York, or Baltimore, where prices were lower, even with
the additional shipping cost, than they were In St. Louis. Merchandise
was shipped overland by four-horse freight wagons to Pittsburgh, where
it was loaded in keelboats for transportation to St. Louis. In 1820,
more than $8,000,000 worth of goods was sent from Pittsburgh to the
West, much of it coming to Missouri.
As settlement progressed, a new type of merchant developed, a rest-
less group of frontier capitalists directing their interest to anything that
would yield a profit They bought goods or bartered It for country
produce of export value, started manufacturing enterprises, and specu-
lated in land. Everywhere, they clamored for sound banks and money,
good roads and public improvements, law and order, John Beauchamp
Jones, himself a merchant at New Franklin and Arrow Rock during
the 1 830*85 describes the class:
He Is the agent of everybody, and familiar with every transaction in his
neighborhood. He is the counselor without license and yet invariably
consulted, not only in matters of business, but in domestic affairs. . . Every
item of news, not only local, but from a distance, as he is frequently the
post-master, and the only subscriber to the paper . . . has a general dis-
MISSOURI
semination from his establishment, as from a common Beater, aad tkither all
resort, at least once a week, both for goods and intelligence.
Christian Wilt, who came to St. Louis from Philadelphia in 1810, was
typical: he established a general store in St. Louis, with branches at
Ste. Genevieve, Herculaneum, and New Hartford; opened factories in
St. Louis for the manufacture of red and white lead, selling much ^of
his product to the glass works of Pittsburgh and the potteries of Ohio;
operated a distillery on L'Abbe Creek in Cahokia, Ill'nois; made shot at
New Hartford ; and manufactured soap and candles in St. Louis. The
Lamme family had stores in Liberty, Franklin, Columbia, and Inde-
pendence, a tobacco factory at Franklin, and a steam flour mill and a
paper mill at Columbia, Robert and James Aull owned an interest in
three steamboats, and operated a saw and grist mill, and stores in four
towns, besides dabbling in the Santa Fe trade, and fulfilling contracts
for Fort Leavenworth, emigrating Indian tribes, and Western Army
troops.
When the merchant of the iSoo's escaped the pitfalls of too easy
credit, transportation losses, and the problems of fluctuating values in
bank notes, his profits were high. In 1840, with a total investment <rf
more than $8,000,000 in retail business in Missouri, the average store
sen ed more customers and employed more capital than the average
retail store in the East,
The Santa Fe trade that made possible most of this wide merchan-
dising begrn during the depression which followed the close of the
Napoleonic Wars. This depression reached the Missouri frontier in
1819, resulting in the decline of land values, the failure of the first
banks, and business stagnation (see Agriculture), Two years later,
when the pinch was sharpest, William Becknell and a party of Boon's
Lick Country men made the first profitable expedition to Santa Fe. THe
Mexican War for Independence had opened the area to American com-
merce, and the success of BecknelPs expedition led to the development
of an immense trade, which continued until the railroads had crossed the
plains after the Civil War. The introduction of steamboat transporta-
tion on the Missouri River made it possible to bring freight relatively
quickly and cheaply to Franklin, "the last outpost of civilization."
From here, pack and wagon trains were used to haul the goods over-
land. In 1823, merchandise carried to the Southwest was valued at
$12,000; in 1843 it amounted to $450,000. This trade, together with
that developed with California, Oregon, and Utah, was perhaps the
most significant factor in Missouri commerce during the middle years
of the century. Liberty, Lexington, Independence, Kansas City, and St
Joseph soon succeeded Franklin as the "last outfitting points before
jumping off to the West." Much of this commerce, in contrast with
INDUSTRY, COMMERCE AND LABOR 7^
the monopolistic fur Industry, was carried on by small traders, bet
large freighting companies were also organized. A single firm- Russell,
Majors, and Waddcll had at one time 4,000 wagons and 40,000 oxeA
earning goods from St. Louis to Sacramento and other points. St.
Joseph in particular profited from the Western demand for supplies.
In 1849? the total value of the stock of goods in St. Joseph stares
exceeded $400,000. When the establishment of mining camps in Cali-
fornia developed a boom market for Missouri beef cattle, St. Joseph
became the center of the trade (&ee Agriculture),
Manufacturing in Missouri began with the mills, distilleries, rope-
walks, and meat packing establishments developed to reduce the freight-
age of raw products before exporting, and with handicraft industries
which produced clothing, furniture, earthenware, and other items for
a local market. Capital was supplied by merchants, and the introduc-
tion of the factory system thus accompanied the growth of Western
markets. The period 1820-40 saw an abrupt shift from the primitive
handicraft system to that of modern industry.
With the opening of farms along the Missouri River and in tfafe
upland prairie country, grain production, and horse, mule, and swine
raising, became of primary importance. Grist mills were often built
before churches or schools, and, after the introduction of the steaM
engine, nearly every river port became a milling center. By 1840, the
(>4 steam flour mills and 636 grist mills in Missouri were annually
producing 49,363 barrels of flour. Ten years later, 19 St Louis mills
were producing about 500,000 barrels. Boonville, St. Charles, Hanni-
bal, and Cape Girardeau likewise developed early as milling centers.
Other grains were used in distilleries and breweries; by 1840, Missouri
was turning out half a million gallons of whisky annually, and, in
1850, ranked fifth in beer, with 172,570 barrels for that year.
The tobacco industry was destined to become one of the most impor-
tant in the State, with local tobacco factories, producing cigars and
chewing and smoking tobacco, utilizing only a fraction of the 9 5 o67 9 9i3
pound crop in 1840. Other Missouri industries listed by the census of
that year include meat packing, wooden ware and earthenware, tan-
neries, and carriage and wagon making,, A saddle company, Moore and
Porter, of Boonville, offered in 1839 "a general assortment of . .
Spanish, Quilted, Shaftered and Plain Saddles. Also a general assort-
ment of Saddle bags, Gentlemen's Travelling Trunks covered with
beal and deer skins, Bridles, Martingales, Harness, Hames, Collars etc.**
The growth of publishing reflected the frontier thirst for reading
matter; in 1808, Missouri had one newspaper; in 1840, there were 40.
By 1860, Missouri ranked fifth in the nation, her 154 papers issuing
annually 30,000,000 copies.
Lumbering camps were established in the pine area along the traad-
8o MISSOURI
waters of the Gasconade River as early as 1818; and as late as 1852,
the Gasconade Valley was still an important source of pine, although
the Arkansas border was then beginning to be exploited. Much of this
timber was hauled by ox-team to Springfield, or to the Osage River
ports for shipping. Lumber production, valued at $70,355 in 1840,
increased to $9,000,000 by 1860. Similar increases occurred in brick
and lime. The manufacture of small arms, soap, candles, furniture,
clothing, gunpowder, and rope grew in importance. By 1840, Missouri
industry and trades employed 11,100 workers.
Iron deposits were worked in Franklin, St. Francois, Washington,
Phelps, and Madison Counties, and coal deposits in St, Louis and the
north-central Missouri counties. A small furnace was established on
Stout's Creek near present-day Ironton about 1815, using ore from
Shepherd Mountain and wood from the hills for fuel In 1825, the
State legislature granted a petition for aid in manufacturing iron, and
the following year the "Springfield Iron Furnace and Forges" near
Potosi began operation. In 1828, the company advertised: "Bar Iron
for sale and castings of every description may be had equal to any made
m the western country. Constantly on hand, Salt kettles, Mill irons,
Wagon boxes, Furnace Grates, Lead moulds, and a general assortment
of Hollow Ware, Pots, Kettles, Ovens, Skillets, etc"
iron Mountain, in Madison County, long thought to be of solid
ore sufficient to supply the world for a century, became the most impor-
tant source of iron in Missouri. In 1836, a company was formed.
Using nearby limestone for flux, and wood from the forested knobs for
fuel, the ore was mined and smelted on the spot, then shipped overland
to Ste. Genevieve for export. The Ste. Genevieve, Iron Mountain and
Pilot Knob plank road was begun in 1851, but before it was finished
the St. Louis and Iron Mountain Railroad was chartered. Completed
in 1858, this railroad carried the iron to St. Louis.
The presence of coal was first noted in Missouri before 1810, It
was mined before 1840, the first mines being in St. Louis County;
others were opened later in Randolph, Audrain, Ray, Lafayette, and
Barton Counties.
The development of railroads between 1835 and 1860 changed the
pattern of Missouri commerce. Because the routes lay east and west,
not north and south with the Mississippi, Missouri became allied with
the industrial East and was released from her dependence upon the
South. This change was emphasized by the investments of Eastern
capital in Missouri industry, so that by the outbreak of the Civil War,
most of Missouri's industrial trade had been diverted from New Orleans
to the East.
Union forces won control of industrial St. Louis and the southeast
mining area early in the struggle, but agricultural Missouri was the
INDUSTRY, COMMERCE AND LABOR 8l
battlefield for opposing forces throughout the war. St. Louis profited
by serving as the western supply base for a million troops. The Chief
Quartermaster spent $180,000,000 In that city for supplies* transporta-
tion, and incidental expenses. St. Louis commerce and industry had an
unprecedented growth. The custom's receipts for the port of St. Louis
jumped from $98,609.73 in 1861 to $654,583.21 in 1865.
Missouri's difficult reconstruction period was eased by the tide of
Western trade, and the continued growth of Missouri's population.
Sylvester Waterhouse, in his The Resources of Missouri (1867), states
that, in 1866, 50 St. Louis boats carried freight valued at $6,500,000
to Montana alone. In the same year, the overland freight from Fort
Leavenworth totaled $50,000,000, of which approximately $35,000,000
went to New Mexico. At the close of the i86o*s, Missouri industry,
concentrated principally in St. Louis, totaled $206,231,499 a 500 per
cent increase over that of 1840.
A diversified group of industries based upon local production of
Iron and coal had been well developed at the outbreak of the war.
Missouri ranked sixth in the national production of pig iron, and the
manufacture of agricultural implements, steam engines, machinery, and
castings had become important. Architectural ironwork for many Mis-
souri buildings of this period was cast in Missouri foundries* Iron
production jumped from 100,000 tons before 1850, to 316,000 tons in
the 1870*5, Since the Lake Superior iron region has been developed,
many of the Missouri mines have closed down, but the importance of
St. Louis foundry products has not diminished.
Retailing methods underwent a change, as the railroads and the
development of "traveling salesmen" made it unnecessary for small
merchants to make annual purchasing trips to the East, The concen-
tration of wealth in urban centers made possible the department store,
with its wide assortment of merchandise for all tastes and pocketbooks.
The department store idea is inherent in the small-town "general
store," but the older department stores in Kansas City and St. Louis
originated as small dry goods stores, which gradually expanded.
Chain stores, concentrating on a limited number of low- or medium-
priced standardized articles, originated in the East; they spread as
automobiles and highways opened ever wider markets. Among the
pioneers was James Cash Penney (1875- ), son of a Hamilton,
Missouri, Baptist minister; he began his vast chain with a small store
in Kemmerer, Wyoming (see Tour 8)*
The co-operative activities of the Missouri Farmer's Association,
planned and launched by William Hirth of Columbia about 1914,
which began with retailing goods to members at wholesale prices, now
include the processing and sale of farm produce. With an annual
turnover totaling as high as $100,000,000, the M.F.A. is a vital ceo-.
MISSOURI
force throughout Missouri and neigh bor'ng States (5** Agricul-
ture, and Springfield).
Since 1900, urban concentration has increased, and large corporate
industries have grown up. Milling and brewing, meat packing and the
leather industry, the manufacture of farm implements and machinery,
and of various cast-iron and steel products, and the development of
chemical and medical industries have proved of growing importance.
Of particular significance is Missouri's continued importance in
Western and Southwestern markets. Within the State, the railroads
have given rise to agricultural marketing and manufacturing centers
like Springfield, the largest primary poultry market in the world. Dairy
produce plants, creameries, cheese and butter factories, and canneries
have been built in the smaller towns.
The cheapness of power and of railroad transportation and the
recent introduction of trucks have made possible the development of
mines, particularly of nonferrous ores, hitherto considered of little
value. Mineral production increased from the depression low of
$29,345,000 in 1932, to $52,446,000 in 1937. Among quarry products
have been the large sandstone deposits found in the St. Peter, La Motte,
and Roubidoux formations. Sand from the Ozark streams is used in
sand Blasting; that from the St. Peter formation is used mainly for glass
making, as it is nearly pure silica. Other Missouri sands are used in
sandpaper, scouring soaps, and pottery glazing. The silica deposits at
Crystal City, first successfully used in the manufacture of glass by the
American Plate Glass Company in 1871, are. now controlled by the
Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company. Clay deposits ranging from high
grade fire clay to shales and clays suitable for brick, tile, and cement
have been discovered in large quantities in many parts of the State, and
plants manufacturing firebrick, tile, and other products have been
developed in Mexico, St. Louis, Hannibal, and Cape Girardeau. Non-
plastic, flint fire clay is found in east-central Missouri; associated with
this clay occurs a material which is nearly 75 per cent alumina. Mines
of tripoli, asphalt, and other minerals have been opened in southwest
Missouri. Tripoli is a form of porous rock used in making paint, tooth
powder, and cleansing material; recently, it has also been used for
insulation in building construction. The discovery of barite, or tiff,
which is used in the manufacture of paints and enamels, heavy drilling'
sludge, linoleum, rubber goods, and as a paper filler, has opened a new
industry in southeast and central Missouri, More than half of the
ba*ite produced in the United States comes from Missouri, and of this
some 75 per cent conies from Washington County. Other minerals
produced in lesser quantities in Missouri are copper, nickel, cobalt, anti-
mony, tungsten, and arsenic.
Coal production has constantly increased in importance. Coal
INDUSTRY, COMMERCE A \ r D LABOR 83
deposits underlie nearly 25,000 square miles in northwestern Missouri,
several of the seams being of commercial thickness. In the central area,
most of the coal mines are of the shaft type, but in Callaway, Randolph,
and Barton Counties, strip or open pit mining is common.
Since the first oil wells were drilled in Jackson County in the
i86o's, considerable interest has been shown in possible oil deposits in
the State. Many wells have been sunk, particularly in the western and
northern sections, where there is an underlying Pennsylvanian forma-
tion, but so far none has produced any appreciable quantity of oil or gas.
Early lead miners in the southwestern district found a strange dark
substance adhering to the lead ore. Under the unscientific refining
methods of that period, this "blackjack" was thrown into the chat heaps*
which were subsequently utilized by railroads for ballast, and by counties
for road building. It is estimated that $10,000 worth of the material
per mile was used on the chat-graveled roads about Joplin before it was
realized that the foreign substance in the lead was zinc of a high
quality. Subsequently, the chat was scientifically processed in specially
built mills, and it is estimated that some of the old waste heaps have
produced as much as $100,000 in zinc and lead concentrates.
Since 1910, the richer deposits of zinc in Oklahoma and Kansas
have made the southeastern Missouri zinc fields less important. Pro>-
duction dropped from 128,589 short tons in 1910 to 20,600 in 1937,
but the processing of metals has continued to make Joplin an important
industrial center. Until recently* processing was done by small inde-
pendent companies, but during the depression years many of these firms
were absorbed by larger corporations, and today the industry is largely
controlled by the EagJe-Picher Corporation.
Next to lead and zinc in importance is limestone^ of which several
types are found in Missouri Burlington limestone^ important as a
building material and for the manufacture of quick lime, is found
around Carthage, Phenix, Louisiana, and Hannibal. The St. Louis
limestone which overlies the Burlington in the St. Louis district Is used
for rubble. The limestone outcrops around Ste. Genevieve, however* are
of the highest quality, and are suitable for the manufacture of lime. The
limestone in Pike County is employed in rock-wool manufacture, a fast-
growing modern industry*
Deposits in the vicinity of Carthage and Phenix contain marble of
exceptional quality, which is widely used in the State ; the Missouri
State Capitol at Jefferson City is built of it. The most widely used
Missouri rock, however, is the red granite found In the Graniteville
area of southeast Missouri, At present, it is shipped everywhere in
the United States. The Thomas Allen monument, at Pittsfield, Massa-
chusetts, is a striking shaft sculptured from a single block weighing
42 tons.
84 MISSOURI
Missouri has 21 rivers with a fall great enough to produce elec-
tricity. Of these, several ha\e been harnessed. Forsyth Dam, in the
southwestern section, impounds the White River to form Lake Taney-
como; a small hydroelectric plant here generates electricity for the
Shepherd of the Hills country. More recently, a large dam has been
built across the Osage River to form the Lake of the Ozarks. Here,
water-run turbines generate a maximum of 210,000 horsepower. Mis-
souri has 16,000 miles of streams, with an estimated potential of more
than 600,000 horsepower; of this, only a little more than a third is at
present being developed.
With the modern trend toward big cities, 70 per cent of the State's
manufacturing is done in St. Louis and Kansas City. St. Louis ranks
eighth among the industrial areas of the nation, is the largest manu-
facturing center west of the Mississippi, and has a widely diversified
industry, including boots and shoes, beer, electrical machinery, medi-
cines, and printing and publishing. Kansas City, the eighteenth indus-
trial city in the United States, is the second largest meat-packing center,
and ranks first in shipments of cattle. Important also are flour, bread,
and prepared foods. St. Joseph, Missouri's third industrial city, has
the largest pancake-flour factory, and the largest animal serum and
vacjme plant in the world.
The remarkable growth of Missouri industry in the decade follow-
ing the World War ended with two-thirds of Missouri's population
resident in towns and cities, and two-thirds of Missouri's workers cm-
ployed in manufacturing, mining, and the trades. Production by 1929
reached the total of $1,885,470,000 and provided work for 200,411
employees- Cities were growing rapidly, and Missouri's industrial lords
were as busy as those elsewhere, weaving combinations of corporations,
super-corporations, and holding companies. Manufacturers of farm
machinery, however, were alarmed by the decline of farm values and
products (see A gricultitre} . As farm values and incomes decreased,
bank failures rose; in 1923, one; in 1926, seven; in 1929, thirteen; and
in 1931, ninety-one. Emigration from farms and small towns to the
cities grew alarmingly.
Within four years after the stock market crash of 1929, industrial
production fell to less than half that of 1929, with a corresponding
growth of unemployment. By 1935, however, industry showed some
recovery, the total value of Missouri products reaching $1,205,877,000,
with 162,144 workers employed.
LABOR
From the time of the first settlement of Missouri until the closing of
the last frontier area in the middle of the nineteenth century, oppor-
INDUSTRY, COMMERCE AND LABOR 85
tunities for Individual betterment gave reality to the theory of liberty
and equality for the free citizen* The persistent shortage of labor on
the frontier gave craftsmen and laborers an independent power in bar-
gaining for employment. Contracts for the building of houses and for
the making of various items, as well as agreements in the fur-trade and
mining industries, were caiefully detailed as to the respective responsi-
bility of employer and employee. On occasion, these matters were also
the subject of legal regulation. For example, the Missouri territorial
laws for 1804 protected river boatmen against cruelty or negligence on
the part of the owner, and the boatmen were, in turn ; responsible for
the loss of boat or cargo through their negligence, and were liable for
"misbehavior" or refusal to do their duty. Laws also regulated the
indenture of orphans, providing minimum educational requirements,
though not restricting the age or hours of work.
During the 1830*8, Missouri's population increased more than 173
per cent, yet the demand for labor remained in excess of the supply.
Between 1835 and 1836, the price of laying bricks advanced from $3 to
$5 a thousand* and the wages of common labor advanced from 75$ to
$1.75 a day. The pay of iron workers advanced from $2 to $3 a day,
that of carpenters from $1.50 to $2*25 a day, and other wages increased
in like proportion* In 1836, there was a wide demand for the ten-hour
day, though the master craftsmen attempted to uphold their traditional
right of setting the hours of labor, frequently as high as fourteen. The
shortage of workingmen and the general prosperity enabled most work-
ers to obtain shorter hours.
The period of prosperity was abruptly ended by the panic of 1837.
Salaries dropped from 50 to 75 per cent, and unemployment appeared.
The change was not quietly received by workmen. The cabinet makers
demanded an advance of 20 per cent in wages and a written contract
with their employers* The plasterers formed themselves Into a society
and attempted to secure a wage increase. According to the journal of
Henry B. Miller, who aided in organizing the group, notice was served
to employers "that if they were not willing to give the wages , . the
group would turn out against them and not lift a trowel until they
gave $2,50 per day and no less, . . . Some of the hands did not get the
wages but the majority did/ 1
These and other activities on the part of St. Louis workmen resulted
in the organization of trade unions before 1840 by the journeymen
laborers and mechanics. According to Russell M. Nolen in "The Labor
Movement in St. Louis Prior to the Civil War" (Missouri Historical
Review, October, 1939), these first unions were not revolutionary in
their programs; they were interested in the general welfare and in the
advancement of all laborers* Having the sympathy of both the press
and the general public, their demands for higher wages and shorter
8t) MISSOURI
hpurs were often successful. Collective bargaining and the strike proved
effective weapons, and picketing and the boycott may have been known.
By 1842, the depression had spent itself and the surge of Westward
migration was already creating a new Missouri prosperity which ex-
ceeded that of the iSjo's. More than 11,000 of Missouri's population
of 383,702 in 1840 were employed in manufacturing and the trades;
by 1850, the number increased to 15,000 in industry alone, ranking
Missouri eighth in production.
Missouri had now passed the frontier period* nd the most produc-
tive free land had been occupied. An increasing stream of immigrants
was adding to the available supply of labor. The majority of these
were Germans, who found employment in the factories of St. Louis.
With an ever-growing surplus of labor available, an increasing need was
felt for the organization of unions, in order to maintain the earlier
position of workers in relation to employers. The European worker,
more experienced In labor problems than his American neighbor, gave
direction to organization among Missouri workers. For the first time,
a sense of the implications of the new industrial situation appears in
the activities of unions, and in the writings of the period. A meeting of
journeymen bricklayers, held in St. Louis in March 1840, resolved that
against the encroachments of capital "we are honor bound to resist . . .
as fc : duty to ourselves, our families and our posterity.*' Whereupon,
the members pledged themselves to maintain "The Ten Hour System. n
On July 2j 1840, the workingrnen of St. Louis united in favor of
the ten-hour law. A committee was appointed to interview the candi-
dates for governor concerning their attitude towards the proposed law.
At the same time the workers repudiated connections with any political
party. In 1841, however, the mechanics and workingmen of St. Louis
formed an organization to secure favorable legislation, and took an
active part in that year's election. In this and subsequent campaigns,
the journeymen, who were "political tyros," used the ballot awkwardly.
They were easily scared by abuse, and saw with bitterness their efforts
compromised or destroyed by professional politicians. A workingman's
ticket was defeated in 1842, and after the election of 1843, when labor
failed to place its own candidates in the field, and prosperity increased,
labor campaigning declined.
Summing up the problems of industrial growth, Micajah Tarver ?
lawyer and senior editor of the St. Louis Western Journal, asserted in
October, 1848, that "when land has been taken up, those born to no
other inheritance than that of labor * . . are left to struggle unsup-
ported against the powers of wealth and intelligence,"
Prosperity was again disrupted by a panic in 1857, which, intro-
duced in Missouri by the failure of the St. Louis banking house of
James H. Lucas and Company on October 6, 1857, soon spread
INDUSTRY, COMMERCE AND LABOR 8?
throughout the State. Wages were reduced 30 to 50 per cent, and
prices dropped rapidly. On October n, the Missouri Republican
predicted that 10,000 men would be out of work and in want during
the coming winter. Unemployment aids were suggested, and the state-
ment was made that "The worker does not want alms, but * .
Labor/ 5 Some advocated moving surplus laborers to the country, par-
ticularly those who had been tempted to the city by the high wages of
prosperity; others urged a plan of public works. But the only action
taken was the appointment of a general association for the relief of the
poor. This body was scarcely successful in obtaining funds, but industry
revived sufficiently, early in 1858, to re-employ many workers. By
1860, prosperity had been revived and the unions of St* Louis became
inactive.
The census of 1860 shows 114,930 slaves in the State, and 160,541
foreign born (the majority German). Most of the slaves were owned
by 5jO7O slaveholders resident in 15 counties* Less than 100 slave-
holders were found in 53 counties, and i county, Douglas, had none.
The slave system was not fundamental to Missouri prosperity, nor was
it adapted to Missouri agriculture generally. Missouri workingmen
took no united stand on the slave question despite the activity of Illinois
and the Kansas abolitionists. In the election of 1860, Lincoln received
a plurality of 700 votes in St. Louis. The laboring classes were divided,
and the Lincoln plurality was due almost entirely to the vote of the
German residents in the city, who as a group opposed slavery.
At the beginning of the Civil War, laborers were on the side of
compromise, and mass meetings were called in Richmond, Louisville,
Cincinnati, and St. Louis to condemn a resort to arms* Soon, however,
military needs created a tremendous momentum in industrial develop-
ment. The consequent rise in employment and wages was also accom-
panied by a rapid increase in prices. The movement to equalize wages
with the increased cost of living gave trade unions a greater impetus
than they had ever had before*
In 1861, some English miners in the Belleville tract in Illinois called
colleagues from their own State arid from Missouri to a convention in
St. Louis, under the leadership of Thomas Lloyd and the "silver-
tongued" Daniel Weaver. "The American Miners' Association" was
formed at this meet ing, with Lloyd as president and Weaver as secre-
tary. The latter declared the object of the organization to be not
merely "pecuniary but to mutually instruct and improve each other in
knowledge, which is power, to study the laws of life, the relation of
Labor to Capital, politics, municipal affairs, literature, science, or any
other subject relating to the general welfare of our class." Other labor
organizations were formed in Missouri during the war. In 1863, four
were in operation; in 1864* there were nine.
88 MISSOURI
To stimulate the immigration of workmen from Europe, the Mis-
souri legislature in 1865 established a Board of Immigration, providing
for publicity funds and for agents to be stationed in the Eastern States
and in Europe to aid and advise immigrants. Upon the request of the
board, Sylvester Waterhouse, a Washington University professor, pre-
pared a pamphlet, The Resources of Missouri (St. Louis, 1867), which
proclaimed that "Missouri needs able bodied men ... the labors of
myriads of workmen." As a result, many workers prepared to work
for any wage came to Missouri. This cheap labor, combined with the
post-war depression, weakened the unions as well as the American
Miners' Association,
The St. Louis unions were dominated by German-speaking people
whose leaders attempted to apply socialist theories to the organization of
workingmen. The editor of the Missouri Republican in 1878 solemnly
stated that St. Louis seemed to outsiders "the very center of commu-
nism in this country." Before long, many of the Missouri unions were
nationally recognized, and the Workingmen's Party of the United States
was active here.
In 1877, conditions were almost normal, and labor was quiet. Con-
sequently, a strike during that summer came as a complete surprise,
On Tuly 22, a railroad strike began In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and
immediately spread throughout the Nation, to affect not only the rail-
roads, but most other types of business. The East St. Louis railroad
employees joined the strike on July 23, The conduct of the striking
railway employees was exemplary throughout. A resolution cautioning
all the men against the use of liquor was enforced by strikers patrolling
the saloons. Other groups guarded railroad property and freight.
In St. Louis, meetings of the Workingmen's Party of the United
States endorsed the "general uprising of labor in assertion of its rights,!*
and expressed sympathy for "the railroad employees who have had their
wages cut down to starvation prices." The St. Louis employees of the
Missouri Pacific, and the St. Louis, Kansas City & Northern were
Induced to join the strike, although their previous demands for wage
increases had been met Meetings and parades were held and the fear
of rioting caused Mayor Overstolz to appeal for aid to suppress possible
disorder, A committee of safety was therefore appointed, composed of
General A. J. Smith, General J. S. Marmaduke, and other Civil War
veterans. Sheriff John Finn summoned a posse of 5,000 men. On July
27, mounted police, patrolmen, and citizen militia set out to capture
the leaders of the strike, who had set up headquarters in Strube's Hall
at Fifth Avenue and Biddle Street* Seventy-three men were arrested
as leaders; others escaped and were picked up later. By July 30, the
strike was over in St. Louis. Action was taken, also, at St. Joseph and
in Kansas City, where 300 railroad strikers took possession of the
INDUSTRY* COMMERCE AND LABOR 89
Union Station and were supported by strikers in other industries of
the city.
Although in many cases better wages and a shorter working day
were achieved, the principle of collective bargaining was not generally
accepted by the employers. The strike, " however, demonstrated the
strong organization of the workingmen of the State and their knowledge
of their power. Public and private property had been protected, no
one had been seriously injured, and the mail trains had been permitted
to operate.
Alarmed by the militia organized during the strike, and the subse-
quent unfavorable publicity, labor attempted to achieve its ends through
negotiation and political means. In St. Louis, the Workingmen 's Party,
a newly formed political group unrelated to the national group of that
name, disclaimed any connection with the ''Internationalists," or com-
munists. In the election of 1878, they organized their voters in an
effort to elect favorable candidates. In this they were not successful,
but they polled more votes than the leading parties had anticipated. In
1880 and 1884^ despite the affiliation of the labor groups with the
Greenback party, their efforts were again defeated.
With the strengthening of the local unions came the desire for a
national labor organization. In January, 1879, a general assembly in
St. Louis of the Knights of Labor organized in Philadelphia in 1869
adopted the motto, "All for One, One for AIL" The Knights
exercised nominal control over organized labor in St. Louis until 1887,
although many of the trade unions had by then withdrawn.
Three labor factions, had meanwhile developed in St. Louis: the
Central Labor Union, the St. Louis Trades Assembly, and the Arbeiter-
Verband, which represented most of the German-speaking local unions,
This division of forces was recognized as a disadvantage in collective
bargaining, however, and in 1887, the three groups united to form the
St. Louis Trades and Labor Assembly. A decade later, the present
name The St. Louis Central Trades and Labor Union was adopted.
The new organization applied for a charter of the American Federa-
tion of Labor, formed two years before; it was granted September I,
1887* The third annual convention of the A. F. of L. met in St.
Louis in 1888, with Samuel Gompers presiding. Three years later, at
a convention held in Kansas City, the Missouri State Federation of
Labor was organized.
The Missouri Bureau of Labor Statistics, organized in 1879, served
both labor and industry as a clearing house for information. The new
bureau investigated labor conditions and presented its findings in annual
reports. The report for 1881 made searching inquiries into the method
of industrial payment, health and sanitation conditions, and child and
convict labor. Recommending that all wages be paid in cash, the report
90 MISSOURI
called attention to the payment of many workers in "script** for the
purchase of goods in company stores, which charged as much as 15 per
cent and more above average retail prices. The bureau reported that
few health and safety measures were found in use, and that most work-
men who were injured were discharged or received no disability com-
pensation. The penitentiary had been leased to a group in 1873 for
$1,000 a year, and then subleased to a manufacturing company. "The
convicts were ill-treated, badly clothed, fed and bedded, often going for
weeks without a change of linen. Many weie so near naked they had
to be kept in their cells with not even blankets to cover with." Mutiny
had resulted. Conditions reported among children working in mines
and factories shocked the legislature into action; laws were passed
prohibiting any male under 14, and any female, from working in mines,
In 1883, the Missouri Bureau of Labor Statistics was enlarged;
and In the years that followed, official recognition was given to labor
problems. Although many of the first laws were loosely written or
poorly enforced, successive revisions or supplementary acts gave them
strength. In 1927, the bureau of 1883 was abolished and the Depart-
ment of Labor and Industrial Inspection was created, one of whose
duties was to enforce the laws regarding sanitation, health, and the
safety of employees.
Although the eight-hour day had been provided by legislative act in
1867, it was made ineffectual by the provision that it did not "prevent
parties to any contract for work . . . from agreeing upon a longer or
shorter time," and other features. Most acute was the situation of the
St. Louis streetcar conductors and drivers, who worked from 16 to 18
hours daily. In 1881, these workers struck for a 1 2-hour day, and a
pay increase to $2 a day for the conductors and $1.75 for the drivers.
A compromise was reached calling for 12*4 cents an hour for the
drivers and 15 for the conductors. Four years later, another strike was
called, which lasted three weeks but was lost after police intervention.
Other strikes held during this period were more successful. Significant
among these was the strike of shopmen of the Missouri Pacific Railroad
in 1885 against repeated wage reductions. The strike was well-organ-
ized, and indicated that labor had learned from its previous efforts.
Missouri and Kansas railroad officials agreed to restore the earlier wage
scale and to pay for overtime work. A 3O-day notice prior to discharge
or pay reduction was also provided.
Legislative action of increasing scope and effectiveness accompanied
labor activity during the closing years of the century* The laws of
1891 provided better sanitation and health conditions for children in
industry, and 2 years later attendance at school between the ages of 8
and 14 was made compulsory; administration of the law, however, was
left largely to the discretion of each community. The law of 188*
INDUSTRY, COMMERCE AND LABOR 91
providing that each county court appoint inspectors for the mines in its
community was superseded in 1889 by the appointment of a State
mining inspector by the governor. That year, too, a Board of Media-
tion and Arbitration was provided to handle strikes or lockouts. Addi-
tional safety and health laws were passed in 1899 and revised in 1901*
Their enforcement was made the responsibility of a factory inspector,
The "script" system was eliminated by the laws of 1895, which
required that wages be paid in lawful United States money. The lien
laws of 1889 and 1895 secured for labor the priority of wage claims*
During the 1890'$, laws were passed against blacklisting, intimidation
during elections, and, of particular significance, against requiring "any
employee to withdraw from any trade union" thus recognizing the
right of labor to organize. Employers became responsible for negli-
gence resulting in accidents to employees. Laborers and mechanics 00
public works, convicts, silica miners, and laborers in other forms of
mining and smelting work, were limited to an eight-hour day. Railroad
employees, foremen, arrd others were limited to nine hours. Regulations
also attempted to prevent sweat-shops and the system of wage assign-
ments. Laws were on the books against threats, lockouts, bringing
armed forces into the State for police duty, and blacklisting of
employees,
Since 1900, the growth of labor unions has been accompanied by a
steadily increasing number of legislative acts. Many strikes have been
held, some of historic significance. Among these was the strike of the
St. Louis streetcar employees in the spring of 1900, following the
consolidation of all the street railway lines. The strike, which was
settled and then begun again after the discharge of strikers, involved
union recognition and the closed shop. According to William Marion
Reedy's description of the strike in the St. Louis Mirror, officials
shifted responsibility, until the sheriff was ordered to form a citizens'
posse. About 1600 men were drilled and armed. Strikers were shot
and property was damaged. In summing up the results, Reedy says,
"This strike has won though it has failed. The Company practically
recognized the Union Labor principle. . . . The men were betrayed
into rejecting a victory and choosing a defeat. The strikers were identi-
fied with lawlessness chiefly through the incapacity or chicanery of
small politicians."
For the next 18 years the St. Louis traction system was non-union.
On February 2 5 1918, after a period of organizational activity, the
motormen and conductors struck for recognition of the union, and five
days later achieved their demands. Since that time, negotiations have
won gains for the employees. At present, St. Louis is one of the few
American cities in which the traction union has a closed-shop agreement
92 MISSOURI
with the company. With nearly 4,000 members, the St. Louis streetcar
men's union is today the largest single union in Missouri,
In 1906, some workers in a St. Louis company were discharged for
refusing to work more than nine hours a day. Their union called a
strike when the company refused to negotiate. The strike was endorsed
by the local labor council, as well as by the A. F. of L. Samuel
Gompers offered to discuss a compromise, but the president of the
company declined the invitation. According to Herbert Harris's Amer-
ican Labor, when Gompers' efforts failed, the company was placed on
the "unfair to labor" list in the A. F, of L. official organ, the Federa-
ttonist, In May 1907, Sales dropped from $1,000,000 a year to about
$150,000. Thereupon, the company procured an injunction in the
District of Columbia for the * 'cessation of concerted action." Gompers,
asking why the Sherman Act was not enforced against the trusts whose
anti-social doings had provoked its passage, was charged for contempt
and sentenced to a year in prison, together with other A. F, of L. offi-
cials. The case was * 'kicked along in the courts for months/* finally
ending in a hasty peace made by the new president of the company.
As early as 1916, organized labor in Missouri had 915 unions, with
110,412 members, of which 105,181 were men and 5,231 women. All
were affiliated with some national or international organization. Dur-
ing the World War, prosperity swept the State. The census for 1920
recorded a great urban growth and a decrease of population in rural
areas. At this time 48.1 per cent of the population over 10 years of
age, or 1,317,160 people, were workers. Employees of manufacturing
concerns totaled 330,883 of this number, and agricultural employees
represented 396,863.
Perhaps the outstanding reform measure of the post-war years was
the Workmen's Compensation Law of 1925. In the ten-year period
ending December 1937, a total of 806,415 accidents were reported,
and sums of $26,629,850 in compensation and $12,279,760 in medical
care were paid.
Following the financial panic of 1929, industrial employment
dropped from 370,787 in 1930 to 141,196 In 1933. The number of
strikes rose, and a new development appeared in labor organization.
The American Federation of Labor had organized only the skilled
crafts, yet with the improvement of machinery, the proportion of crafts-
men to unskilled laborers declined steadily. To organize the latter,
units of the Committee for Industrial Organization, now the Congress
of Industrial Organizations, were formed. At approximately the same
time, the national government came to the aid of the States by a pro-
gram for absorbing unemployment in the Works Progress Administra-
tion, the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Public Works Administra-
tion, and other agencies. The American Federation of Labor finally
INDUSTRY
STRIP COAL MINING, MACt|t'
0t TRAIN >N ^ rui RIVER UAD
M|NE
WINE VATS, ST. LOUIS
CHAMPAGNE CELLAR,
ST. LOUIS
INDUSTRY, COMMERCE AND LABOR 93
expanded its activities to include the unskilled laborer, giving labor two
powerful bargaining agencies.
In 1935, conditions began to improve* In that year, 162,144.
workers were employed by Missouri industries, and the National Labor
Relations Act became law. During the first year following its enact-
ment, the 1 4th regional office, of which Missouri is a part, handled
240 cases involving 80,558 workers, belonging to both major labor
groups. Of the firms concerned, 152 were located in St. Louis and 14
in eastern Missouri,
Outside of the urban centers, several groups which, through isola-
tion and disorganization, had not had a voice in early labor development
also attempted to form unions. These included the lead and zinc miners
in southwest Missouri, the tiff miners of Washington County, and the
sharecroppers of the cotton country of "swampeast Missouri." These
people are in the main of Anglo-American stock, families which within
the past half-century have come from the Tennessee, Kentucky, or
Ozark hills to find employment. In southeast Missouri, the immigration
of whites, together with groups of Southern Negroes, has taken place
chiefly since the drainage of the swamps and the opening of the area
to large-scale cotton farming. The Creole and Anglo-American popu-
lation of Washington " County has been augmented since 1930 by a
steady immigration of families seeking occupation in the digging of tiff.
A tiff miners 1 strike, the first Washington County had known, called
in 1935, affected some 2,600 of the 3,600 workers in the area. The
introduction of machinery had reduced the price of tiff to $3.50 a ton
and the strikers demanded a rise to $5.50 a ton. In a few weeks a
compromise was reached, increasing the price to $5 a ton.
In 1935, the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter
Workers, a C.I.O. affiliate representing employees of the Eagle-Picher
Lead Company and its subsidiary in the Tri-State mining area, struck
to obtain recognition. Prior to 1933, many unsuccessful efforts had
been made to unionize the area. Employment in the mines was irregu-
lar, other types of work were not generally available, and living condi-
tions were generally subnormal When the strike was called, the
Eagle-Picher Company immediately shut down its mines and smelters.
Soon after, the company-directed Blue Card Union was organized, as a
back-to-work movement. According to the National Labor Relations
Board report (1939), violence began in the district almost immediately
after the strike started and continued for nearly two years. The Blue
Card Union, later affiliated with the A. F. of L., took over the task of
local law enforcement, and an elaborate organization was formed
whereby "squad cars" patrolled the highways and mines. The
N.L.R.B. eventually ordered the Eagle-Picher Company to allow
its workmen to join any union they pleased, and stipulated that "new
94 MISSOURI
employees hired after July 5, 1935, the effective date of the act, arc ta
be dismissed to the extent necessary to make room for the employees
discriminated against and ordered reinstated."
Health and living conditions are other problems of the mining area,
especially "miners' con/* silicosis which develops into tuberculosis. In
*937> the national death rate from pulmonary tuberculosis was 49 per
100,000; in Jasper County, Missouri, the rate was 130.5 per 100,000,
the result not only of silicosis but of malnutrition.
By 1939, industrial labor in the State had reached some degree of
stability, but the farm labor problem was still serious. At present the
sharecroppers have a union, and various State and Federal agencies
have formulated plans for their assistance (see Agriculture}. Other
groups, too, never before organized school teachers, newspapermen,
office workers, cab drivers, building service employees have recently
formed unions.
Transportation
THE story of Missouri's land and water routes includes that of
the people and towns that grew along them, tuned to the echo
of the flatboatmen's bugie s the whistle of the steamboat, or
later, the snorting and puffing of the railroad engine. Present-day
truckers, bus drivers, engineers, and airplane pilots, belong to a tradi-
tion begun by the Creole coureurs des bois f the gargantuan flat boatman,
the steamboat pilot, the pony expressman, and the earlier railroad man ;
they, too, are fast becoming folk types as clearly defined as their prede-
cessors, with a lore and jargon, "laws" and traditions of their own,
From the time of the first exploration of the Missouri region in the
1670*5, the French and Spanish colonial traders, explorers, and govern-
ment officials used the canoes of the Indians called pirogues craft
hewn from tree trunks, slender, swift, and easy to handle. Generally,
they were made of cottonwood, which is comparatively easy to work;
yet it took 4 men, swinging their adzes for 4 days, to make a medium-
sized canoe about 20 feet long. The largest pirogues were about 30
feet long, with a 3^-foot beam and a mast amidship, with a square
sail. These, often used for the shipping of furs and produce, were
divided into compartments 4 to 6 feet long, with bulkheads cut in
the solid trunk. Sometimes two pirogues were lashed together, with
poles to hold them steady, and this craft, also outfitted with a square
sail, was rowed by oarsmen at the bow and steered at the stern by a
heavy oar with a wide blade.
As freighting increased, larger boats were developed. Those used
for upstream traffic were long and slender like the French and Spanish
colonial bateau, and the keelboat which succeeded it. The latter was
capable of carrying from 15 to 30 tons of goods. The cargo box,
where freight was stored, rose about 4 or 5 feet above the deck, and
extended to within 10 or 12 feet from each end of the boat.
Progress upstream depended on muscle power. Oars were used in
deep water, but in the shallow waters that made up the greater part of
the journey the boat was propelled by setting poles. Fifteen-inch walks
ran along the gunwales, and the boatmen, pressing the poles firmly
against the river bottom, would double themselves forward and tramp
from bow to stern, laboriously pushing the craft ahead. As a man
reached the after end of the footway, he pulled his pole from the mud,
ran forward, and again took his place at the head of the sweating crew.
95
96 MISSOURI
In swift water, and when it was possible to walk along the river
bank, a cordellt (little rope) was used. This was a line, often a
thousand feet long, which was made fast to the mast. Most of the
hands jumped ashore, took up the cordellx, and bucked the boat against
the current. Sometimes the men were forced to make a path as best
they could through the willows along the bank ; often, they followed a
well-defined towpath. So valuable were these towpaths to river traffic
that all Spanish land grants specified their reservation for public use.
At times, men on the gunwale would catch the limbs and brush along
the shore and thus drag the boat ahead; this method was called "bush-
whacking/' By a combination of such devices, the keelboat was slowly
worried upstream against the swift and changeable current* Ten
miles was considered a good, average day's travel; 1 8 miles a day was
deemed worthy of record. A voyage from New Orleans to St. Louis
often took months.
The downstream journey was much less difficult. In i8o2 ? the
usual trip from St. Louis to New Orleans required about 25 or 30
days. Huge, square-cornered, flat-bottomed craft, variously called "flat*
boats/' "Kentucky flats," or "broadhorns," were built to carry the
bulky downstream freight. These were simply oblong arks "very
ncaiiy resembling New England pig-sties," with roofs slightly curved
from the center to shed rain. Generally they were about 15 feet wide
and from 50 to 100 or more feet long, with a capacity of from 20 to
70 tons. Their freight charges were not high, and families often used
them in descending the rivers. Piled with furniture and "cattle, hogs,
horses, sheep, fowls and animals of all kinds," these flatboats were
reminiscent of Noah's Ark. They were never brought back, but were
broken up at their destination and sold for timber, the crews returning
by keelboat, by land, or, later, by steamboat,
Downstream traffic greatly exceeded traffic upstream. Figuratively,
all rivers led to New Orleans. The Mississippi was the connecting
link; down its current swept Missouri furs, lead, salt, iron, and food-
stuffs; upstream were poled and tugged necessities the frontier could
not produce*
Out of this traffic emerged the professional flatboatman, whose job
it was to get his cargo past shoal water, snags, Indians, and river
pirates. The work and its dangers demanded a "combination rubbci
ball, wildcat, and shrieking maniac/* These were rough and hardy men,
as Mark Twain recalled, stoically suffering terrific handships, heavy
drinkers, elephantinely jolly, foul-witted, and prodigal, yet, in the main,
honest and faithful It is told that, on landing, the strongest man in a
crew would put a red feather in his cap to challenge anyone on shore,
to the accompaniment of such verbal tauntings as that quoted in Life on
the Mississippi: "Whoo-oop! I'm the old original iron-jawed* brass-
TRANSPORTATION 97
mounted, copper bellied corpsemaker from the wilds of Arkansas! Look
at me! I'm the man they call Sudden Death and general destruction.
... I take nineteen alligators and a bar'l of whiskey for breakfast
when I'm in robust health and a bushel of rattlesnakes and a dead body
when I'm ailing. . . . Lay low and hold your breath, for I'm about to
turn myself loose!" Only steam could defeat the flatboatman.
The first steamboat on the Mississippi, the New Orleans, left Pitts-
burgh for New Orleans in October of 1811. It made the trip despite
the New Madrid earthquake, during which the current reversed and
great chunks of land caved Into the river. The sixth boat on the
Mississippi, the Zebulon M. Pike, was built at Henderson, Kentucky,
in 1815, and was the first to ascend the river beyond the mouth of the
Ohio. Its hull was built on the model of a barge, and In rapid current
the power of its one boiler had to be augmented by the use of poles.
Yet, when the Pike arrived at St. Louis on August 9, 1817, it had
made the trip from New Orleans in one-fifth the usual time. This
voyage inaugurated a new era in Missouri transportation. Two years
later the Independence proved the Missouri River to be navigable for
steamboats by making the trip from St. Louis to Franklin, Chariton,
and return within 21 days. During the same year the Western Engi-
neer ; one of* the strangest of river boats, was built and equipped for
Long's Expedition to the upper Missouri. The bow was shaped like
the head of an immense serpent, frqm whose gaping mouth poured
smoke and flame. The vessel moved up the river to the terror of the
Indians, eventually reaching a point seven miles below Council Bluffs,
the highest point reached by steamboat at that time.
The trip from St. Louis to St. Joseph, a distance of about 500
miles, sometimes took as long as that from New Orleans to St. Louis,
for snags, shifting currents, and sandbanks prevented night travel.
Often a boat never reached its destination. Navigation hazards, numer-
ous on the Mississippi, were multiplied on the Missouri. With chang-
ing sandy channels, steamboats grounded as many as a dozen times a
day. When the Missouri was at low-water stage, navigating it was
"like putting a steamer on dry land, and sending a boy ahead with a
sprinkling pot."
Half-submerged trees impaled the boats, over-strained boilers ex-
ploded, fires swept through the hulls, yet for every boat that met dis-
aster, two others were launched. Many of the steamboats earned their
cost within a year, for they were the swiftest as well as the most
luxurious form of transportation. The majority were splendid struc-
tures, with double decks and interiors with gilded decorations, mahogany
woodwork, and red plush upholstering. The Natchez, remembered for
its race in 1870 against the Robert E. Lee, cost $200,000; the latter
98 MISSOURI
broke all records In making the i,2io-mile upstream run from New
Orleans in 3 days, 18 hours, 14 minutes.
But for all their finery, the boats brought land-hungry settlers and
traders in such numbers that their cabin floors were frequently carpeted
with sleepers. Often, a missionary held a prayer meeting at one end
of a boat's deck, while a gambler, with ruffled shirt, gaudy vest, Paris
boots, and easy manners, plied his trade at the other* The boat would
stop at a landing, a handful of peop^ would go ashore, and soon
another settlement would rise in the wilderness.
The steamboat pilot replaced the flatboatman as the outstanding
figure of the rivers. Sharp-eyed, quiet, and alert* he belonged to a race
apart. Often a pilot earned as much as $I,GQO a month more, Mark
Twain observed, than a preacher did in a year* About the pilots, the
captains, and their boats grew a lore as rich as the gargantuan stories
of the flatboatmen. There was the boat a a-loaded down with ile an*
bound for Noo Orleans" that caught fire and made a blaze so hot, "hit
dried up the river." No less wonderful was the Jim Johnson, with its
awesome captain who weighed 750 pounds and had but one eye; this
boat was so big it took all summer to pass Boonviile, and had to have
rubber joints to get around the bends in the river.
Meantime, along the Mississippi River and on each bank of the Mis-
souri, the wheels of Westward-bound traffic were cutting major land
routes through the wilderness, widening the area of settlement into the
back country, and carrying the commerce of the rivers on across the
plains,
Missouri's land transportation developed more slowly and less spec-
tacularly than that of its rivers. The streams were the first highways;
but there existed from the earliest days of exploration a well-worn
system of inland Indian trails, and natural pathways marked by the
trampling of buffalo herds and other animals. Because these trails fol-
lowed the easiest and most direct routes, many of them became the first
roads used by European settlers, and, in turn, our modern highways.
The first road developed by white men in Missouri is thought to
have been the trail between the mines in the southeast and Ste* Gene-
vieve, over which, early in the lyoo's, plodded pack trains loaded with
lead. By 1772, a road of sorts cut across country between St. Louis
and the site of the later village of St. Charles* Soon after 1789, mil-
itary necessity prompted the Spaniards to mark Et Camino Redt* or the
King's Highway, between New Madrid and St. Louis, by way of pres-
ent-day Sikeston, Cape Girardeau, and Ste, Genevieve (see Tour 7).
Despite its imposing name, the highway was often almost impassable
to wagons and carriages, and a trip over it was scarcely less arduous
than one upstream by flatboat.
Following the Louisiana Purchase, increased settlement brought
TRANSPORTATION 99
new roads. One of the first and K>st Important of these was the BOOB'S
Lick Trail, which 'was the first east-west highway across Missouri, and
which served as 'the .trunk from, which branched the great trails to the
Far West. In 18*19, > it reached Fort Osage; in 1825, President John
Quincy Adamd appointed three commissioners to continue the road
southwest to Santa Fe. Eventually, pack and wagon trains for the
Southwest, California, and Oregon blazed other great transcontinental
routes, bringing trade and settlement to Missouri.
By an act of the General Assembly in 1822, each county was made
responsible for the maintenance of its roads, and all free males between.
the ages of 16 and 45 were required to maintain the roads within their
districts. Later acts granted the right to build toll roads or bridges*
Occasionally, as at New Franklin in 1839, lotteries were chartered to
raise funds for road building. Yet even horseback travel remained
difficult at times. One traveler commented that "if the mud does not
get quite over your boot tops when you sit in the saddle, they call it
a middling-good road."
What bridges there were, were heavy framed "covered bridges," of
which only a few remain in the State, Ferries were established at
some river crossings. At St. Louis, as early as 1797, Captain James
Piggott lashed pirogues together, mounted a wooden platform upon
them, and charged $2 to transport a horse and driver across the Mis-
sissippi. Somewhat later, Hall's Ferry, a roofless flatboat arrangement,
propelled at first by a horse-driven treadmill, crossed the Missouri in
St. Louis County. On smaller streams, boats were rowed or poled
back and forth. Ferries were licensed by the county courts, who regu-
lated their charges.
About 1849, enthusiasm developed for plank roads, and about 50
companies were chartered; in 1861, Congress granted all plank- road
companies the right-of-way through government lands. Out of 17
such roads built in Missouri, the State's first major attempt at hard-
surfaced roads, all charged tolls, except the two-mile Lafayette County
Plank Road, completed south of Lexington in 1853. One of the most
important, and the longest constructed in the United States, was the
42-mile thoroughfare between Ste, Genevieve and Iron Mountain, which
was chartered in 1851 ; it was used primarily for the hauling of ore.
The planks wore out rapidly, however, or warped till they resembled
rockers, and the roads were abandoned within a few years in fever
of macadam. Another plank road, from Cape Girardeau, was so much
used by Federal cavalry and artillery during the Civil War that it be-
came useless.
As roadways were made passable, public transport by stagecoach an<I
wagon train supplemented that by steamboat Taverns were built
at the main stagecoach stops, rivaling each other in food and liquid
100 MISSOURI
refreshment News was exchanged, messages were sent to absent ones,
and the coach moved on. For travel across the plains, various schemes
were tried; perhaps the most fantastic was the "wind-wagon/ 1 built
in 1853. This was a vehicle with wheels 12 feet in diameter and a
large sail, intended for freight transport. With this outfit, there would
be no horses or oxen to feed, or to be stolen by Indians. On its trial
trip, the "wind-wagon 7 * got up a fair speed under a favorable wind, but
proved unmanageable and crashed into a ditch.
By this time, railroads had caught the popular imagination* Fifty-
nine delegates from n counties met in St. Louis, April 30, 1836, to
recommend the construction of 2 Missouri lines, and to petition Congress
for a grant of 800,000 acres of public lands to encourage these enter-
prises. Soon after, the legislature incorporated about 18 railroad com-
panies, all of which collapsed with the panic of 183?- With returning
prosperity, the boom revived and was stimulated by a national railroad
convention held in St. Louis during October, 1849 (see St. Louis).
Thirteen states were here represented by nearly 1,000 delegates, who
proclaimed their interests to be national rather than sectional, and who
advocated the construction of a transcontinental railroad. The Hanni-
bal and St. Joseph Railroad, now a part of the Burlington system, was
incorporated in 1847; the Pacific Railroad, now a part of the Frisco
lines, in 1849; two years later, the North Missouri Railroad, now a
part of the Wabash system, was chartered. Soon other lines were pro-
jected. Plagued by tottering credit, among other difficulties, the rail-
road companies received State and Federal aid in grants of funds and
lands, and activity proceeded according to the rhythm of these trans-
fusions. The first railroad construction was begun in St. Louis by the
Pacific Railroad, July 4^*2851. The fallowing year passenger service
was started to Cheltenham, five miles away. Although begun later,
the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad, completed in 1859, was the first
to reach Missouri's western border. During the same year, a junction
was effected between this line and the North Missouri at Macon.
Meanwhile, south of the Missouri River, the Pacific had pushed con-
struction to Jefferson City in 1855, to Syracuse about i860, and with
work interrupted by the Civil War to Kansas City in 1865* The
St, Louis and Iron Mountain Railroad, designed to open the rich mining
area of southeast Missouri, was completed to Pilot Knob before the
end of 1858. By 1860, these and other lines had completed 796 miles
of track within the State.
Out of the combination of these railroads with the trails that led
beyond them grew the spectacular travel routes to the Far West. The
fight to establish mail delivery to California threw the contract in
1857 to a company headed by John Butterfield. To pay for the semi-
weekly transportation of mail, Congress made a $600,000 annual appro-
TRANSPORTATION 101
priation. Buttcrfield established his line with its ; eastern termini at
Memphis and St. Louis, and its western at S^ft" Francisco. Mail and
passengers were carried from St. Louis to Tipton, on the newly con-
structed Pacific Railroad, and there transferred t tpf stage coaches which
swung on a great arc through Springfield', 1 to nwWthe Memphis stage
at Little Rock? Arkansas, and from 'there on through Preston, Texas,
to San Francisco. The distance covered was nearly 2,800 miles. The
postage rate was 20$ an ounce for letters? the passenger fare was $100
in gold. The line had more than 100 'Concord coaches, 1,000 horses,
and 500 mules, and employed 750 men; '
Almost simultaneously with the beginning of the Butterfield line in
1858, John M. Hockaday inaugurated a stage line from St. Joseph
to the army posts of Utah. A year later, the completed Hannibal and
St. Joseph Railroad linked this route with tKe East. Then, on April
3, 1860, the brief but colorful Pony Express was launched by Russell,
Majors, and WaddelL This picked up the mail from the railroad at
St. Joseph and raced it westward on horseback (see St. Joseph).
The railroads instituted a new phase of Missouri's development.
The steamboat and the early overland trails had carried settlement and
commerce chiefly to sections adjoining the rivers even today, two-
thirds of the State's population live in the one-third of its area that
adjoins the Mississippi and Missouri. Most of the important lanes
across the State traversed the same region, and connected St. Louis on
the east with Kansas City, Westport, Independence, and St. Joseph on
the west. The first trans-State railroads widened this area, and by
establishing western terminals in the river towns added to their impor-
tance as breaking points of transportation. For a time, the steamboat,
the prairie schooner, and the railroad all poured their traffic through
these booming western cities. In 1857, there were 729 steamboat
arrivals at Kansas City. By the end of the Civil War, however, the
Missouri River trade was dying. Mississippi River commerce declined
soon after. But the war, which hastened the end of river traffic, proved
the railroads' superiority in speed and service, and their ability to open
new areas to settlement.
The period immediately following the Civil War was one of wild
railroad promotion. Small systems were chartered, promoted, some-
times built, then sold or abandoned, almost always with a heavy loss
to investors. Nevertheless, during this time some of the major rail
systems of today got their start. By 1865, most of the large systems
new serving the State either were in service or under construction, and
some measure of order was beginning to appear. In 1878, Kansas City
opened the second union station in the world.
As commerce forsook the waterways, once-important river towns,
such as LaGrange, Glasgow, and Lexington, went into decline, a few
2O2 MISSOURI
passing out of existence. New towns sprouted along the railroad lines,
to serve as shipping and trading points for inland agricultural districts.
The railroads themselves built such towns as Moberly and Sedalia,
and gave others, such as Hannibal, renewed life through the establish-
ment of shops and other service adjuncts. The lines transported lead,
zinc, and iron from the southeastern and southwestern mines, and grain
and livestock from the prairies. Wheat, oil, and cattle were brought
across the State as Oklahoma developed, and the railroads supplanted
the old Texas cattle trails.
Still little changed in more than a century, the central Ozark up-
land, an area almost as large as Maine, was penetrated by comparatively
few railroads, some counties being without a single line. The hills
made road-building difficult, and the few inhabitants came and went
over mountain trails which often were impassable to any but horse-
back travel.
The development of this section, as well as the growth or decline
of others, has been the result of modern highway construction induced
by the development of automobile travel After the plank-road craze,
the building of hard-surfaced roads languished. The main country
lanes were kept in repair chiefly to provide access to the railroads.
Automobiles brought a new need. The first automobiles were Intro-
duced into Missouri about 1891. Twenty years later, 16,387 were
registered. Busses and trucks began to operate even before the general
extension of the highways. In 1939, there were 141,609 trucks and 591
Public Service Company busses registered in Missouri*
In 1907, the State recognized the importance of highway improve-
ment by appointing a State Highway Engineer as a member of the
Board of Agriculture to advise counties in the construction of county
highways which would eventually form part of the State system. Six
years later, a Highway Commission was created. Under the Hawes
Law of 1916, the duties and powers of the commission were increased.
With the $60,000,000 bond issue voted in 1920, and the Centennial
Road Law of 1921, the modern period of highway construction began:
construction and maintenance passed from the control of the counties,
in whose hands it had remained since the territorial period, into the
control of the State. Further highway improvement was made possible
by funds produced from automobile license fees and gasoline taxes.
These funds were insufficient, however, to meet the rapidly expanding
needs, and a second bond issue, providing 1 $75,000,000, was voted in
1928, Today, 15,491 miles of State and national highways crisscross
Missouri, 8,306 being major highways, 7,185 supplementary roads. No
spot in the State is more than 10 miles from a highway. A Highway
Patrol, established in 1931, enforces the law, and aids motorists in
trouble.
TRANSPORTATION 1C;
Modem highway traffic has produced economic and social effect;
as far-reaching as those of the steamboat or the railroad. It has de-
stroyed community barriers and opened isolated portions of the State
for development and recreation; it has built new towns and sapped the
trade and population from old centers. Out of this traffic have growr
new points of view, a new jargon, and new types as distinctive anc
colorful as those of an earlier period. The jalopy and the hitch-hikei
are universal; the gas station has added a new architectural feature,
the "tourist camp" a new kind of inn.
Within recent years, ( there has been a revival of river traffic. Pas-
senger service is limited to the summer excursion packets out of St
Louis; but since 1912, when Congress appropriated $20,000,000 to
improve the Missouri River from Kansas City to its mouth, an intensive
program for dredging and marking both the Missouri and the Missis-
sippi channels has been carried on by United States Army engineers.
Federal barge lines have pointed the way for private systems, which
are experiencing a renewal of trade. Much slow freight out of Kansas
City and St. Louis grain, coal, steel, and similar products moves by
river now.
Missouri, "air-minded" almost from the first, is a center for aviation
both because of its central position and because the State has no natural
hazards to air traffic, such as mountains or dangerous air currents. As
early as 1830, a device for propelling balloon craft by means of an
endless screw was registered in St. Louis. In 1859, a year before the
Pony Express, Captain John Wise, a scientist of Pike County, made
a balloon flight from St. Louis to study the upper air currents, travel-
ing the 1,150 miles to Henderson, New York, in 39 hours and 50
minutes, a record which stood for 50 years. The Louisiana Purchase
Exposition, held in St. Louis in 1904, sponsored an air meet, at which
$150,000 in prizes were offered the first important prize money ever
offered for an aeronautic event. Unfortunately, the only entrant was
the great French pilot, Albert Santos Dumont, who brought his tiny
airship across the ocean in a box, but was unable to fly because the gas
bag was damaged.
By 1907, the St. Louis Aero Club had been organized, with Major
Albert Bond Lambert, born in St. Louis in 1875, as secretary. An
ardent aircraft enthusiast since his early youth, an expert balloon pilot,
and friend of Orville Wright and of Santos Dumont, Major Lambert
had, from the first, a visionary's belief in the possibilities of the new
invention. Through his efforts, the newly formed Aero Club spon-
sored the first international balloon races in 1907, for which he served
as referee* Captain H. E. Honeywell, crack designer, builder, and
pilot of balloons, took many of the prizes. It was Lambert who first
saw the possibility of air mail, and who first urged the military use of
104 MISSOURI
aircraft. In 1916 he was appointed naval observer on the battleship
Utah, and the following year he served in the World War as Com-
manding Major of the Signal Corps, in the aviation section. In 1919,
he became secretary of the Aero Club of America,
In 1908, the first dirigible meet was held in St. Louis. Two years
later, the first international aviation meet in the United States was held
at Kinloch Park, between Ferguson and Florissant The Wright
Brothers sent all six of their planes, and the famous French pilot, Le
Blanc, brought his Bleriot monoplane from France. In all, nine planes
entered the meet, to set several reco/ds. Le Blanc established the then
remarkable record of 60 miles an hour; Hoxie (or Hoxsey), the dare-
devil of the air, took a balloon up one mile, and, assisted by a strong
tail-wind, broke the long-distance record with a non-stop flight to Spring-
field, Illinois, a distance of nearly 75 miles. A world's endurance rec-
ord for planes was also established at this meet' one hour and ten min-
utes of continuous flight. Experiments conceived by Major Lambert
apparently included the "bombing" with pointed weights of dummy
battleships of painted canvas set up in the park; trying out anti-aircraft
guns; and the organization of the first military signal corps attached
to aviation. President Theodore Roosevelt attended the meet, and
irrjle his first plane flight with Hoxie as pilot. Eighty automobiles
accompanied the president to the park, bringing the comment: "This
speaks well for St. Louis."
Also in 1910, the second International Balloon Race was held in
St. Louis* In 1911, the Pioneer Aeroplane and Exhibition Company
was licensed by the State, and another meet was arranged for Kinloch
Park. During the latter year, St. Louis sent two young men to be
trained as pilots by the Wright Company, which had a virtual monopoly
of planes, pilots, and instruction. Flying was still, primarily, an exhibi-
tion pursuit, but in October 1911, the first air mail ever carried was
flown from Kinloch Park to Fairgrounds Park in St. Louis*
When five St* Louis pilots offered themselves and some broken-
down planes for military service in 1916, the Government established
the first aeronautic corps of the United States Army. The following
year, Honeywell designed several balloons for military use, and the
Missouri Aeronautical Society began the systematic training of army
pilots,
Shortly after the establishment of Lambert Field in 1920, regular
mail service was established between St. Louis and Chicago. In 1923,
the new field was enlarged and improved to accommodate the Pulitzer
Air Races, which cost $300,000, and drew a record crowd of 140,000
spectators, 92 planes and the airship Shenandmh taking part.
At about this time, Charles A. Lindbergh, Jr., an unknown barn-
storming pilot who had been moving about the country in his Jenny
TRANSPORTATION IO5
plane taking up passengers at $5 "a good ride/* came to St. Louis,
where an air meet was In progress. He watched the newer planes with
a covetous eye. In his book, We, he says he would willingly have given
the summer's barnstorming profits "in return for authority to fly some
of the newer types . . . which would roar up into the sky when they
were pointed that way, instead of having to be wished up over low
trees at the end of a landing field."
At the St. Louis meet he sold his Jenny, and, after a short period
of teaching and barnstorming in and out of St. Louis, enrolled as a
Flying Cadet in 1924. As a second lieutenant, he returned to St. Louis
and to barnstorming, occasionally doing some teaching, and even stunt
flying for a circus. He was for a time instructor for the Robertson
Aircraft Corporation in St. Louis, for whom he flew mail on the St,
Louis to Chicago route. He was made first lieutenant at Lambert Field.
A group of St. Louis business men were persuaded to back his long-
dreamed of flight across the Atlantic Ocean, and at 8 A.M., May 20,
1927, he left Roosevelt Field, New York, in the Spirit of St. Louis.
The flight captured the imagination of the world, and gave final proof
of the practicality and dependability of the airplane. In St. Louis it
provided the necessary impetus for the passage of a $2,000,000 bond
issue to make Lambert Field a municipal airport under the official name
of Lambert-St. Louis Flying Field (see Tour jf).
Kansas City has become an air center of increasing importance, with
a Municipal Airport in North Kansas City. Nearly every city of any
size in Missouri has an airport of some kind. Six commercial air lines
maintain scheduled service at St. Louis, Kansas City, and St. Joseph,
and charter service is obtainable at most secondary cities.
Newspapers
DURING the early summer of 1808, a prospectus was circulated
in St. Louis announcing the plan to establish Missouri's first
newspaper. Its author , Joseph Charless. concluded his notice
with a declaration of his faith in the freedom of the press* "It is self
evident/' he states, "that in every country where the rays of the Press
is [sic] not clouded by despotic power, that the people have arrived
at the highest grade of civilization . * The inviolation of the press
is coexistent with the liberties of the people, they live or die together.* 1
Charless spoke with earnest conviction, for he was a native of Ireland
who had been forced to flee his country for his part in the Irish Rebel-
lion of 1795.
Charless had come to St. Louis late in 1807 or early in 1808. Here
he rented the north room of the old Joseph Robidoux house, ordered
type ,'rom Louisville and a Raniage pre.is from Pennsylvania, and on
July 12, 1808, published the first number of the Missouri Gazette.
The paper, issued to 174 subscribers, was printed on foolscap sheets
8 by 12 inches, with 12 columns In all. For the benefit of French
residents In the community, part of the paper was printed in their native
language. Subsequent editions were "regulated by the arrival of the
mail," The subscription price was $3 a year in cash or $4 in country
produce.
Charless* independent editorial policy brought trouble as well as
rewards. The paper's circulation increased, but it aroused the opposi-
tion of many St. Louisans. Five or six of these, variously armed,
attacked him in his office during February of 1814, "Mr. C. defending
himself as best he could with his shillaly." When intimidation failed,
a group of Charless 5 enemies raised funds In 1815, to establish a rival
paper, the Western Journal* and imported Joshua Norvell from Nash-
ville to edit It. Charless greeted the appearance of the Journal by re-
asserting: "I shall preserve the liberty of the Press as long as I am able
to control one," and two years later added "Truth without Fear," to
his masthead.
In spite of other attempts upon his person, and threats to burn the
office, Charless continued to publish the Gazette until September of
1820. Two years later his son Edward took over the paper under the
title, Missouri Republican. On September 20, 1836, it became a daily,
two years after the first daily In the State, the St. Louis Herald, was
1 06
NEWSPAPERS AND RADIO ID?
established. Successive editors continued the policies established by its
founder, and no Missouri newspaper played a more significant role in
the development of the State. It was continued from 1888 as the St.
Louis Republic^ until purchased by the Globe-Democrat on December
4, 1919.
The first newspaper to be published west of St. Louis was the Mis-
souri Intelligencer and Boon's Lick Advertiser, established at Franklin
on April 23, 1819, by Benjamin Holliday. This paper, a weekly s con-
sisted of four 8-by-i 8-inch pages, with five columns to a page. Its
price was $3 a year if paid in advance or $4 if at the end of the year s
"the former being preferable. 5 * After several changes in ownership,
the paper came into the possession of Nathaniel Patten, who moved it
to Fayette in 1826, and to Columbia four years later, where it was
published until Patten sold it in 1835. For these peripatetic early
labors, Patten is known as the pioneer of Missouri's country journalism.
The outstanding quality of his papers was the then novel one of counter-
balancing politics with news* Eventually, the paper became the Mis-
souri Statesman, published by William F. Switzler and Y. J, Williams.
By 1820, there were five papers in Missouri, all essentially "home-
town" organs, filled with extracts from foreign and domestic news-
papers, quotations from well-known authors, and contributions by
local poets. Editorials and letters to the editor were signed with such
stentorian pseudonyms as "Veritas," "Publicus," or "Aurora Borealis."
The advertisements of "Fresh goods just received by steamboat," "Stray
Cow Found," or "My wife Sarah has left my bed and board . ."
were often of more interest than the general news, and compensated in
part for the lack of information,
During the presidential election of 1828, national issues and leaders
occupied much of Missouri's attention. The newspapers, like the peo-
ple, decided either for Andrew Jackson, Democrat, or for John Quincy
Adams, National Republican or Whig. Thomas H. Benton's St. Louis
Enquirer was pro- Jackson with fervent eloquence. Patten's pro- Whig
Missouri Intelligencer adopted as its motto : "The American system
and its friends, throughout the Union." After the national election,
the principal issues became those of slavery and of the Mormons. These
furnished rich material for opinionated editors. Until the Civil War,
almost every paper, with the possible exception of the Independent
Patriot, devoted one-third of each issue to the virtues of the political
views held by the editor, and much of the remaining two-thirds to the
vices of the opposition. Little if any tolerance was in evidence.
In 1832, a year after Joseph Smith had revealed Independence as the
divinely chosen site for the Mormon's temple, The Morning and The
Evening Star, a Mormon paper edited by W. W. Phelps, began publi-
cation in that town, devoting itself exclusively to "publishing the revela-
IO8 MISSOURI
tions of God to the Church," and denouncing the "ungodly Gentiles.*'
On the same press was printed the Upper Missouri Advertiser, a paper
used to promote this section of Missouri as the revealed place of the
future City of Zion. Resentment against the Mormons grew. In 1834,
a group of anti-Mormons seized the press and type and threw them into
the Missouri River. Some driftwood harvesters later raised the press,
and it was subsequently used by the Uppet- Missouri Enquirer, estab-
lished at Liberty by Robert N. Kelly and William H. Davis, January
II, 1834. In 1845, the P res s was sold to William Ridenbaugh, who
established the St. Joseph Gazette. Afterward, a Captain Merrick is
said to have taken it to Denver, where he started the first paper pub-
lished in Colorado,
About 1833, a number of St. Louis business men furnished Elijah
Parish Lovejoy with $1,200 to buy press, type, and equipment for the
publication of the St. Louis Observer - f a weekly. As editor, Lovejoy
published strong, sincere editorials on the sins of slavery, intemperance,
ancl "popery." In October, 1835, while Lovejoy was absent, the pub-
lishers were told by a group of citizens that the paper must stop all
contioversy upon the subject of slavery. The publishers replied that
the paper's policy would be determined by the editor upon his return.
Lo* cjoy immediately wrote an editorial stating that he would write
and speak what he pleased as long as he remained alive, A mob then
wrecked the establishment, driving Lovejoy to Alton, Illinois, where
he later was killed by a pro-slavery mob.
As settlers continued to pour into the State, other towns were
founded and newspapers established. At Jefferson City, Calvin Gunn
established the Jeffersonian in time to print the proceedings of the first
meeting of the general assembly at the new State capitol (1826). The
growth of Hannibal brought with it the establishment of the Hannibal
Commercial Advertiser in 1837, an ^ during the 1840'$, Joseph P.
Arnent moved his Missouri Courier from Palmyra to that thriving river
port. About 1848, Ament employed as "printer's devil" 1 3-year-old
Sam Clemens, the future "Mark Twain," who soon became an office
favorite and, as Miss Minnie Brashear says, "a sort of sub-editor,"
When the telegraph was extended to Hannibal during the last year of
the Mexican War, Sam was put in charge of the war extras. In 1850,
he left the Courier to work with his brother Orion on his newly estab-
lished Western Union, a weekly Whig paper. Two years later, when
this paper combined with another local organ to become the Hannibal
Journal, Sam became assistant editor, and set about enlivening the paper
with new features and spicy local articles* In spite of Mark Twain's
later ungenerous comments, Orion seems not only to have recognized
and encouraged his brother's talents, but to have had amazing patience
with his many newspaper indiscretions. During Orion's absence in
NEWSPAPERS AND RADIO 1O9
September of 1852, Sam climaxed a summer's jousting with the editor
of a rival paper by publishing a crude woodcut he had made of that
gentleman's abortive attempt to commit suicide over a love affair by
wading into Bear Creek. Later, Mark Twain reported, perhaps incor-
rectly, the results: "Higgins dropped in with a double-barreled shotgun
early in the forenoon. When he found that it was an infant (as he
called me) that had done him the damage, he simply pulled my ears
and went away ; but he threw up his situation that night and left town
for good."
While Orion was out of town during March of 1853, Sam pub-
lished a poem called "Love Concealed/* with the subtitle, "To Miss
Katie of HannibaL" This in intent was harmless enough ; but the sub-
title was too long for the column, and Hannibal was reduced to "H 1,"
with startling results. "For once the Hannibal Journal was in demand,"
Mark Twain recalled, "and . . actually booked the unparalleled num-
ber of thirty-three subscribers." Later 1 7-year-old Sam made his debut
as editor of "Our Assistant's Column/' writing spicy comments and
puns on local happenings, notices of spiritualistic activities, bits of satire
on human foibles, and ambitious "selected material/ 5 On May 26,
1853, he left Hannibal for St. Louis, where he hoped to earn money
for a ticket to New York. Orion seems to have missed his assistant;
late in September, he sold the Journal to William T. League.
The difficulties of establishing newspapers in the eastern portion of
the State were multiplied in the western cities of Liberty, St. Joseph,
and Kansas City, where editors' enthusiasms were all too often damp-
ened by unexpected handicaps and an uncertain public temper. At
Liberty, the Upper Missouri Enquirer was succeeded by several short-
lived papers before the Tribune began its long and distinguished career
in 1846. John Dougherty served as editor on the Tribune from 1847
to 1888. The St. Joseph Gazette* established in 1845, became a daily
in 1857, under the direction of P. S. Pfouts and J. H. B. Cundiff.
At Kansas City, a paper begun in 1851 failed within two years.
In 1854 a second weekly, the Enterprise ', was established. The fol-
lowing year, this paper was purchased by Colonel Robert Thompson
van Horn, under whose dynamic editorship it became the champion of
Kansas City's civic growth. Van Horn changed the name to the West-
ern Journal of Commerce, and in 1858 began daily publication. In
1922, the Journal was combined with the Post, which had been estab-
lished in 1906, to form the Journal-Post, now the Kansas City Journal*
Another vigorous editor, William Rockhill Nelson, was responsible for
the establishment in 1880 of the Kansas City Star, which in 1901
acquired the Times (see Kansas City).
A number of foreign-language newspapers did notable work between
1835 and 1900 in helping immigrant groups to adjust themselves. The
IIO MISSOURI
first of the German-language papers was the An%eiger des West ens, first
issued as a weekly on October 31, 1835, by Christian Bixnpage, and
changed to a daily in 1846. In 1850, the paper came into the possession
of Henry Boernstein, who, in Poland, had studied medicine, served as
a soldier, written editorials for newspapers, composed plays, and been
a stage manager and actor. In Paris he saw the fall of Louis Philippe,
but fled the country when Napoleon III came into power. In St.
Louis, he undertook to rule the then rising emancipation movement,
wrote a scandalous book, The Mysteries of St. LOUISA and assumed the
management of the German Theater. His influence waned, however,
when he set himself up as a political boss, showing an arrogant and
dictatorial spirit.
The most influential German-language newspaper was the Westiche
Post, founded in St. Louis by Carl Daenzer in 1857. Much of its suc-
cess was due to Dr. Emil Preetorious, co-editor in 1862 and editor in
1864, and to Carl Schurz, who served as editor for a short time fol-
lowing his arrival in St. Louis in 1867* Born in Cologne, Prussia,
Schurz had been a newspaper editor at the age of 19, and later a partici-
pant in the revolution of 1848. Two years after arriving in Missouri,
he was elected to the United States Senate, where he served one term.
Among the journalists employed by Schurz was the young reporter,
Joseph Pulitzer.
The daily Amerika was founded in 1862 by the German Literary
Society, with Anthony Hellmich as editor. By 1 880, there were 19
German papers published in Missouri. As immigration slackened, how-
ever, and the older German families became "Americanized/' the papers'
usefulness began to pass. The last among them was the Westliche Post,
which suspended publication in 1938.
Other foreign language newspapers were less hardy. A number
of French journals sprang up in St. Louis between 1844 an< l *893,
prospered briefly, and then succumbed, many of them because of popu-
lar resentment to their predominately socialist and anti-Catholic views
(see Religion.) The most successful, Le Revue de I'Quest (1854-64),
established by the French Literary Society of St. Louis, was conservative
in tone and independent in politics (see Literature). The Palish Raffle,
perhaps the first Polish newspaper in America, was established at Wash-
ington in February, 1870, moved to near-by Krakow in 1871, and dis-
continued about 1872.
Missouri's first advertising agent appeared in 1846, and the first
newspaper directory in 1869. Today, it is estimated that over $200,-
006,000 are annually expended in newspaper advertising in Missouri.
The first Sunday newspaper made its appearance in St. Louis when
the Republican was issued on September 8, 1854. Despite consterna-
NEWSPAPERS AND RADIO III
tion among the religious, and denunciation from the pulpit s Sunday
papers were successful from the start.
P. H. Murray, editor of the St. Louis Advance, was the first Negro
newspaper publisher in Missouri. The Advance, which he established
in 1880, advocated the industrial education of the Negro. There are
now three weekly Negro newspapers in St. Louis; the Argus f the
American, and the Call, the latter being printed in Kansas City and
shipped to St. Louis. Negro newspapers in Missouri have brought
about no outstanding Innovations, but they have grown steadily in size,
coverage, and circulation.
The story of Missouri's newspapers contains many names outstand-
ing in the history of national journalism, Januarius Aloysius Mac-
Gahan was a St, Louis newspaperman who molded reportorial style and
method. After 1868, he became famous as a correspondent in the
Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune. He journeyed to the
Oxus with the Russian army, and later investigated Turkish atrocities.
More widely known was Henry M. Stanley , whose first work as a
newspaperman was with the St. Louis Democrat (now the Globe-Demo-
crat). His dispatches to this paper covering the Indian peace treaties
of 1867 won him a commission to Europe, and the assignment to find
Livingstone in Africa for James Gordon Bennett's New York Herald.
O. O. Mclntyre (1884-1938), New York columnist, was born Galli-
polis, Ohio, to the contrary in Plattsburg, Missouri.
Eugene Field is usually remembered as a poet, but he was essentially
a newspaperman. He worked on various papers throughout the Middle
West: the St. Louis Journal, the St. Joseph Gazette, the Kansas City
Times, and the Denver Tribune. Later, in Chicago, he published his
"Sharps and Flats," in the Chicago Morning News. This column, if
not the first, was certainly one of the earliest and best of Its type. Joseph
B. McCuIlagh, the "Little Mac" of Eugene Field's verse, was man-
aging editor of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat for many years, and had
a lasting influence on newspaper writing and methods* Theodore
Dreiser, who worked for him during 1892-93, first as a reporter and
later as drama critic, appraised him as "a real force, a great man/ 8
whose "robust personality" and "powerful, brilliant editorials" gave his
journal international fame. "The whole of Europe," Dreiser recalls,
"as well as America, was combed and reflected in order that his readers
might be entertained and retained . ."
During the same period, two other St. Louis editors were making
journalistic history. William Marion Reedy (see Literature) worked
on the Missouri Republican for a time, and then became a free-lance
reporter. He found his true field, however, as editor of the St. Louis
Mirror. He remade critical journalism in the United States by taking
it from the academic groves to the market place and even to the night
112 MISSOURI
clubs. Hungarian-born Joseph Pulitzer, failing to satisfy his desire
for military adventure in Europe, came to the United States to serve
in the Union army during the Civil War, In 1865, he arrived at St.
Louis, where he worked as a reporter on the Westliche Post. His in-
cisive mind and personal fearlessness soon made him a dominant figure
in the State. In 1878, he merged the St. Louis Dispatch and the St.
Louis Post to form the present Post-Dispatch. Later, he purchased the
New York World, and in 1887 established the Evening World. He
found ample subject matter in the lush corruption cf St Louis and
New York, and did not hesitate to flay the national government on
larger issues.
Similar in spirit in some respects was William Rockhill Nelson,
Kansas City reformer, whom Henry Haskell describes as having "a
temperament that was a combination of Lorenzo the Magnificent and
Jim Hill, with a dash of St. Francis, Nietzsche and Oliver Cromwell.
Wherever Fate happened to plant Nelson, he hoisted his flag and took
charge." Nelson, who pioneered with a two-cent newspaper, had an
instinctive appreciation for the sort of human stuff that the average
individual likes to read. "The wife decides the paper the family will
have, 5 * was Nelson's observation, and his paper was designed to inter-
est her. At the same time Nelson had definite ideas about how and
where Kansas City needed improvement, and these he followed up
through the pages of his paper against any and all opposition,
George Hearst, a contemporary of Nelson and a native Missourian,
inadvertently became the founder of a powerful chain of newspapers.
In 1880, Hearst, who had made a fortune in western mining, took over
the San Francisco Daily Examiner on a debt Seven years later, his
son, William Randolph Hearst, became manager of the newspaper and
made it the first of his present chain*
From the beginning, the rural press has been a vital factor in the
life of the State* Among the many vigorous editorial personalities have
been Jacob Sosey, who established the Missouri Whit? (now the Pal-
myra Spectator) in 1839, and whose family still owns and operates the
paper; E. W. Stephens, editor for 35 years of the Columbia Herald;
Robert Morgan White of the Mexico Ledger; H. J, Blanton, editor
of the Paris Appeal; and William Southern, Jr., editor of the Inde-
pendence Examiner*
On May 17, 1867* a group of editors, meeting in St. Louis, formed
the Missouri Press Association. Jesse W. Barrett, who in 1862 had
founded the Canton Press, one of the five oldest family newspapers in
the State, was its first president. At first, it aimed to promote fraternity
among newspaper men and to break down personal animosities. Soon,
the Association saw the possibilities of creating standard conditions for
the industry, and a variety of business and publication problems were
NEWSPAPERS AND RAD.XO 113
taken up. Once the editors had learned to work together, the organi-
zation began a program for public improvement. In 1922, it was
incorporated, and employed a full-time field manager. It is a non-profit
organization, supported by assessments and dues from its members* The
Missouri Women's Press Club 5 an affiliate of the National Federa-
tion of Press Women, was organized on May 5, 1937.
As Missouri has been a pioneer in other journalistic enterprises,
so, too, it has been a pioneer in journalistic education. In 1908, one
hundred years after journalism crossed the Mississippi River, the first
school of journalism in the world to grant a degree was founded at the
University of Missouri, with Walter Williams, former editor of the
Columbia Herald, as dean. This new division of the university began
classes on September 14, 1908, with a staff including, besides Mr.
Williams as professor of history and principles of journalism, Silas
Bent, assistant professor of theory and practice of journalism, E. H.
Evans, student assistant in newspaper making, and Charles Griffith
Ross, instructor in journalism. Ross remained on the faculty until
1918, when he became chief Washington correspondent for the St. Louis
Post-Dispatch. He was awarded the Pulitzer prize for newspaper cor-
respondents in 1932, and the University of Missouri presented him with
SL medal for work in journalism. At the end of the school's first se-
mester, Silas Bent resigned and Frank L. Martin of the Kansas City Star
was appointed to his position. When Williams was made Dean Emer-
itus shortly before his death in July, 1935, Martin became dean of the
school. One of the school's achievements is the Columbia Mis saurian,
which began publication as a city daily on September 14, 1908. The
paper is issued under the direction of the faculty of the Missouri School
of Journalism, with students as reporters, copy readers, and advertising
solicitors. The University gives annual awards for distinguished service
in journalism, many of which have been won by Missourians.
Recently there has been a tendency towards consolidation on the
part of major city newspapers. An important example has been the
St. Louis Star-Times combination, formed in 1932. The Star had Its
origin as the St. Louis Sunday Sayings, established by Charles E. Meade,
Charles A. Gitchell, and James E. Munford, in 1884. The Times is
said to trace its beginning to 1829.
Besides the award to Charles Ross, six Pulitzer prizes for distinctive
journalism have been given to Missouri newspapers and newspapermen.
Two have gone to members of the Kansas City Star: A. B. McDonald
in 1931, and Henry J. Haskell in 1933. The other four have been
bestowed upon the St Louis Post-Dispatch. The first, in 1926, went to
Daniel Fitzpatrick, political cartoonist. The following year, the award
for distinguished reporting was won by the late John T. Rogers, crime
reporter, whose sources of information in the underworld enabled him
114 MISSOURI
to furnish the Post-Dispatch with almost incredible "'beats. 89 In 1929,
the late Paul Y. Anderson won the same award for his success in re-
opening the Teapot Dome oil-lease scandal. Anderson, who has been
praised as a "reporters 9 reporter," was elevated to the Washington staff
after long years of distinguished general assignments. From January,
1938, until his suicide a year later, he served as Washington corre-
spondent for the St. Louis Star-Times. The Post-Dispatch itself, under
the editorship of O. K. Bovard, received the Pulitzer prize in 1937
for its exposure of wholesale fraudulent registrations in St. Louis,
RADIO
In recent years, radio has become increasingly important as a means
of purveying news, advertisements, and entertainment, Missouri has
15 commercial broadcasting stations, 6 of them in St. Louis. WEW,
the St Louis University station, formerly known as gYK, went on the
air April 26, 1921, as a more or less experimental station, confining its
broadcasts to weather reports at 10 a.m. In September of that year,
it added daily market reports. Among other early stations were KSD,
W1L, and KMOX of St. Louis, and WDAF and WHB of Kansas
Gin.
KFUO, the Concordia Seminary station, was dedicated December
24, 1924, and broadcasts the Gospel according to the Lutheran Church.
It is not a commercial station, and carries no advertising, being main-
tained by contributions.
KGPQ the St. Louis Metropolitan Police station, began operation
August 12, 1930. Three dispatchers are on duty at all times, receiving
calls for police, ambulance service, or the Humane Society. The St.
Louis Star-Times station, KXOK, began broadcasting in 1938.
Missouri has several "firsts" in radio broadcasting. On Christmas
Eve, 1922, KSD broadcast from the Old Cathedral in St, Louis the
first midnight Mass to be put on the air. This was made possible by
special permission from the Vatican* On June 21, 1923, the voice of
a president of the United States was heard over the air for the first
time, when Warren G. Harding delivered a speech In St. Louis. The
speech was one of the earliest network programs and was broadcast
also by WEAF in New York and WCAP in Washington* The first
broadcast of a news event was that of the Dempsey-Carpentier fight in
Jersey City, July 2, 1921, which was put on the air by the St. Louis
Globe-Democrat in co-operation with the Benwood Company. On
December 6, 1923, the voice of President Coolidge addressing Congress
came over the telephone wires from Washington and was broadcast
from St. Louis. KSD was the first station in Missouri to provide com-
pletely air-conditioned studios; first to install high fidelity broadcasting
NEWSPAPERS AND RADIO 115
equipment; and first to operate an experimental high frequency station.
This station also participated in the first broadcast from a moving train,
and in the establishment of two-way transmission between a dirigible
and a radio station* These and other Missouri pioneer experiments in
radio preceded the formation of the National Broadcasting Company,
America's first regular radio network. KWK and KSD of St. Louis
are affiliated with NBC. KMOX is the key station in the Greater
Mississippi Valley for the Columbia Broadcasting System, and many
network programs originate there.
Station WgXAL in Kansas City is an experimental television sta-
tion operated in connection with the First National Television School,
the first school of its kind in the Southwest.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, in December, 19383 announced the
first regular broadcasting by short wave of specially prepared facsimile
newspapers, daily and Sunday at 2 :oo p.m., from station WgXYZ
in the KSD studios. The paper so transcribed consists of nine pages,
a little less than one-fourth the size of a regular newspaper, and is
illustrated with photographs. At present this phase of radio activity
is in the experimental stage. The 15 existing receiving sets have been
placed in the homes of members of the radio staff, the farthest of which
is 12 miles from the studio. Nonetheless, this may prove to be one of
the most important "firsts" in either the radio or the newspaper world.
MISSOURI has known the swaggering boast that "God will
never cross the Mississippi/' the simple piety of Daniel
Boone's "I always loved God ever since I could recollect/*
and the fine-spun controversies of theologians. It has been made Chris-
tian according to the tenets of various sects* by the sermons of learned
traveling missionaries and of backwoods preachers. As a frontier, it
drew ''the irreligion of the times/' and it has known the sweep of
Protestant revivals and of fanatical "new" religions*
Before the close of the seventeenth century, French missionary
priests from Canada visited the Missouri region to convert the Indians,
The Jesuit mission of St. Francis Xavier was maintained near the mouth
of the Des Peres River in present St. Louis from 1700 until 1703, and^
shared honors with the chapel built in Fort D'Orleans (1723-28) in
preset Carroll County, as one of the first church buildings within the
State.
The first permanent church in Missouri was established at Ste.
Genevieve about 1755. Before that time, the religious needs of the
settlements of lead miners and salt workers in southeast Missouri were
ministered to by a visiting priest from Kaskaskia or Cahokia* on the
east side of the Mississippi. When the post on the Mississippi grew
into a village, "the cure of Cascakies found himself obliged to go there
to administer the sacraments, at least to the sick/' Father Francois
P. Watrin reported in 1764, "When the inhabitants saw their houses
multiplying, they asked to have a church built there . . . Means were
found to place at Sainte Genevieve a special cure* . . . only a few
years ago.** The new cure was not permitted, however, to remain long
in charge of his new parish. After 1763, when France formally trans-
ferred the territory west of the Mississippi to Spain, and the territory
east to Protestant England, all priests were recalled from Upper
Louisiana.
The following year Father Sebastian Meurin, missionary at the
Kaskaskia mission from 1742 until his banishment, obtained permission
from the Superior Council at New Orleans to return to Upper Louisi-
ana as cure of Ste, Genevieve, in view of the possible migration of
French families from British territory into Spanish. Because Father
Meurin was sick and aged, and his limitless parish was settled by many
diverse peoples, his office was a difficult one. Aided, however, by a
116
RELIGION II?
unique papal dispensation to marry unbaptized persons, and by a gen-
erous share of French good sense s he developed for frontier life a
frontier religion.
Despite the wisdom of Father Meurie and his successors, contempo-
rary records indicate how uncertain was their influence. Father Meurin
wrote to the Bishop of Quebec in 1768 that following British confisca-
tion, the church property in Kaskaskia had been sold to Jean Baptiste
Beauvais, who thereafter used the sacred vessels in his house, "My
continual reproaches to him on that score," Father Meurin concludes,
"have kept him away from me and the sacraments for three years."
When Bishop Flaget visited Ste. Genevieve in 1814, he found families
who had not come to the sacraments for twenty, forty, and even fifty
years. "My God," the good Bishop exclaimed, "how much this visit
was wanting here."
The religious disinterest of the cultured French families in Mis-
souri was reflected in their enthusiasm for such liberal writers as Rous-
seau, Diderot, Voltaire s and even Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson,
both of whom many considered advocates of the Anti-Christ. John
Francis McDermott points out in "Voltaire and the Free Thinkers, in
Early St. Louis" (Revtie de Litterature Compares, Paris, October,
I 936), that one- fourth of the library of Auguste Chouteau, one of the
founders of St. Louis, consisted of titles proscribed by the Index. Un-
der the influence of these liberal writings many of the French residents
of Missouri, though nominally Catholic, "considered all religion as
priestcraft, necessary perhaps for the ignorant, superstitious and vicious,
but wholly unnecessary for a gentleman a philosopher." This point
of view, recorded with shocked surprise by the Baptist missionary, John
Mason Peck, seemed doubly odious ta early Protestant ministers because
of the subtlety and the gracious French manner with which it was
expounded. The church modified its attitude to suit its parishioners.
"The Priests are very indulgent," Frederick Bates wrote from St. Louis
to his sister in 1806, "and when they cease, on any occasion to be so,
the People withhold those contributions which are necessary for their
support,"
It was not until the arrival of Bishop DuBourg and the Jesuits In
1818, and of Mother Duchesne and other religious groups, that a
Catholic revival was inaugurated. The new religious movement was
reinforced by the coming of many pious Irish and south German fam-
ilies between 1830 and 1870. Freethinking, however, did not com-
pletely die away in St. Louis for many years. Most of the early French
language journals published in Missouri were anti-Catholic and social-
istic in policy, and after the Civil War a portion at least of the French
freethinkers combined with the German students of Hegel and other
Il8 MISSOURI
philosophers to edit for more than thirty years the Journal of Speculative
Philosophy (see Literature).
Catholic Spanish officials took a lesson from the liberal French policy
in their treatment of American immigrants. Spain needed settlers to
protect her territory against the Indians, and against any possible expan-
sion of the United States. She preferred these settlers to be Catholic,
but when French Catholics failed to come in sufficient numbers, she
welcomed Protestant Americans, under the nominal provision that they
embrace the Church* "The privilege of enjoying the liberty of con-
science is not extended beyond the first generation/" wrote Governor
Don Manuel Gayoso de Lemos in an ordinance of September, 1797.
"The children of those who enjoy it must positively be Catholics*"
But Lieutenant Governor Don Zenon Trudeau, at St. Louis, a man
of "unaffected piety and wholly disinterested," promised the new set-
tlers the private practice of any religion they pleased, and proceeded to
stretch the law until it cracked.
In 1794 the Reverend Josiah Dodge from Nelson County, Kentucky*
visited his brother, Dr. Israel Dodge, on Saline Creek near Ste. Gene-
vieve. In February he preached what was probably the first Protestant
(Baptist) sermon west of the Mississippi River, Two years later the
Rc% '.Tend John Clark, a Methodist who later became a Baptist min-
ister, probably the first Protestant minister to enter Upper Louisiana for
the express purpose of preaching to American settlers, began visiting
settlements in the St. Louis area. Senor Trudeau discreetly waited
until Clark had fulfilled his appointments; he then issued a command-
ment that the Protestant preacher must leave Spanish territory or be
imprisoned. Perhaps heartened by Trudeau's liberality in this instance,
the Reverend Thomas Johnson, a Baptist preacher, visited the Cape
Girardeau district in 1797. Here he baptized Mrs. Agnes Ballew in
the waters of Randall Creek in what is said to be the first Protestant
baptism west of the Mississippi River, In the fall of 1803, when it
was well known that the country had been or was about to be ceded,
the Reverend Samuel Weyberg, a minister of the German Reformed
Church , came from North Carolina to the District of Cape Girardeau
upon the invitation of Colonel Frederick Bellinger. He established
preaching places in the vicinity of Jackson, in the homes of Daniel,
Philip, and John Bollinger, and Peter Ground. Although he was
characterized by the Reverend Timothy Flint as "an educated man
but a notorious drunkard," Weyberg seems to have done effective wort
Certainly, he was the first resident Protestant minister in Missouri,
although his congregation was not organized into a church unit until
later,
In spite of the activities of such occasional ministers, the early
American settlers, like the French, were often freethinkers or even
RELIGION 119
atheists. The educated were familiar with the works of Paine, Jeffer-
son, Rousseau, Locke, and Bacon; the uneducated were in rebellion
against the class-bound formal churches of the East. Most of the
great number of immigrants who flocked to Missouri after the Louisiana
Purchase in 1803 were Intent only upon finding economic freedom in
the new territory. They had neither the subtlety of the French, nor
the tolerance of the Spanish* They wanted no hindrance from man
or God, and they said so.
Protestant churches were not introduced into Missouri without
opposition. In 1817 the Reverend John Mason Peck stated that in
St. Louis the "Anglo-American population were infidels of a low and
indecent grade. , . . Their nightly orgies were scenes of drunkenness
and profane revelry. Among the frantic rites observed were the mock
celebration of the Lord's Supper and burning of Bibles. . . . The
boast was often made that the Sabbath never had crossed, and never
should cross the Mississippi." In 1834 the Western Examiner was
established in St. Louis for "the investigation of the credibility and
general tendencies of the Christian Religion." The editor, John Bobb,
prophesied that "perhaps, ere another century, the now prevailing sys-
tem of religion will be numbered among the exploded superstitions of
past ages. 1 *
However violently expressed, these were nonetheless minority opin-
ions. Once the turbulence of the first wave of immigration had passed,
the more stable settlers, aided by the rising popularity of religious re-
vivals, encouraged the establishment of Protestant churches. Many,
however, objected to the missionaries sent by Eastern congregations who
feared the rise of religious individualism on the frontier. Joseph
Charless, in the Missouri Gazette for April 8, 1816, expressed the gen-
eral resentment: "It is said that these intended shepherds are taught
to propagate the doctrine of union of churches and state, and to dis-
countenance republicanism." The West had not forgotten that the
Eastern states had refused them aid during the War of 1812. Yet,
despite the frontier's suspicious resentment, missionaries came in increas-
ing numbers. Mostly well trained men who quickly adapted them-
selves and their teachings to frontier conditions, they proved a valuable
stabilizing force on the frontier. They opposed the emotionalism of
camp meetings, and stressed the need for an educated ministry sup-
ported by salaries.
The Protestant churches met their first success in the rural areas
settled by Anglo-American families, where from the first small meet-
ings had been conducted in private homes by lay ministers or elders.
The traveling missionaries organized these groups, and attempted
through church control to regulate the conduct of their members. Ac-
cording to the testimony of early records, they held church trials on
120 MISSOURI
charges of immorality, working on Sunday, selling "Bror. Beman an
unsound mare/ 1 and other sins. Blue laws were thus introduced on the
Missouri frontier. The Cooper and Howard County court records,
like those of other counties, list many arrests for "laboring on the Sab-
bath/' "swearing/ 9 "gambling and playing at cards or billiards/' and
"being idle/'
Of the Protestant churches, the Baptist and the Methodist were the
most successful on the frontier. Ever an exponent of religious liberty,
the Baptist church readily adapted itself to the frontier dislike of
salaried ministers, and formal theology, vestments, or ritual. The
Methodist doctrine of "free grace, free will, and individual responsi-
bility/ * naturally appealed to the democratic frontiersmen, who liked
to believe that they were masters of their own destiny.
The Reverend Daniel Green, a Virginian, organized the first Baptist
group in Missouri in the Tywappity Bottom in 1805, and the following
year established the now discontinued Bethel Church^ near present-day
Jackson. Fee Fee Baptist Church, established in 1807 in St, Louis
County near the present village of Pattonville, has had a continuous
existence. The Mount Zion Baptist Church was established in Boon's
Lick about 1812, In 1817, John Mason Peck and James E. Welch,
Baptist missionaries from the East, began advocating the establishment
of Protestantism in St Louis and throughout the State, About 1818
five Baptist churches formed the Mount Pleasant Association.
When the Reverend John Travis arrived in 1806 to take up his
duties as preacher for the Methodist "Missouri circuit/ 8 to which he
was assigned by the Ebenezer Meeting House in Green County, Ten-
nessee, he found the Cape Girardeau and Meramec circuits already or-
ganized* The first Methodist church west of the river had been organ-
ized about 1806 at McKendree, not many miles from Bethel Church.
This site, known as the "Old Camp Grounds" because early Methodist
camp meetings were held there, was the center of the Cape Girardeau
circuit The restored chapel, constructed of great hewn poplar logs,
is still used occasionally by a Methodist congregation.
Although lay ministers may have organized a church before his
arrival, the pioneer among Presbyterian missionaries was the Reverend
Salmon Giddings, whose labors for a time were wholly itinerant* Gid-
dings searched the settlement along the Mississippi River for former
members of the Presbyterian church. A group of these he brought
together August 12, 1816, to organize one of the first Presbyterian
churches west of the Mississippi River, in Bellcvue Valley, 1C miles
south of Potosi, where four Presbyterian elders from a church in North
Carolina had settled in 1807. The elders "did not, as many others have
done, hide their light under a bushel, but bore it with them to their
new home."
RELIGION 121
The Protestant Episcopal faith was established in Missouri with
the organization of Christ Church in St. Louis, in 1819, by the Rever-
end John Ward. The missionary bishop, Jackson Kemper, was first
rector. In 1844, the Reverend Cicero Hawks became the first bishop
of Missouri.
Elders Thomas McBridc and Joel H. Haden of the Christian
Church (Disciples of Christ) had begun their missionary tours by 1817.
In that year McBride organized the Salt Creek Church in Howard
County, perhaps the first Christian Church in Missouri. During the
following decade, a large number of ministers of this denomination
came from Ohio and Kentucky. Among them was T, M. Allen, whose
gifts were exercised principally in Boone and neighboring counties.
Many of these first ministers were educated men, but the majority
were self-taught frontiersmen whose greatest assets were unlimited
zeal, an ability to sustain the hardships of frontier life, and a keen un-
derstanding of the people. Not only were they "marvelously effective
preachers/' but they also organized the frontier churches to meet the
problems created by a constantly shifting population. The Methodists
platted the western country into districts and circuits. The preacher
arrived at each of the specified points on the circuit at fairly regular
intervals, the presiding elder appeared at longer intervals, and, once
each year, the bishop came to preach, ordain, and hold sacraments. Be-
tween these visits, the laymen who did not go on circuits preached
in their own localities. In Callaway County the first Methodist set-
tlers held meetings in private houses. Services were held in the home
of Samuel Miller for thirty years, and the one-room cabin was often
filled with people who had come from long distances to hear the preach-
ing. "The men," according to Pioneer Families of Missouri (Bryan
and Rose, 1876), "would bring their guns and dogs with them. The
guns were stacked in one corner of the house, while the dogs remained
outside and fought. On one occasion the dogs treed a catamount dur-
ing services, which were immediately closed so that all could go and
witness the fight.' 1
The Baptists formed an association of churches, each church co-
operating with, but independent of, the others, and all belonging to a
convention. Traveling from appointment to appointment along the
country roads, the ministers were easily recognized by their manner^ of
dress. They generally wore "straight-breasted coats, high standing
collars, long waistcoats, and the plainest of neckties/' Suspenders were
a little known luxury. Many ministers affected the additional touch
of a special hairdress: "about midway between the forehead and the
crown of the head the hair was turned back and permitted to grow
down to the shoulders." Joseph Brown of Callaway County "a steam
doctor and an ironside Baptist preacher wore a long buckskin hunt-
122 MISSOURI
Ing shirt, reaching almost to his heels." No less singular was the
Reverend Jabez Ham, who organized New Providence Church on
Loutre Island, Montgomery County, in 1826. A large, stout man, he
often added emphasis to his opinions by the use of his fists. However
primitive his theology, his sincerity and directness made it effective. He
was a famous hunter and his sermons, he often pointed out, were like
an old shotgun loaded with beans which, when it went off, was almost
sure to hit somebody somewhere.
Because the frontier was not accustomed to paying taxes, or to sup-
porting any social enterprise, it was difficult to make the people provide
for their ministers. The Reverend Timothy Flint made several obser-
vations on this point. "The backwoodsmen," he said, "care little about
ministers and think less about hireling ministers, and several well-
intentioned farmers preach to small assemblies in the neighborhood/*
The Methodist church, however, agreed to salaries for circuit riders
and settled preachers. The first salaries were $64 a year. Later they
were increased to $80, then to $100, with allowances made for travel
and family. The ministers also were permitted to peddle approved
books on biography, history, travel, and philosophy. Collecting their
salaries and the money for books ordered often proved difficult. The
itinerant minister preached a positive, individualistic theology. The
value of his guidance was, however, reduced by the passionate excesses
of the camp meeting.
At first in the urban centers, then in the small towns and rural areas,
a number of ministers fought sheer emotionalism in church services, and
gradually their influence was felt among the clergy and congregations*
Yet even now the so-called "protracted" meeting has not passed from
existence. Many are still held in the small white frame churches that
dot the rural^cene. Very often the annual meetings are held in "brush
arbors," not because the congregation does not own a church, but be-
cause an arbor is much cooler. Virtually everyone in the vicinity,
regardless of his beliefs, attends. There is usually a "preaching" in
the afternoon, supper on the grounds, and another "preaching" at night.
Like the old frontier meetings, each service tends more towards a dra-
matic display of emotion, movement, and sound than a solemn worship.
The early camp meeting left the worshippers in an argumentative
and belligerent state of mind. No tolerance was shown when Joseph
Smith, the prophet of the Mormons, attempted to find in Missouri the
land of promise and the place for the Mormon Zion. Large numbers
of Mormons followed Smith into Missouri in 1831* and settled exten-
sive areas near Independence. Here, in the "land beautiful'* described
in the Book of Mormon, they organized their Missouri Zion on a col-
lective plan, and, in contrast to the haphazard development of other
frontier communities, ordered their lives upon a social rather than an
RELIGION 123
individual basis. Their economic success, combined with their ability
to control local elections, aroused the hostility of their neighbors. In
1833, the Mormons were forced to give up their Zion and move into
Clay County. Their persecution was -condemned by many Missouri
newspapers, but the crusade against them increased in violence, and
in 1839 the Mormons were driven into Illinois. It was not until
much later, when the branch of their church now known as the Re-
organized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was organized,
that the Mormons became sufficiently strong to re-establish themselves
and build their temple at Independence,,
Missouri was the refuge for three kinds of Germans: liberals forced
to flee reaction in Germany; conservatives who felt their beliefs were
crumbling before the heresy of the liberals; and such dreamers as Dr.
William Keil, whose dramatic communistic experiment at Bethel in-
cluded a new religion his religion as well as a new economy. So it
was that to Missouri were transplanted many of the elements that made
for religious confusion in Germany. The Germans who came to Mis-
souri during the early 1 830*8 were mostly intellectual liberals who,
according to Carl E. Schneider in The German Church On the Ameri-
can Frontier (St. Louis, 1939 ), had left the fatherland to escape the
tyranny of a priest-ridden state. Obsessed by memories of German
consistories and synods, these political refugees loudly objected to all
forms of organized religion. Among those who rose above the petty
bickerings of the day was Frederick Muench, who pointed out that it
was necessary to distinguish between the essence of religion and its
incidental forms. Through his publications, both in English and in
German, he counselled against inherited prejudices and dogmatism.
During the same period, former members of the Reformed Evangeli-
cal Church of Germany began to form congregations in Missouri. The
first two churches were organized at Friedens (see Tour SA), and at
Femme Osage, St. Charles County, in 1 834-35* by Hermann Garlichs,
a gentleman farmer, who had been invited to serve as pastor. By 1840,
despite the heavy German migration, the few scattered congregations
were still unorganized. In that year the Kirchenverein des Westens was
formed at Mehlville, St. Louis County, The avowed purpose of this
loose association was to control the qualifications of ministers, to develop
educational institutions, and to furnish mutual aid and assistance. Its
immediate use, however, was to combat the opposition of an orthodox
Lutheran group which had arrived in Missouri the preceding year.
These orthodox Lutherans were about 600 Saxons who had come
to America seeking religious freedom, because in Germany the rising
influence of liberal Lutheran and Catholic groups had caused them to
fear that they could not long "retain, confess, and transmit to their
descendants" their orthodox faith. Under the leadership of "Bishop"
124 MISSOURI
Martin Stephan, former pastor of St. John's Church in Dresden, they
established the Missouri towns of Altenburg and Wittenburg. Appre-
ciating the need of a college for the education of their children and their
clergy, they established Concordia Seminary at Altenburg in 1839. In
1849 the school was moved to St. Louis.
Since the Catholic revival instituted by Bishop DuBourg and the
various religious orders who established themselves in Missouri, the
Roman Catholic church has continued its work with no lessening of
vigor. A diocese to embrace the State was established in 1826, with
St. Louis as its cathedral city. In 184? Missouri became an archdiocese.
As the Germans settled on the prairie along the Boon's Lick Trail
and through the rocky hills of the central section, priests were sent
to them. In the shadow of many Roman Catholic churches parochial
schools were built. A second diocese was established in 1880, with
Kansas City as the cathedral center.
The slavery issue was the last large frontier problem which con-
cerned the Protestant churches of Missouri. Until about 1850 the
slaves enjoyed, theoretically, an equal status with the white members
of the congregation. They attended services with the white people,
and the church attempted to regulate their lives as it did the lives
of o 4 4er persons. When slavery became a national issue, however, the
Protestant churches were no longer able to justify the fact that some-
members of the congregations kept other members in bondage. In the
1840*8, pro-slavery members of the Methodist, Baptist, and Prebyterian
denominations split with their national organizations and formed or-
ganizations of their own. Today, the Presbyterians are divided into the
Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A,, the Presbyterian Church in the
United States (Southern branch), the United Presbyterian Church,
and the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. The Baptist denomination
Is divided into the Northern and Southern Conventions. In 1938, at
a joint conference, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and the
Methodist Episcopal Church, North, voted to reunite into one national
organization.
After the Civil War, Missouri's religious life was affected by the
organization of Negro churches, the spread of church-supported schools
and colleges, and the growth of large cities. Before the war, Negroes
had few churches of their own. When they obtained their freedom,
one of their first acts was to form churches, organizations, and rules
of procedure. Today, they have churches belonging to the Methodist,
Baptist, Roman Catholic, and other denominations.
Expansion after the Civil War transferred social and economic
power from farms to small towns and cities. As the cities grew, the
churches there were enabled to increase their memberships substantially,
to give more thought to social problems, and, by means of their new
RELIGION 125
financial strength, to accomplish many social reforms. Home and
foreign mission programs were extended, and local church educational
institutions were broadened. Many of these institutions were of college
rank; others were planned to educate younger children. With the
growth of the public schools, a large number of the denominational*
schools disappeared*
The development of large trade centers had one other effect on re-
ligion in Missouri. During the Spanish regime, no Jews were per-
mitted in the territory, but following the Louisiana Purchase Jewish
families soon came to St. Louis. In 1836 the first Jewish services were
held in St. Louis, and soon afterwards a congregation, mostly of Ger-
man and Polish immigrants, was formed. The congregation of B'nai
B'rith, or the Sons of the Covenant, was next formed, and members of
this group later organized the congregation of B'nai EL Partly influ-
enced by the liberal doctrines developed in certain German- Jewish
centers, a group of the B'nai El congregation withdrew in 1867 and
established the first reformed Jewish Church in Missouri Shaare
Emeth. Dissenting members of this group in 1886 organized the con-
gregation of Temple Israel, which, with its parent church, has long
been an important Middle Western center of liberal thought on social
and political as well as religious questions. Following the Civil War,
congregations of Jewish people were formed in Kansas City, St. Joseph,
Sedalia, and elsewhere. The Jews brought with them an established
program of social work among the needy of their own people.
According to the 1926 survey of the Bureau of Census the total
number of churches in Missouri was 7,303, of which 645 were Negro.
The combined church membership was 1,881,278, and of this number
82,207 were Negroes, The total value of Missouri churches was placed
at $110,022,697, with the average value of an urban church estimated
at a little more than ten times that of the average rural building. In
the State as a whole the Southern Baptist had the most churches, 1,764*
The Roman Catholic membership was the largest, with 517,466 mem-
bers. The Baptist had 270,925 members, and the Methodists, 231,285.
Sports and Recreation
THOUGH Missouri offers sports of almost every modern variety,
the affections of its native population are still held by fine
horses, good hound dogs, and a likely fishing spot. Even in
Colonial times good racing and breeding horses were imported. Horses
created an immediate bond between the French settlers and the Southern
families who poured into the territory after the Louisiana Purchase,
bringing with them their racers and their traditions. Interest in the
sport soon spread. In October of 1812, St. Charles County sportsmen
(soon to be busy with Indian warfare) held two-day races on the
"Mamelle Tract" near St. Charles. The rules provided that "the
fastest horse (running fair) wins the money." Six years later the
Jockey Club of Franklin, in the Boon's Lick County, was holding regu-
lar three-day races on the "Welches Tract," offering sizeable purses
for two, three, and four-mile runs. This club, through successive re-
organizations, continued for at least 20 years. Alphonso Wetmore,
who attended the Franklin races in 1823, satirized the event with an
"epic" poem beginning:
Hushed be the world! with all its noisy dim!
Franklin! Thy sports I proudly usher in,
Midst clouds of dust, and spirit stirring rhymes,
That swell our eyes, and annals of our times.
Race tracks were laid out in nearly every city and crossroads village,
to the dismay of the Protestant ministers who had been sent to Missouri
from New England. "The first Sabbath that I preached in St. Charles,"
the Reverend Timothy Flint wrote in despair, "before morning wor-
ship, directly opposite where worship was to take place, there was a
horse race." To Reverend Flint and people of like mind, these frontier
sports were the Devil's snares, against which they "wrestled mightily,"
and, it may be added, effectively. The owners of some of the tracks,
as at Franklin and Springfield, "got religious minded," ^and destroyed
them. The Columbia course was bitterly assailed as a "center of im-
morality." At present, with the exception of the annual Missouri State
Fair races, and those held at various county fairs, horse racing in Mis-
souri is negligible ; of more importance are the auctions and shows held
wherever fine horses are raised in the State. Of particular interest are
the shows at the annual American Royal in Kansas City, and the vari-
ous St. Louis horse shows.
126
SPORTS AND RECREATION 127
Among other frontier sports were cock fighting, goose pulling, and
fist fighting. Goose pulling was vigorous. A goose with its neck
greased was suspended by the feet from a bar; the contestants then
took turns riding at a gallop under the bar, attempting to wring the
goose's neck in passing. The one who was successful won the goose.
f Fist fighting was even more popular. Every neighborhood had its cham-
Ijnn. Contests between flatboatmen and wharfmen in the river towns
Were so constant that arrests for "creating a public affray . . . riot-
jng . . . endangering the lives of the residents" were frequent. Other
athletics included foot racing and high jumping, often as part of public
celebrations, particularly on the Fourth of July.
Rivalry in marksmanship was, naturally, keen on the frontier, and
shooting matches were probably the most common sport among men,
Most popular was the "beef shoot." A writer in the Missouri Repttl-
Imn for April 29, 1837, describes the contest: "A bull's eye, with a
center nail, stands at a distance variously from forty to seventy yards
apcf'tfiose five who, at the close of the contest, have most frequently
^ett the nail, are entitled to a fat ox divided into five portions/ 3 The
|i portion was the hide and the tallow, and this was the most valu-
f part. Most of the marksmen could "drive the nail twice out of
every three trials." A modern descendant of this sport is the popular
"Turkey shoot* 5 at Thanksgiving time,
Increased settlement and changing social attitudes introduced amuse-
ments "more to be watched than participated in, 57 Modern Mis-
sourians, however, have not lost their love for the out-of-doors. ^The
States's generally mild climate, and the wealth of woods and rivers,
provide every type of outdoor sport, except those requiring open surf,
high mountains, or sustained winter. Particularly attractive is the
rugged Ozark region, an area as large as the State of Maine, with its
woods and streams, lakes and giant springs. Here, one may obtain a
guide and a blunt-nosed, flat-bottomed boat for one of the famous
"John-boat forays," or "float trips," down the Black, White, Osage,
fames, Big or Little Piney, Gasconade, Meramec, Current, or Niangua
Rivers. One may swim or paddle, rent a motor boat, or go aquaplaning
on the Lake of the Ozarks, or Lake Taneycorao, both artificially im-
pounded lakes of exceptional beauty. Speedboat racing is common on
flic Missouri and Mississippi, and even on quiet sections of the Big
and Meramec Rivers. A St. Louis Municipal Rowing Regatta is held
each August on the Mississippi, From St. Louis, it is possible to take
s^mboat excursions on the major rivers throughout the summer
months.
Fishing is excellent in nearly all of Missouri's rivers and lakes; this
is one sport which modern civilization has not disrupted. Giant cat-
fish are frequently taken, especially in the Mississippi and Missouri,
128 MISSOURI
fish weighing 50 pounds being not unusual; the largest^ ever recorded in
Missouri weighed 150 pounds. "Noodling/ 5 or catching fish with the
bare hards, is an exciting sport still carried on in the Ozarks, although
it is now illegal. Catfish are frequently caught on trotlines, or by
"lugging." In the latter method, large sealed jugs or cans with lines
attached are set afloat; the jug bobs when a fish is hooked. In con-
trast with these methods is the fishing with barbless hooks favored by
some master anglers.
Gigging is popular, especially on the clear Ozark streams. Gigging
parties sometimes float down a clear stream at night carrying a bright
light, often a gasoline lantern or a fire basket of flaming pine knots.
The gigger is stationed at the bow, armed with a two- or three-pronged
spear, with which he strikes fish resting on the bottom. Giant frogs
may be gigged, or picked up with the aid of a bright light, along most
of the less frequented Ozark stream beds.
"Jumping" and "bumping" bass is practiced at nfght, or in the day
time when a rapid rise muddies the stream and leaves only the water
among the weeds at the bank partially clear. In night "jumping," the
boat 5 with a light in it, is allowed to drift along the edge of the weeds.
The feeding bass and "skip-jacks/* believing themselves trapped between
boar ,md bank, may jump into the boat. In "bumping," a boat pre-
ferably 20 to 25 feet long is run upstream,, the stern against the bank,
the tow outward at an angle of about 30 degrees. The boatman slaps
the half -muddied water between boat and bank sharply with the flat
of his paddle. Often, bass that have taken refuge in the weeds will
jump into the boat. Formerly, screens of wire or tow-sacking were
raised on the outstream side of the boats, but this is now prohibited by
State law.
Trout and other game fish may be taken at Bennett Spring State
Park, where there is a hatchery, and on lower Roubidoux Creek near
Waynesville, Crane Creek, Hahatonka, Little Piney near Yancey Mills,
and at many other places throughout the Ozarks. A fishing "rodeo," in
which anglers from all States compete, Is held each October at the Lake
of the Ozarks.
Hunting in the State is similar to that in the Middle West generally.
Rabbits are numerous, and are hunted for sport or profit. Squirrels,
equally common, may be taken in season. Raccoon and opossum are
plentiful in some sections, A few times in recent years, a three-day
license for deer has been issued, but at present (1940) there is no
open season. Fox hunting is a popular sport in central and southwest
Missouri. This is not, however, the English variety, with pink-coated
hunters on horseback. The sport for Missourians is not a matter of
social standing, nor is the object to catch the fox. The fun consists
in gathering in the woods, listening to the belling of the dogs on the
SPORTS ANB RECREATION
tpi! ; 'there fa 'not a hunter but can distinguish the voice of his dog
suncf know when he is leading the pack. The deep-rooted love for a
' i4 4og has not died out; field trials in trailing, pointing, flushing,
relieving are held throughout the State for hunting dogs of various
The chief quarry for bird hunters in Missouri is quail. There
no open season on the State's few pheasants, but ducks and geese
here in their seasonal migrations, and occasional wild turkeys
ire found in the more remote sections.
Hiking trips are popular throughout the State, and Youth Hostels
inexpensive stopping places. Bicycling trips and horseback rid-
cart b^ arranged for in most localities, and excellent highways make
pritejdng or exploring by automobile a favorite pastime. Recreational
&re being developed in many parts of the State, largely by the
fork Projects Administration, the Civilian Conservation Corps, and
National Park Service (see General Information). Some of the
offer a wide variety of comforts and amusements, but for the
or nature lover whose tastes run to solitude and a more
type of vacationing, Missouri still has vast sections of almost
territory.
City and St. Louis offer museums, theaters, indoor and out-
Pqif swimming pools, roller and ice skating rinks, dance floors, night
, and amusement parks. Skeet shooting, bowling, and table tennis
have become increasingly popular in recent years. Most of the smaller
Cities also offer these. Well-organized systems of city parks provide
golf courses, tennis, badminton, and handball courts, baseball and soft-
ball diamonds, archery ranges, and, sometimes, even special spots for
model-ship racing and kite flying. The huge and excellently equipped
St. Louis zoo attracts hundreds of thousands annually- City-directed
playgrounds in Kansas City and St. Louis offer well-balanced programs
of games, dancing, and handicrafts for children. Golf can be played
practically the year round. Skiing, tobogganing, and ice skating are
possible out doors for only brief periods, except in the extreme northern
parts of the State.
Even the smallest town usually has a baseball team, and in the rural
croquet and horseshoe pitching are common sports. Nearly
high school and college in the State has its basketball and football
? and sometimes a soccer and field-hockey team as well. A State
|^|gh school basketball tournament, held each March in Columbia, at-
tracts (rremendous crowds. The football season is generally climaxed
fflglf ^hapksgiving Day by games between traditional rivals.
f ? Among the professional sports, baseball leads in popularity. In
6t f Louf's the two major leagues are represented by the Cardinals and
||*e P^owns. The Cardinals won the world series in 1926, 1931, and
I934> # n d many of its stars have won the annual "most valuable
I JO MISSOURI
player'* award. Kansas City and many of the smaller towns have minor
league ball teams. In recent years softball has become increasingly
popular, perhaps because it can be played by both men and women;
admission prices are low, and the games are generally held at night,
when families may attend.
St. Louis supports a professional football team, and a soccer team
which won the challenge cup event In 1932, 1933, and 1934. Indoor
cold weather sports have been developed in recent years. Besides skat-
ing rinks, St. Louis and Kansas City have excellent ice-hockey teams,
and exhibition skating draws large crowds.
Boxing was at a low ebb in Missouri for some time, as wrestling
continues to be, but both sports are reviving. The Golden Gloves
Tournament and the Ozark A.A.A. meets have popularized boxing in
recent years. John Henry Lewis, former lightweight boxing champion,
won his title in St. Louis in 1935*
MISSOURI'S ways are the comfortable, homely ways, and the
memories of half a dozen national strains are preserved in
its lore and its customs. In the open country of northern
and western Missouri, the expansive days of "before the war" still color
life and thought. Much more deeply rooted in the past, dialects, man-
ners, and traditions that recall medieval England survive in the hills
of southern Missouri, Midway between are the placid small towns
along the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, where still exist the lan-
guages and fashions of living brought from Germany and France a
century and a half ago. Of no single region can it be said: "This Is
Missouri"; for the State's lore and ways were formed from all.
The majority of Missourians have a way of speaking that is prob-
ably peculiar to the State. The difference lies partly in dialect and
verb forms, but more in intonation and inflection, perceptible, yet evad-
ing precise description. The State's name to outsiders may be pro-
nounced "Mis-sour-y," but here it is "Miz-sour-a" ; "fire** often be-
come "far," and sometimes "fawr." The Missourian's Inflection has
neither the rapid precision of the North, the languid drawl of the West
and Southwest, nor the soft fluidity of the deep South. Perhaps it
partakes of characteristics of each, forming a type of its own. There
are, however, noticeable variations in different sections within the State.
Educated St. Louisians claim to speak English with less sectional in-
dividuality than persons of other localities. Yet outside this cultural
and social circle, there is in general use the "St. Louis dialect/' a com-
pound of corruptions and inflections borrowed from the foreign born
that contrasts sharply with the softer speech elsewhere.* 1 In Old Mines,
Ste. Genevieve, and other French settlements of southeastern Missouri,
approximately 85 per cent of the population speaks a Creole dialect,
basically the French of the eighteenth century, but containing a blur of
Spanish, English, and Indian words. German, often archaic in its form,
is primarily the language of Hermann and of some other Missouri
River towns.
Although much has been made of the survival of old English words
in Missouri speech, this is exceptional rather than general. Preserved
by the descendants of early Immigrants from Kentucky and Tennessee,
an occasional Old-World word crops up here and there in the hill
country, current in one locality, unknown a hundred miles away,
131
132 MISSOURI
Missouri speech, rather, is flavored with homely metaphors and similes
that reflect rural and early-day life. Such mralisms throw the surviving
archaic expressions into high relief, intensified by a native talent for
understatement. "Daunch," an English word of the fifteenth century,
appears in corruption ; and only an occasional person will know, when a
hill woman complains, "We'unses shore air dauncey," that she means,
depending on the locality, "We certainly are fastidious about our food,"
or, "We surely are unaware of what is happening,' 1 or, "We feel utterly
listless/' Few, however, will remain in doubt, when a farmer observes,
"He lit a shuck out o r thar, I tell yuh, a-makin' mo' racket J n a jack-ass
in a tin barn," that someone left in a hurry and with much noise. Cool
and foggy weather is referred to only in some places by the Elizabethan
term, "enisling"; in the hills, an illegitimate child may not be other-
wise mentioned in mixed company than as a "woods colt"^ and a bull is
a "male brute."
Negro idiom and dialect have preserved such old English phrases
as "ruinate" for "ruin" and "disremember" for "forget," and these have
attained general usage over the State. The Negroes also have enriched
speech with expressions peculiar to themselves, such as the phrase "in all
my born days," meaning "in all my life." Negro cooks will sometimes
demand the right to "tote" (carry home left-over food) as part of their
wages* More recent and perhaps less valuable has been the develop-
ment of the "cat language" among the Negroes of the cities, a stream-
lined mixture of metaphor and slang. Definitely a folk expression, it
has many variations, and a Kansas City Negro may entirely fail to
understand that his St. Louis friend's observation, "That sure is a fine
vine you-all are under," is an admiring comment upon his apparel.
In any case, Negro parlance has added much more to Missouri speech
than have the French and German tongues of the socially isolated com-
munities.
Although their tales have little currency outside their own settle-
ments, the French and German populations have contributed much to
folklore. Local raconteurs at Old Mines are especially fond of medieval
French animal stories and tales of magic. In more than tales, though,
Old- World culture lingers in various spots about the State. At both
Florissant and Ste. Genevieve, the Host is borne through the streets in
a solemn and colorful ceremony at the observance of Corpus Christ! in
June. Christmas is celebrated with firecrackers in the southwestern
part of Missouri, and at Old Mines and Ste. Genevieve the celebration
of La GulgnoUe marks New Year's Eve (see Ste. Geneweve), as
masked revelers make the rounds of homes and business places, singing
a song centuries old (see Music}. In the foreign quarters of Kansas
City and St. Louis, elaborate funeral processions wind through the
streets, with lugubrious brass bands at their heads ; and weddings, quite
FOLKLORE AND FOLKWAYS 133
as spectacular as the funerals, are celebrated at morning Mass and fol-
lowed by rounds of feasting and merrymaking. Sometimes, an Italian
mother-in-law presents the bride with a handful of rice or a black hen,
both symbols of fruitfulness* In a few German communities, wedding
guests are charged an admission fee, and the "inviters" call at the door
of each prospective guest, praising the entertainment to be offered at
the wedding.
It is, however, the farmer of Anglo-Saxon stock who has most in-
fluenced the State and its life. Almost any utilitarian occasion becomes
social as well, if a few persons gather. Each community has its annual
fair, at which livestock is exhibited and judged, as are farm and home
products. These fairs, climaxed by the annual State Fair at Sedalia,
are always well attended, providing a meeting place for friends, as well
as a focus for agricultural and home interests. Of scarcely less social
importance are the picnics and homecomings held each summer at
various small towns usually two or three in a county ; in the hill coun-
try, the Fourth of July picnic is the big event of the year. On these
occasions, a small carnival comes to town, square dancing' and fiddling
contests are held, and hot dogs, hamburgers, and soda pop from dusty
stands lend variety to the enormous lunches unpacked from cars and
wagons. But the carnival attractions are of far less interest to the
crowds that flock in from the country than the meeting of friends from
a dozen miles or more distant who have not been seen, perhaps, for
months. Auction sales, held when a farmer decides to leave the neigh-
borhood, are also always occasions for social contact. Many who attend
have no intention of buying. They come merely for the show put on
by the auctioneer, and for the chance to visit.
1 In the late fall, the farmer looks forward eagerly to "hawg-killin*
time." The neighbors gather early in the morning to help with the
killing, the scalding, scraping, cutting, and salting of the meat. The
livers, hearts, and kidneys are sometimes boiled together, more often
cooked separately, for the feast held at noon. Ribs and sliced side
meat are fried, and a truly gargantuan meal is eaten. When the men
have finished their tasks, the work of the women is just starting. Meat
is ground for sausage, and head cheese, scrapple, liver sausage, and other
concoctions are prepared.
Box suppers and pie suppers are given at various churches or school
houses. Only pies, golden brown, fruity, and appetizing, are brought
to the pie suppers, but for the box suppers the girls prepare elaborate
boxed lunches, each trying to outdo the others in ornate trimming and
sumptuous content. At suppertime, usually at the conclusion of a
program or an amateur play, the pies or boxes are auctioned off to the
highest bidder, the man who buys one eating supper with the girl who
prepared it. Although none is supposed to know to whom the boxes or
1 34 MISSOURI
pies belong, a girl and her beau are seldom separated, but the man may
have to pay an outrageous price if rivals or practical jokers suspect the
owner and bid against him. There Is always pride in the price, how-
ever, since it is an index of the girl's popularity, and the money goes to
some worthy fund.
Pie suppers are particularly frequent during political campaigns,
when the candidates are expected to attend and to bid. Less finan-
cially exacting, but of more importance politically z*nd socially, are the
rallies and "speakings" accompanying political campaigns in rural dis-
tricts. In many counties, notably in Howard, the candidates organize
a joint speaking circuit. The ladies of the local church seldom overlook
the financial possibilities of an ice cream supper, and, "given fair
weather and a good crowd/* the evenings are often more social than
political.
Funerals in the country are always well attended, as are weddings
and charivaris "shivarees," in Missouri parlance and all primarily
for the same reason: the opportunities they provide for visiting. Such
activities as an occasional corn-husking, church picnics and socials, candy-
pullings, all-day singings, and dances also offer social intercourse.
The country dance is most common in the Ozarks, though found in
ninny other parts of Missouri. Although quite sharp divisions exist
economically, and often educationally, between the ridge dwellers and
the valley farmers, the average hillman distinguishes only between two
classes of people the natives and the "furriners." The "furriners" are
all those who live outside the hills, and they are seldom welcome at a
native dance. The affair is usually held at a farm home, seldom that of
a better-class farmer, often one where cracks appear in the rough-
sawn, native-oak floors. The dancing here, of course, is not the suave
fox-trot and waltz, nor the jitter of the urban sections and the prairie
farmlands, but the stamping, swinging shuffle of the square dance. A
coal-oil lamp on a high shelf dimly illuminates the one room where the
dancing goes on. In a corner sits the orchestra, one man with a fiddle,
another with a mouth organ, and perhaps one with a mandolin. The
fiddler calls the dance in a high pitched voice, his accent in cadence with
the music:
First couple Balance to the couple on the right.
Cheat or swing, do jest as yoj like;
Swing yore partners!
Ladies to the right and a right hand acr&st;
Look out girls, so you won't get lost
Hain't been drunk since away last fall,
Swing your partners and promenade th* hall!
Promenade eight till you get straight,
Swing that gal like you're swngirf on a gats!
FOLKLORE AND FOLKWAYS IJ5
In the next room, a group of half a dozen gather around the table,
playing pitch with a deck of dog-eared cards. From the kitchen door-
way, half a dozxjfi girls and young men stare at the couples who are
dancing. Out in the yard still others gather about a bottle, or a jug
of corn whisky. The guests shift from one diversion to the other, and
the merrymaking goes on until almost dawn.
But many Ozarkians have religious scruples against dancing, and
believe the fiddle to be the instrument of the devil. For them, the
fast-disappearing "play-party" is a substitute; often it is a dance in
reality, but there is no orchestra. The players provide the music by
singing, and the others clap their hands in rhythmic accompaniments
One of the favorite "plays" is "Weevily Wheat, 59 performed to the
words and tune of an old Jacobite ballad :
Oh I don't want none o' yore weevily wheat,
An' I don't want none o' yore barky,
But I want some flour in half an hour
To bake a cake for Chailie.
Oh, Charlie he's a fine young man
Oh, Charlie he's a dandy;
Charlie likes to kiss th' gals,
And he can do It handy!
The game is one of the old English survivals. The "Charlie" re-
ferred to is Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Stuart pretender to the throne
of England in 1745, of whom the Scots sang. The players form two
separate lines facing each other, the boys in one, the girls in the other.
The boy and the girl at the opposite ends of each line swagger to the
center and "swing," return to their places, and are followed by the next
couple. The verses are timed so that the swinging occurs with the last
line of each stanza.
Another game is "Four In the Middle/ 1 which, like "Weevily
Wheat," may be continued indefinitely. Each boy chooses a girl, and
the players form a circle around one of the couples. After singing a
verse of the song, the boy and girl in the center each choose another
partner, thus placing two couples within the circle. Singing to the
tune of "Skip to My Lou," the players dance "right and left," and as
the last stanza is sung, the first couple leaves the center of the circle.
The second couple now chooses another couple and the game continues
as before.
The "play-party n is but one of the picturesque customs of ^ the
hills. In the matter of courtship, a young hillman may do a little
"tom-cattin' around," but when he "sets up" to a girl, he usually
intends to marry her. Thereafter, for the girl to be seen talking to
another man is to invite disrepute, and even bloodshed. If a boy and a
girl attend church together, it is considered, in some places, tantamount
136 MISSOURI
to an engagement announcement. Sometimes a boy and a girl sit up
together all night in the cabin of the girl's parents, but usually the
mother and father are sleeping in the same room. As was customary
among all pioneer American groups, the girls usually marry early, and
frequently have large families. Divorce is rare, although, occasionally,
a wife goes on an extended "visit" to her parents. The men and boys
have much leisure time, compared with the women, who are occupied
with household and agricultural duties the year around. In some
families, even the splitting and carrying-in of firewood, and the milk-
ing, are considered "woman's work.** For a man to participate in any
form of woman's work is to invite at least the jocularity of the neigh-
bors. The "greater family/' which includes all near relatives by birth
or marriage, survives among the hill people, and is dominated by the
patriarch, who is imbued with an intense loyalty to his home and family.
None the less, the hill dweller is an individualist. For a long time
it was impossible to effect co-operative activity among the Ozark
dwellers for agricultural programs or other purposes, but this age-old
resistance is being gradually broken down.
The Missourian in the remoter districts attends religious services
with a zealous earnestness, but even his religion has, to some extent,
the function of enriching a barren social life. Yet the doctrinal side is
important, too. Bitter quarrels sometimes occur over the use of musi-
cal instruments at religious services, or because some visiting minister
has remarked that he "looked up at the hills and saw God." The hill-
man is faithful to the "old-time religion" of his forefathers, which per-
mitted unrestrained expression for emotionally undernourished lives.
Ministers frequently preach a "hell-fire-and-brimstone" gospel as sensa-
tional as that of the earliest circuit riders (see Religion).
"-*' Much less numerous than in former years, the occasional camp meet-
ings are still important events in the lives of rural dwellers, since they
provide the people with a solid week of social intercourse, a chance to
"camp out," and, incidentally, their fill of sizzling admonition from
the revivalist. For the women, camp meeting means more work than
at home, since most of the day is filled with baking pies and cakes and
cooking meals. Cooking is done in community fashion, and the meals
are community affairs, served in the open on long board tables. The
children run wild, and the men loaf peacefully, whittling, pitching
horseshoes, or playing mumbly-peg. In the evening, everyone gathers
for the revival, where the congregation is often aroused to the point
of hysteria. **-
Religious fervor makes the devil a very real personage, and anything
awe-inspiring or not easily understood is usually connected with him.
Perhaps this explains why, not only in the Ozarlcs but all over the
State, his name crops up so frequently. A bend of the Gasconade
FOLKLORE AND FOLKWAYS 137
River, overlooked by a majestic bluff, is "The Devil's Elbow"; a
cavern near Columbia, whence issue cold drafts even in summer time,
is "The Devil's Icebox"; a steep Ozark hillside of barren rock is "The
Devil's Slide"; a formidable sharp ridge is "The Devil's Backbone."
The devil, of course, has a great deal to do with manifestations of
the supernatural, but there are other, less commonly accepted influ-
ences. Most people in the Ozarks know that in some cave near Spring-
field 20 pony loads of silver lie buried, abandoned by the Spaniards;
but, though numerous searching parties have sought it, the wealth is
under a curse and has never been found. Then, there was the case of
the northern Missouri farmer who, believing his dog had rabies, cut
off his head. When he returned later to bury the body, it had vanished.
About a year afterward, he saw the head of the dog apparently sus-
pended above the doorway of his house ; it retreated and came forward
severaj. times, as if signaling him to follow, but he refused to leave the
house. Later, the body of the farmer's youngest son was found in a
near-by brook, and from that time, it is said, the dog's head appeared to
warn the family if any of its members was in danger. Along the Mis-
sissippi River, early morning mists are sometimes believed to be the
ghosts of persons drowned in the stream. In the same section a giant
headless dog appears, and ghosts of Civil War soldiers battle nightly
for gold that once was hidden in an old tree. Even these, though, are
less dreadful than the wraith of the desperado who, on dismal nights,
formerly promenaded the road between the tree where he had been
hanged and his unquiet grave.
The hanging tree has long since died, because any tree on which a
man has been hanged will wither and die, just as will any tree which
has been struck by a hoop snake. The hoop snake, locally held to be
the most poisonous of all reptiles, will take its tail in its mouth and roll
toward its victim faster than the swiftest horse can run. It can even
roll uphill, and fortunate indeed is he who can escape it. But, if any
snake is killed, there is always a chance for the victim to recover from
its bite if part of the snake's carcass is bound over the wound. If a
child steps on a rusty nail, he must grease the nail and lay it away to
prevent infection. If a person afflicted with tumor will stroke a dead
man's hand, the tumor will disappear. Warts can be disposed of in
Innumerable ways, one of which is to place a pin under a rock so that
the first person who steps over the rock will acquire the warts.
The body of superstitions is encyclopedic, although many are sec-
tional or even individual. It is an ill omen to see a cross-eyed person,
especially at the intersection of two pathways. A bird flying into a
house is a sure sign of death in the family, but a redbird perched near
by is a good omen. To be assured that an absent lover will think of his
sweetheart, she must turn his picture upside down. If two spoons are
138 MISSOURI
accidentally placed together on a table, there will soon be a wedding,
and if a single person is seated between a married couple at dinner, he
will become engaged in the near future. In some sections it is believed
that the initials of one's future mate will appear on a handkerchief
placed on growing wheat on the night of April 30. Many mothers
conscientiously bite their babies' fingernails, believing that if they are
cut with scissors the children will become thieves.
Weather is forecast by signs common to agrarian peoples of all
times. Some are pure superstition ; some are based on fact or shrewd
observation. For many Missouri farmers, ground-hog day is February
14, not February 2. Pleasant weather is assured if clouds move rapidly
or rabbits are seen in unprotected places. Pigs running about with
sticks in their mouths and creating an unusual disturbance foretell a
storm. In time of drouth, a snake killed and turned belly-up on the top
of a fencepost will bring rain. And, of course, any vegetable whose
fruit grows above the ground must be planted in the light of the moon ;
any whose fruit grows underground, such as potatoes, must be planted
in the dark of the moon.
Witchcraft has largely passed. The most famous Missouri master,
Guinea Sam, of Boonville, disappeared years ago in a puff of blue smoke,
after !'-eing beaten in a "conjuratin' contest wif a St. Louis voodoo.**
Heie and there, some person who has supposedly sold his soul to Satan
retains a reputation for practicing the black art selling charms, telling
fortunes, finding lost articles, and peddling remedies compounded of
mysterious herbs. In the last, the "witch** steps into the province of
the numerous "herb doctors," who roam the woods seeking ginseng,
bloodroot, golden seal, May apple, and other plants with which to dose
the countryside.
Traces of voodooism linger among the Negroes, especially among
those of the cities and of the cotton industry. It is not the voodoo
worship of Haiti, however, but a curious compound of that cult with
the Protestant religion, faith healing, fortune telling, and any other
form of mumbo-jumbo which happens to appeal to the practitioner.
The belief that an enemy can be destroyed by placing a spell upon a
waxen image of him has not entirely passed. One method of invoking
such vengeance is to hold the image over the fire, repeating a spell as
it melts. Sometimes Negroes are troubled to find a mysterious "goofer
dust*' (dirt from a grave) sprinkled in their yards, as a charm to drive
them from the neighborhood.
Negro lore has preserved many of the beliefs centering about the
supernatural commonly held by the white settlers of the late eighteenth
century. For instance, a horse can see ghosts, and so may the rider if
he looks straight forward between the horse's cars. A cat should not
be allowed in the room with a corpse, nor in a room where a baby is
FOLKLORE AND FOLKWAYS 1 39
sleeping, for it will suck the baby's breath. Negro tales, including
ghost stories, and legends about the Indians, are current in many locali-
ties. Bluffs known as "Lovers' Leap'* are found in the proximity of
almost every town in Missouri, with accompanying tragic tales of frus-
trated Indian lovers.
Literature
BOON'S LICK residents showed an eagerness for literary great-
ness when they included among their Fourth of July toasts in
1817: "The Territory of Missouri may it become the Nurs-
ery of Literature." In his Missourian Lays and Other Western Dit
ties, published at St. Louis in 1821, Angus Umphraville saluted the
great English writers and then blandly inquired:
Why not Missouri claim
Illustrious bards of ^ equal fame?
Why may she not with Albion vie
In such a generous rivalry?
The wide variety of subjects represented in the libraries of Mis-
souri Colonials indicates breadth of interest. Literary development,
however, was hampered by the lack of leisure and of a local press.
Henri Peyroux de la Coudreniere, Commandant of Ste, Genevieve
(1787-96) and friend of Thomas Jefferson, made plans to bring a press
to Ste. Genevieve, and the will of his brother Pierre, who died in 1795,
lists a "box with type."
Although composed without strictly literary intent, the descriptions
of the region's topography, social life, flora, fauna, mineral resources,
and Indian inhabitants recorded by Missourians in journals and
official reports are a sincere and evocative reflection of the place and
the period. The journals of fitienne de Bourgmond (1714 and 1723)*
Auguste Chouteau's account of the founding of St. Louis, and Pierre-
Antoine Tebeau's narrative of Loisel's expedition to the Upper Mis-
souri (1795) are written in an unaffected style, with consistent en-
thusiasm, and portray an era whose historic importance their authors
appreciated.
Journals by members of the expeditions led by Lewis and Clark
(1804-06), Zebulon Pike (180507), Wilson P. Hunt (1811), and
Major Stephen H. Long (1819-20) also gave the world a picture of
the Western country. There were, too, papers of scientific comment, by
John Bradbury, the English botanist, and Thomas Nuttall, the famous
naturalist, both of whom accompanied Wilson P. Hunt's expedition.
In similar vein was A View of the Lead Mines of Missouri (1819), by
Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, geologist and ethnologist Henry M.
Brackenridge's "Journal of a Voyage up the Missouri River," as first
published in his Views of Louisiana (1814), is accurate and well writ-
140
LITERATURE 14!
ten, a classic of its kind. Washington Irving used it as a source in his
Astoria (1836).
So much for Missouri's pre-Umphraville literature. The men who
created it were primarily concerned with assembling data ; none of them
intended to vie with Albion. Yet from the facts themselves arose the
picturesque Western types, the colorful frontier idiom (which Eastern
critics found vulgar), and Western plots, either of heroic adventure, or
of the kind of humorous exaggeration known as "whopper stories."
Few writers could resist a language of the quality spoken by Isaac van
Bibber, Jr., a relative of the Boones, in his appeal at Loutre Lick for
volunteers for a Rocky Mountain expedition: "Who will join in the
march to the Rocky Mountains with me, a sort of high-pressure-double-
cylinder-go-it-ahead-forty-wildcats-tearin* sort of a feller? . . . Wake
up ye sleepy heads . . . Git out of this brick kiln . . . these mortality
turners and murder mills, where they render all the lard out of a feller
until he is too lean to sweat. Git out of this warming-pan, ye holly-
hocks, and go out to the West where you may be seen."
Alphonso Wetmore was the first writer to depict Missouri in terms
of the Missourian. During the early 1820'$, he was stationed as Army
Paymaster at Franklin, where his vignettes of frontier life appeared in
the Missouri Intelligencer under the pseudonym of "Aurora Borealis."
These include his interviews with Mike Shuckwell, the mountain trap-
per, who appeared in Franklin with his pet bear ; a satire on the Frank-
lin races; and other local items. His Gazetteer of the State of Mis-
souri (1837) consists of practical geographical data generously inter-
larded with sketches and anecdotes ^rid concluding with a series of short
stories. His heroes, Joe Jopling, Jonas Cutting, the comic Yankee
frontiersman, Mr. Gall Buster, and other fictitious backwoodsmen, are
a rough-and-ready lot with bear grease in their whiskers:
"Are you afraid of snakes, when walking barefooted near these
rocky points, where they may be rattlesnake dens?"
"No stranger/ 1 was the ready reply. "I generally steps over them."
"Are they numerous in this region of country?"
"There is a right smart sprinkle of snakes in these parts. I and
my brother-in-law went out snaking a few days ago, and we killed three
hundred and fifty rattlesnakes, and two yearlin 1 copperheads, and it
warn't a very good morning for snaking, neither."
"You would intimate then, that you get a better haul when the
weather is favorable?"
"Yes, we cords 'em up sometimes."
Among Wetmore's contemporaries were Gottfried Duden and,
Nathaniel Beverley Tucker, each of whom was heard far beyond the
borders of Missouri. Duden, a German scholar, lived in St. Charles
County, 1824-27. His Report (1829) describing the beauty of Mis-
1 42 MISSOURI
souri and its vast resources drew thousands of German Immigrants to
the State between i8jO and 1870 (see Tour I A}. Tucker, a Virginian
who came to Missouri in 1815, won acclaim with George Balcombe
(1836), a swift-moving story of frontier life. "George Balcombe"
wrote Edgar Allan Foe, "we are induced to regard upon the whole, as
the best American novel . . . its most distinguishing features are in-
vention, vigor, almost audacity, of thought."
Between 1818 and 1826, Tucker was judi^e of the northern circuit
of the Missouri Circuit Court. An ardent believer in States Rights,
his expressions on the political issues of the times were many and em-
phatic. The Partisan Leader, said to have been begun while he lived
at Florissant, Missouri, was published in 1836 at the behest of South-
erners who thought it would influence the presidential election of that
vean Bearing the fictitious date of 1856, this most widely read of
Tucker's works forecast events of the Civil War with uncanny ac-
curacy.
The lack of a public press had meanwhile been rectified. In 1837,
James Ruggles of St. Louis established The Western Mirror, and
Ladies Literary Gazette, edited by Mrs. H. A. Ruggles, probably the
first venture of" this kind in the Middle West; it appeared for 9 months.
The following year Wetmore and Charles Keemle established the Mis-
souri Saturday News, which in its brief life contained various "Original
Essays'* and "Selected Tales" by Missourians. In the Western Journal,
published in St. Louis (1848-56), appeared "The Life and Times of
George Rogers Clark" and other articles by Mann Butler, a resident
of St. Louis from about 1845 until his death 10 years later. Butler is
best known as a Kentucky historian. The Journal also published
articles on art appreciation, modern literature, and "The North Amer-
ican Indians" the last by J. Loughborough, of St. Louis. A greater
stimulus to Western literature, however, was Charles Keemle's Weekly
Reveille, published in St. Louis from 1844 to 1850. Sketches, stories,
and anecdotes of Western life appeared in it in rich profusion. Its
columns provided an outlet for the tall tales of John S. Robb and the
sketches of Joseph M. Field, whose "Death of Mike Fink" is recog-
nized as the definitive obituary to this semi-legendary keelboatman.
In 1846, Robb published A Sketch of Squatter Life, and Far West
Stories, which he dedicated to Charles Keemle, who had attracted him
to Western subjects. In his preface, Robb states that the West
"abounds in incident and humor. I have wondered why the finished
and graphic writers of our country, so seldom sought material from this
inviting field."
The success of these and other publications gave encouragement to
an increasing number of Missouri authors during the 20 years pre-
ceding the Civil War. During the Mexican War, John T. Hughes
LITERATURE I4J
recorded the story of his regiment in Doniphan's Expedition (1847)*
and Josiah Gregg told the tale of overland trade in his Commerce of
the Prairies (1844). Solomon Franklin Smith, early-day actor and
producer, recounted his amusing theatrical ventures in The Theatrical
Apprenticeship (1846), The Theatrical Journey-Work (1854), and
Theatrical Management in the West and South for Thirty Years
(1868). As a storekeeper in New Franklin and Arrow Rock in the
early 1830*5, John Beauchamp Jones gathered material for his Wild
Western Scenes (1841), which proved immensely popular. Despite its
sentimentality and its florid style, the book has deservedly won a place
as a minor frontier classic because of its broad humor, vigorous incident,
and excellent local color. Jones' The Western Merchant (1849) is a
record of his Missouri experiences. In the same central-Missouri
region David H. Coyner, a Virginia journalist, found material for The
Lost Trappers (1847), an account of an heroic journey through the
Far West, which has long been perhaps unjustly discredited. Father
de Smet (1801-73), of Belgium, who came to Missouri in 1823, estab-
lished missions among the Pottowatomie, the Sioux, the Blackfeet, and
other Indian tribes, his work taking him through the entire Northwest
and Gxeat Plains region. His writings, among the most interesting of
the frontier, include Letters and Sketches (1843), Residence Among
the Indians of the Rocky Mountains (1843), and Western Missions
and Missionaries (1857).
Jesse B. Turley, a Santa Fe trader and a friend and former Mis-
souri neighbor of Kit Carson, suggested to the famous hunter that he
write his life story. Carson, who was scarcely literate, dictated his
autobiography to Turley about 1856. Dr. DeWitt C. Peters edited the
manuscript, which appeared in 1858 as The Life of Kit Carson.
Among contributions of immigrant German scholars is A Journey to
the Rocky Mountains in the Year 1839, by F. A, Wislizenus, St. Louis
physician, which contains scientifically interesting reports of flora based
on the observations of Dr. George Englemann, who wrote The Gac~
taceae of the Boundary (1850) and helped found the Missouri Bo-
tanical Garden (see St. Louis).
Other Missouri writings of this period include the scholarly Life of
John Randolph of Roanoke (1850) and The Life of Thomas Jefferson
(1854), by Hugh A. Garland; the scandalous Mysteries of St. Louis
(1851), by Henry Boernstein, German author and journalist. Thirty
Years' View (2 vols., 1855-56), by Senator Thomas H. Benton, an
account of his political career, was widely read.
Louis R. Cortambert (i 808-81), who lived in St. Louis from the
1830*8 until the Civil War, is estimated by some critics to have been
the most talented French writer in the country. He was an advanced
political thinker, and an ardent disciple of Thoreau* From 1854 until
144 MISSOURI
about i86o s he edited the Revue de I' Quest, founded by the French
Literary Society of St. Louis, of which he was president. His books
include Voyage an Pays des sages (Paris, 1837), L'Histoire de la
Guerre Chile Americalne (Paris, 1867), and Religion du Progres
(New York, 1884)*
The Civil War reduced the literary output of Missourians to such
partisan items as My Cave Life in Vicksburg, with Letters of Trial and
Travel (1864), whose author, "A Lady of Quality," was Mrs. James
3VL Lough bo rough, a native St. Louisan and the wife of a Confederate
officer; and A Brief Narrative of Incidents in the War in Missouri
(1863), by the Reverend Henry M. Painter, a vitriolic attack on the
Union by a Presbyterian minister who had been "banished" to Boston
for his supposed pro-Southern activities in Boonville.
In the year the conflict ended, Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne
Clemens, 1835-1910), whose career as journeyman printer, steamboat
pilot, reporter, and assistant editor (see Newspapers, and Hannibal)
had taken him from Hannibal, Missouri, to St. Louis, New York, Phil-
adelphia, Keokuk, Cincinnati, and eventually Sacramento, published a
humorous tale, Jim Smiley and the Jumping Frog f in the "New York
Saturday Press, The war-worn public responded instantly to the
Westerner's wit: the story was reprinted throughout the country.
Twain's first book, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
and Other Sketches, appeared in 1867. Among his works dealing with
the West are Roughing It (1872), which describes his wanderings in
this region; Life on the Mississippi (1883), which harks back to his
steamboatin* days; and the classics, Tom Sawyer (1876) and Huckle-
berry Finn (1884), which have a Missouri and Mississippi Valley back-
ground,
Mark Twain's robust language came from the vitals of Western
life. American writers have found it easier to write of America since
his day. Passages like the following from Huckleberry Finn cleared the
way for the development of a fluid prose related to common speech and
plain people:
Once or twice of a night we could see a steamboat slipping along in the
dark, and now and then she would belch a whole world of sparks up out
of her chirnbleys, and they would rain down in the river and look awful
pretty; then she would turn a corner and her lights would wink out and
her powwow shut off and leave the river still again; and by and by her
waves would get to us, a long time after she was gone, and joggle the raft
a bit s anc ^ after that you couldn't hear nothing for you couldn't tell how
long, except maybe frogs or something.
The world of childhood is the especial sphere of Eugene Field, poet
and columnist, whose "Little Boy Blue' 1 and "Wynken, Blynken and
Nod" have endeared him wherever English is spoken. Born at St.
Louis in 1850, son of one of the lawyers who pleaded the case of Died
LITERATURE 145
Scott, Field was an eccentric fellow, fond of practical jokes and given
to whimsies of many kinds. He began his career on the St. Joseph
Gazette; later he worked in Missouri for the St. Louis Journal and the
Kansas City Times. From 1883 until his death in 1895, he wrote
"Sharps and Flats" for the Chicago Morning News, a column that set
the capstone on this branch of journalism.
Most of Field's verse was gauged to popular consumption, and was,
consequently, as ephemeral as last week's newspaper. Sentiment was his
main stock in trade, particularly the sentiment aroused by little "tykes."
To escape monotony, he resorted to Dutch, Old English, and other
dialects, a device that brought more penalties than rewards. His
books included A Little Book of Western Verse (1889), With Trum-
pet and Drum (1892), and A Second Book of Verse (1892).
American thought was appreciably influenced in the post-Civil War
period by the "St. Louis movement," an upsurge of philosophical activi-
ity created largely by Henry C. Brokmeyer (1828-1906) and William
Torrey Harris (1835-1909). Brokmeyer, a Prussian versed in Hege-
liamsm, came to Warren County, Missouri, in 1854, where, sickly and
impoverished, he lived until 1858. In that year, William T. Harris, of
Connecticut, who had begun teaching school at St. Louis in 1857,
brought the distressed philosopher to St. Louis. Here, his health im-
proved, Brokmeyer translated Hegel's Larger Logic and tutored Harris
in the German master's system.
In 1866, Harris and Brokmeyer organized the St. Louis Philosophi-
cal Society, with Brokmeyer as president. In the following year, Harris
established the Journal of Speculative Philosophy (1867-93), which
had as its motto: "Philosophy can bake no bread but it can give God,
Freedom, and Immortality." This publication was the first to introduce
American intellectuals to the important works of Hegel, Fichte, Schel-
ling, and other European thinkers. In turn, it was the outlet for the
first philosophical papers of William James, John Dewey, and Josiah
Royce.
Harris, although the author of 479 books, won his chief fame with
his annual reports as Superintendent of. the St. Louis Public Schools
(1868-80). In 1880, he moved to Concord, Massachusetts, to join the
group of Concord philosophers. He hoped to succeed Emerson as the
leader of the great idealistic movement, but in this he failed completely.
Chief among those identified with Harris and Brokmeyer in the St.
Louis movement were Adolph E. Kroeger, Denton J. Snider, Dr. Alex-
ander De Menil, George H. Howison, and J. Gabriel Woerner.
Kroeger (1837-82), German-born newspaperman who had come to
St. Louis in 1858 as corerspondent for the New York Times, wrote
prolifically for the Journal of Speculative Philosophy and translated
many works of the German philosophers. Snider (1841-1925), author,
146 MISSOURI
linguist, and lecturer, is perhaps best known for his ambitious "psycho-
logic" system, reared on a creaking Hegelian framework. A prodigious
worker, he also published commentaries on Dante, Homer, Goethe, and
Shakespeare. Dr. De Menil's important contributions include The
Literature of the Louisiana Purchase Territory (1904).
Among the many books by Missourians in the nineties were Bayou
Folk (1894), A Ni#ht in Acadie (1897), and The Awakening (1899),
3 novels of Creole life by Kate O'Flaherty Chopin (1851-1904) ; The
Columbian Historical Novels (12 vols., 1897), by John R. Musick
(1849-1901), a Kirksville lawyer who wrote 26 novels; and How
Thankful Was Bewitched (1894), a novel by Professor James K.
Hosmer (1834-1927) of Washington University, whose earlier works
included several historical studies and 3 biographies. Although com-
monly identified with Atchison, Kansas, E. W. Howe (1853-1937)
:*pent his boyhood in Gallatin ,* near-by Bethany was the prototype of the
Twin Mounds described in his Story of a County Town (1883).
In 1899, Winston Churchill, born at St. Louis in 1871, published
the extremely popular Richard Carvel, a story of the Revolutionary
War period* This novel, together with The Crisis (1901), and The
Crossing (1904), in which Churchill drew heavily on his Missouri
background, quickly made him the "foremost novelist of his day." The
Crisis sold 320,000 and Richard Carvel 420,000 copies within a few
months of publication.
William Marion Reedy (1862-1920), son of a St. Louis police cap-
tain, did much to stimulate Midwestern literature in the opening years
of the twentieth century. He first worked as a reporter on the Mis-
souri Republican , but finding the newspaper world too narrow, he
became a free-lance writer, contributing frequently to the Sunday
Mirror of St. Louis, then chiefly a society newspaper. The owner,
James Campbell^ became interested In Reedy, and in 1896 made him a
present of the paper, which, as Reedy's Mirror, became an intellectual
weekly of Nation-wide fame. Reedy was an excellent critic, with a
genius for finding and encouraging talented young authors. Indeed,
his present importance rests largely upon the tremendous influence he
exerted over the writers and thinkers of his time, although his own
literary ability may also prove lasting. His books include The Imitator
(1901), a novel, a group of essays. The Law of Lorn (1905), orig-
inally appearing m the Mirror, and A Golden Book and the Literature
of Childhood (1910). Buried in the 30 volumes of Reedy" '$ Mirror
are his articles, essays, and editorials, dealing with matters political, re-
ligious, social, ethical, artistic, and cultural. These range from quieter
critical comments to his "The Story of a Strike" (1901), in which he
indicted the incompetence and dishonesty of St. Louis politics with a
furious, terrible scorn.
LITERATURE 147
It was Reedy who advised Edgar Lee Masters to write his Spoon
River Anthology, which first appeared in the Mirror. It was he who,
through the Mirror, first popularized Galsworthy, Conrad, Cunning-
hame Graham, and the Sitwells in America. Among the young Amer-
ican hopefuls whom he encouraged were Zoe Akins, Orrick Johns,
Homer Croy, Sara Teasdale, John Gould Fletcher, John Hall Whee-
lock, and Fannie Hurst. The latter, born at St. Louis in 1889, is well
known for her short stories and novels, particularly Humoresque
(1918), Lummox (1923), and Back Street (1931). Johns, also of St.
Louis, wrote Asphalt and Other Poems (1917), and Black Branches
(1920) ; his prose includes Blindfold (1923) and Time of Our Lives
(1937). Croy, born on a farm near Maryville, Missouri, in 1883, is
a skilled interpreter of the Missouri rural scene. His earlier stories of
adolescent boys, Boone Stop (1918) and Turkey Bowman (1920), give
no hint of the realism employed in his widely read West of the Water
Tower (1923) and R.F.D. No. 3 (1924).
Sara Teasdale's (1884-1933) rise to prominence as a poet dated
from the publication in Reedy' s Mirror of her blank verse monologue,
"Gunevere," in 1907. Among her subsequent works are Helen of Troy
and Other Poems (1911), Rivers to the Sea (1915), Love Songs
(1917), and Flame and Shadow (1920). Zoe Akins, born at Humans-
ville in 1886, also published her early poetry in Reedy' $ Mirror. Inter-
pretations (London, 1911), her first volume of poems, included "I
Am the Wind," which has been set to music. Miss Akins later moved
to New York, where she became one of the country's foremost drama-
tists. Among her successful plays are Declassce, The Varying Shore,
The Greeks Had a Word for It, and The Old Maid, Pulitzer prize
winner in 1935.
This impressive list of contributors to Reedy's Mirror does not by
any means, however, include all of Missouri's early twentieth century
writers. The State had grown up ; the frontier was no more, and city
life had taken on a conventional pattern. The result was a literary
searching for new material and backgrounds. This freshness was
found in the Ozark region, where a rich vein of customs, dialects, and
folklore lay ready. John Monteith pioneered in the movement with his
novel, Parson Brooks (1884), which portrayed the Missouri hillman
with honesty and restraint. It remained, however, for Harold Bell
Wright to make the region the subject of best sellers. The heart-
throbs of Shepherd of the Hills (1907) and The Calling of Dan Mat-
thews (1909) were shared by millions. Wright's depiction of the hill
people has been criticized as superficial, but the dialect is more accurate
than is generally supposed.
Notable among contemporary writers associated with the Ozarks
is Vance Randolph, who lived at Pineville for ten years studying the
1 48 MISSOURI
hill people, their speech, manners, and work. To date, he has written
The Ozarks (1931), Ozark Mountain Folk (i93 2 )> From an Ozark
Holler (1933)1 and Camp on Wildcat Creek (1934)- Randolph also
aided Thames R. Williamson in gathering material for The Wood's
Colt (1933)) a swift-paced tragedy which is authentic in spirit and
idiom. Among others who have employed an Ozark milieu are Ralph
McCanse of Springfield, whose long narrative poem, The Road to
Hollister (1927), protests against the ludicrous way the hillbilly is
sometimes treated; Dennis Murphy, who won the poetry award of
Kaleldescope in 1928 with The Boy With the Silver Plow; and Mac-
Kinlay Kantor, whose novel, The Voice of Bugle Ann (i935)> gi y es
an accurate picture of Missouri fox hunting. Rose Wilder Lane, the
novelist^ has lived in Mansfield since 1920. Her contributions to
Ozarkana include short stories, and e the novels, Hill Billy (1926),
Cindy (1928), and He Was A Man (1925).
Rupert Hughes, the popular novelist, short story writer, and music
critkj was born at Lancaster in 1872. Among his stories with a Mis-
souri setting are The Whirlwind (1902) and You Hadn't Ought to
Go (1920). John G. Neihardt, a Missourian by adoption, and now a
resident of Branson, holds a secure place in American poetry with The
Song of Hugh Glass (1915), The Song of Three Friends (1919), an
epic of Mike Fink the keelboatman, and The Song of the Indian Wars
(1925). Casper S. Yost, editorial writer for the St. Louis Globe-
Democrat^ is the author of A Successful Husband (1907), Patience
Worth (1916), and other books. Raymond Weeks (1868- ), also
a Missourian by adoption, draws upon the background of the Missouri
River "Dixie belt" for his short stories. In his The Boys' Own Arith-
metic (1924) the problems are stated in the form of entertaining
sketches. Despite his comment that few would read his The Hound-
Tuner of Callaway (1926), because it contains no duels, broncos, wild-
cats, or typhoons, the book has attracted considerable attention. In
spirit, Weeks belongs to the frontier, with his quiet, incisive humor, his
tall stories, and his never-ending delight in the world and the people
about him.
Several modern writers are identified with Missouri by birth rather
than by product. Of these the most famous perhaps, though in widely
separated fields, are T. S. Eliot, Dale Carnegie, and Courtney Riley
Cooper. T, S. Eliot, born at St. Louis in 1888, the grandson of the
founder of Washington University, has lived in England for many years.
His long poem, The Waste Land, won the Dial prize in 1922 and ex-
cited international comment. His critical essays and his editorship of
The Criterion, London, have had a profound effect upon contemporary
literary values. He has also written several verse plays. Dale Carnegie,
more properly a lecturer than a writer, was born in Nodaway County
LITERATURE 149
and attended school at Warrensburg. His How to Win Friends and
Influence People is the Gone With the Wind of self -improvement
literature. Courtney Riley Cooper, a Kansas Citian, wrote many popu-
lar novels and short stories.
Most of Missouri's younger writers are earnest craftsmen whose
narratives tend toward the social document, a trend almost world-wide
at the present time. Representative of v this group are Jack Conroy,
Martha E. Gellhorn, Josephine Johnson, and Elizabeth Seifert. Con-
roy makes a profoundly stirring case for the underdog in The Disin-
herited (1933) an( i d World to Win (1935). The life of the pro-
fessional man, rather than that of the laborer, is the preferred domain
of Mrs. John Gasparotti (Elizabeth Seifert), who, like Conroy, is a
native of Moberly. Young Doctor Galahad (1938), her first novel,
won a $10,000 prize offered by Dodd, Mead & Company; she is also
the author of A Great Day ( 1939) and Thus Doctor Mallory ( 1940).
Martha E. Gellhorn evidences her social-mindedness in What Mad
Pursuit (1934), The Trouble I've Seen (1936), and A Stricken Field
(1940), a novel of horror laid in Czechoslovakia. Josephine Johnson's
Now in November, a story of farm folk stretched on the economic rack,
won the Pulitzer prize in 1935. She later published Winter Orchard
( I 935)> a book of sketches and short stories, Jordanstown (1937), a
disturbing picture of social conflict, and 'Years End (1937), a collec-
tion of poems.
Among other Missouri writers of the present day are Kansas Citians
Louise Abney, Paul I. Wellman, and Henry Haskell. The works of
veterans Carl Crow, George Creel, Glenn Frank, Temple Bailey, Mary
Margaret McBride, and Rose O'Neill have enjoyed a wide circulation.
Most promising of the younger writers as a portrayer of the Missouri
scene is Ward Allison Dorrance of Columbia, whose fine prose style and
sympathetic understanding of the Missouri background have attracted
attention in Three Ozark Streams (1937), Were From Missouri
(1938), and Where the Rivers Meet (1939).
The Theater
MISSOURI'S theater had its beginning in efforts to relieve the
tedium of frontier life. In 1814, the entertainment-starved
settlers of St. Louis flocked to watch the self-styled magician,
Eugene Leitensdorfcr, erstwhile soldier of fortune, spy, bird-catcher,
Capuchin monk, Jewish rabbi, and Mohammedan dervish, who was at
that time making a tour of the West. After him came Brown's Mam-
moth Circus for a week's stay, with its weary, bedraggled performers
and moth-eaten animals. These were a far cry from the drama, but
they were enough to whet the appetite, and to encourage the organiza-
tion of an amateur dramatic club,
On the night of January 6, 1815, a heterogeneous group, such as
could scarcely have been gathered outside the frontier, sat on the hard
benches of the first St. Louis theater, an old building which had served
as blacksmith shop, a church, and a courthouse. In the candlelight
flickering upon the improvised stage, they watched Missouri's first
theatrical productions: The School for Authors and The Budget of
Blunders, played by a "group of St. Louis young gentlemen," the Ros-
cians. Within the year, a rival society, the Thespians, was flourishing.
Both groups used the old building, christened "The Theatre" by the
Thespians. The Roscians were not long important, but for almost 2O
years the Thespians functioned, sporadically it is true, but none the less
effectually* They staged plays, and fostered appearances by traveling
companies, combining, with true frontier versatility, the functions of
drama league, little theater, booking agent, and impresario. In their
theater was played what was probably the first professional engagement
in Missouri : the performance of William Turner and his wife, Sophia,
February 17, 1818, in Isabella, or The Fatal Marriage.
In 1819, the drama in St. Louis was emancipated from the old
blacksmith shop with the opening of the New Theater, a frame build-
ing seating 600, designed by Isaac H. Griffith. At this time, three per-
sons prominent in the history of the Midwestern theater became identi-
fied with the Missouri stage Noah M. Ludlow, Samuel Drake, and
John H. Vos. These men carried on the struggle begun by the Thes-
pians. Vos was a house painter "of good education" who came with
his wife from Kentucky to St. Louis in 1818. He shortly became in-
terested in the theatrical life of the city, and joined forces with the
Turners. It was under his management that the New Theater was
150
THE THEATER 151
opened. All was not smooth sailing, however. In January, 1820, Vos
was in such reduced circumstances that the Thespians sponsored a
benefit performance for him, which included "the much-admired petit
comedy called The Jew and the Doctor* and the "laughable farce of
The Toothache" Ludlow was a native New Yorker who, in the
course of a varied career, had joined in the East the theatrical company
of "Old Sam" Drake, with whom he toured Tennessee and Kentucky-
After leaving Drake's company, he entered Into correspondence with
Vos, and organized a company of his own, which he brought from Ten~
nessee to St. Louis by packet in 1820. Within a few days, he and Vos
^struck up a partneiship, and took over the New Theater, where they
began with Mrs. Centlivre's The Busy Body, and O'Keefe's musical
iarce, The Poor Soldier, followed by The Castle Spectre, and The
Rival Soldiers.
At the same time, Drake, possibly unaware of Ludlow's activities,
brought his three sons, two daughters, and five assistants, all of whom
were experienced actors, to St. Louis by steamboat from Louisville.
Ignoring Ludlow and Vos, he presented his own bill in the ballroom of
Bennett's City Hotel, there being no second theater. The "Kentucky
Company," as Drake's troupe was called, offered a variety of plays;
The Jealous Wife, The Adopted Child, The Secrets of Milford Castle.
Thus St. Louis, long starved for entertainment, found itself suddenly
with a superfluity. The little town being unable to support two
theaters, the rivals were forced. to combine, under Drake's management.
The joint company did not prosper, however, despite favorable press
notices. Since Drake, Ludlow, Vos, and most of their families were
actors, quarrels arose over casting; in addition, the weather was unsea-
sonable, and times were hard. At the end of the season the company
gave up. Ludlow subsequently attempted to play the near-by towns,
but this venture also failed. At St. Charles, where the house grossed
$7.50, the audience complained of his charging a price as high as that
of a recent vaudeville act, which included both a monkey and a tight-
rope walker ! Ludlow returned to Nashville, and St. Louis returned to
amateur entertainment.
The Thespians carried on in the New Theater until 1825, after the
demise of the professional companies. In that year they equipped an
old salt warehouse, and christened it the Old Salt House Theater.
Two years later, James H. Caldwell of New Orleans leased this theater,
and advertised performances daily except Sunday, a program much too
ambitious for the times. The theater closed after a few weeks; but
\ brief as it was, CaldwelPs venture is important in Missouri's stage his-
Wy, for he inaugurated the practice of featuring individual actors.
It might be interesting to examine for a moment the frontier taste
in theatrical entertainment. Farce seems to have been most popular,
152 MISSOURI
with melodrama a close second; in 1828, a critic complained in the press
that melodrama was driving comedy from the stage. Shakespeare seems
to have been a perennial favorite. Tableaux of all kinds met with
enthusiastic acclaim. Visiting celebrities received due welcome. In-
deed, when the famous Viennese dancer, Fanny Elssler, came to St.
Louis on her grand tour of the United States in 1841, one writer
sneered that "nothing but Fanny Elssler's legs" would draw a house.
The scenery for those early productions was extremely crude; most
often it was made by some actor in the company. Lighting was even
cruder, oil lamps or candles being the only means of illumination. The
theaters were unheated, small, and poorly ventilated, and the benches
were hard.
Inevitably, an interest in the theater developed an interest in play-
writing. Would-be authors became so numerous that managers took
refuge behind committees appointed to pass on manuscripts. Most of
the contemporary plays produced were "literary," and heavy with moral
sentiment. The infrequent plays based on frontier life generally failed.
Among the earliest of successful plays by Missouri authors was The
Pedlar, a farce of doubtful literary merit but rich in local color, by
Alphonso Wetmore, an Army paymaster (see Literature]. The story
centered about a Yankee peddler, Nutmeg, whose pack would have
shamed a modern five-and-ten-cent store, and his successful wooing of
Old Prairie's "nut brown" niece, Pecanne. The following is from
Act I, Scene I:
NUTMEG: My sweet little mermaid, what have you there?
PECANNE: Stockings; do you wish to buy them?
NUTMEG: Yes, my dear little wood-nymph, if you will take merchandise.
PECANNE: What have you? O! (a lantern) by the powers of love, the
very thing my Uncle is in want of. 1*11 give you this whole
bundle for it.
NUTMEG: Here, take it; and this cup, and a kiss to boot. (Kisses her.)
PECANNE: What a sweet breath! He don't chew tobacco, I'm sure.
(aside)
Religious opposition to the theater began early and continued
vigorously in Missouri. In a letter written in 1816, Bishop Flaget
opposed St. Louis as the seat of the new diocese because the city had a
theater. In 1851, the Reverend William Greenleaf Eliot, the liberal
Unitarian who founded Washington University, condemned attendance
at the theater as unduly exciting and therefore bad for youth.
The theater, however, became increasingly popular. Gradually, the
early amateur groups were replaced by professional organizations.
Ludlow returned to St. Louis for several engagements, and eventually
raised by subscription $30,000 for a theater building in the city. Soon
after, he formed a partnership with Sol Smith, an experienced comedian
and manager of itinerant troupes, who had come to St. Louis from the
THE THEATER 153
East. This partnership dominated the Missouri theater for the next
1 6 years, and also operated theaters in Mobile and New Orleans.
They took over the Old Salt House Theater, although Ludlow
pronounced it "a miserable apology for a theater," and a "wretched
affair, dirty, illy contrived, and poorly provided with scenery." Con-
struction had begun on the new building, when the Old Salt House
burned down, leaving the partners without a theater. The new struc-
ture was consequently rushed to completion, and the New St. Louis
Theater, on the southeast corner of Third and Olive Streets, was dedi-
cated with appropriate ceremonies on July 3, 1837, Ludlow presenting
his stand-by, The Honeymoon. Said by some authorities to have been
the first theater in the country with individual seats in place of benches,
the New St. Louis was hailed as the outstanding playhouse of the
West.
Eastern road companies had begun to tour a Western circuit bring-
ing world-renowned stars of the day. Because St. Louis was known as
"a good show town," the leading artists came here: Ellen Tree from
England, in 1838-39; Jenny Lind, under the management of P, T.
Barnum; Mile. Celeste, so popular that seats were sold by lottery.
The theater of Ludlow and Smith exemplified the strange mixture
of the elegant and primitive prevailing in mid-nineteenth-century Mis-
souri. When Ellen Tree came for a second engagement, with her
husband, Charles John Kean, a performance of Romeo and Juliet had to
be stopped while the hero and heroine solemnly swabbed the oil lamps.
Lesser players had to be extremely versatile. An applicant for a $30-
a-week job as a scene painter remarked that he had heard the firm
spoken well of, "a rare thing with managers, nowadays," and presented
as an extra inducement to being hired the fact that he played character
parts harlequin, monkey, wild man, old man, and Indian. Yet,
despite its crudities, the theater prospered. When Junius Brutus Booth
played an engagement in 1846, he preferred a one-third share of the
receipts to a guarantee of $100 a night and a third of the receipts on
the customary last night benefit. Incidentally, he drew a sharp public
reproof for appearing on the stage intoxicated on his opening night.
In 1851, John Bates opened a theater in St. Louis, ending the
Ludlow-Smith monopoly. The next year, the St. Louis Varieties Thea-
ter opened. Both shortly passed into the hands of Ben DeBar, a
protege and successor of Ludlow and Smith.
Meanwhile in the smaller communities throughout the State, such
as Jefferson City, where the only professional drama was an occasional
visit by a traveling company, amateur theatrical groups were being de-
wloped. Palmyra organized a Thespian Society in 1836; it flourished
Until 1842 or 1843, when the theater was converted into a packing
fouse. In Boonville a Thespian Society, organized about 1838,
154 MISSOURI
brought the versatile Mrs. Riley to its log theater. Nineteen years
later, it erected the large, white-columned Greek-Revival Thespian
Hall, now said to be the oldest surviving theater building west of the
Alleghenies. Liberty, Columbia, Lexington, and Hermann had early
theaters. The Thespian Society at St. Joseph performed the comedy,
The Prisoner at Large, in 1845, the year of the town's incorporation.
In 1854, two German residents of Hermann lugged scenery and cos-
tumes from their own theater across the hills to near-by Washington,
where they organized the Theaterverein.
One of the most colorful developments in the history of the Western
theater was the showboat. At first, these boats offered only vaudeville
or circus entertainment, but their repertoire soon included popular melo-
dramas. When the steam calliope which signaled the approach of a
showboat was heard, all the town gathered on the water front. The
showboat would tie up at the wharf with banners flying; then, members
of the cast, a band, and often the crew would parade to advertise the
play. The popularity of the showboat continued until well after the
Civil War. When the Floating Palace came to St. Louis in 1852,
2,500 crowded aboard, and many paid a dollar to watch the perfor-
mance through the windows. Even the decline of water traffic did not
spoil the showboat business. Fourteen showboats were in operation
as late as 1925, and at least one appeared at St. Louis in 1937. The
Goldenrodj no longer plying the rivers, remains at St. Louis the year
around, offering the melodramas popular since Victorian days.
In Kansas City, the only early showhouse was Frank's Hall, still
standing at the northwest corner of Fifth and Main Streets. In
1871, Colonel Kersey Coates opened the $105,000 Coates Opera House.
This was the finest theater west of the Mississippi River, until the
Tootle Grand Theater was built a few years later at St. Joseph. Road
shows extended their itinerary to include Kansas City and St. Joseph,
bringing such players as Edwin Booth, Lawrence Barrett, Emma
Abbott, and Mary Anderson. Amateur and professional dramatics
flourished simultaneously in Kansas City. The Kemble Club, an
amateur group, staged several plays, and the more ambitious Lawrence
Barrett Dramatic Club produced Richard III, Ro?neo and Juliet,
Twelfth Night, and Julius Caesar. In 1883, the Gillis Theater and the
Music Hall opened, and in the next two decades ten more professional
theaters appeared. Joseph Jefferson, Sarah Bernhardt, Mrs. John
Drew, and Fay Templeton appeared at the Gillis, but as the center of
Kansas City shifted, the theater descended to a second-class musical
tab-show house. It was rebuilt after a fire and explosion in 1923, and
now is given over, between vice crusades, to burlesque.
In Joplin, at the one-story frame theater that preceded the Black-
well Opera House, a miner without the cash price of admission could
THE TH EATER 155
exchange a wheelbarrow load of lead ore at the box office for tickets for
himself and family. Springfield and other secondary cities built theaters
that were almost luxurious; smaller towns had "opera houses" which,
despite the splendor of their names, were often simply second-floor rooms
equipped with a stage,
The post-Civil War period was the golden age of the professional
stage, which saw the erection of half a dozen theaters at St. Louis and
the transformation of Uhrig's Cave, on the site of the present Coliseum,
from a beer storage house to the city's first summer concert garden.
Theater attendance became almost as customary as attendance at to-
day's motion pictures. In the cities, stock companies stayed for a season,
charging 10, 20, and ^o cents for admission; lesser companies toured
the small-town opera houses, and after the turn of the century the
summer "airdome" theaters.
This period of great theatrical interest produced Missouri's out-
standing early playwright, Augustus Thomas. Born in St. Louis in
1857, Thomas first earned his living as a newspaper reporter, and then
became identified with the McCullough Club, an amateur dramatic
group in St. Louis. In 1888 he went to New York to become press
agent for Julia Marlowe. His first play, The Burglar, was completed
the following year. In Mizzoura, which appeared in 1893, was his
most successful work. His plays were well constructed, and were im-
portant in their day because they helped to free the American stage
from European domination.
Now that showboats seldom visit the river ports, tent shows provide
entertainment for the small towns. Representative is the Princess Stock
Company, which has made a regular Missouri circuit for more than 35
years, presenting old and new plays with equal sincerity, principally to
"family" audiences. The traditional music and entertainment between
acts, the candy with prizes, the "diamond ring given away free on
Saturday nights," and the friendly banter of "Toby," a favorite in the
towns he has visited for more than a generation, all add flavor to these
performances.
With the development of motion pictures, legitimate theaters in
Missouri grew dark, as elsewhere; at present, St. Louis and Kansas
City have but one each. Most of the old theater buildings have become
motion picture houses. A few, like the Gillis at Kansas City, and the
Garrick, which was built at St. Louis for the World's Fair crowds of
1904, have switched to burlesque, Since 1919, St. Louis has had 3
successful annual summer season of light opera in the outdoor Munici-
pal Theater in Forest Park (see St. Louis) ; and in very recent years,
the Playgoers has built up a subscription list large enough to make St.
JLouis a profitable show town for the big New York and Chicago com-
156 MISSOURI
panics. Aside from these, Missouri's drama has returned largely into
the hands of amateurs.
In the summer of 1912, members of the St. Louis Artists Guild
founded The Players, a writing and acting group. Its best-known
member has been Zoe Akins, who wrote several of its first plays. In
Kansas City, 2 years later, 50 persons prominent in the social life of
the city organized the Comedy Club, chiefly for their own amusement.
These groups have stimulated or sponsored numerous amateur organ-
izations, which today present plays of professional caliber in both cities,
as well as "little" theaters in a number of Missouri's secondary cities.
At Kansas City following the World War, two amateur theatrical
groups, the Harlequin Players and the Little Theater, were formed,
the latter eventually merging with the Comedy Club. Later came the
Blackfriars and the Provincials, chiefly interested in presenting plays by
Missouri or Middle Western writers. The Provincials are still active.
The vigorous Civic Theater and the Children's Civic Theater were
followed by the Resident Theater, which produces Broadway successes
with professional guest stars.
At St. Louis, the success of The Players prompted the growth of an
organization separate from the Artists' Guild. The result was The
Little Theater, established in 1926, which strives to develop new
talent and to bring a wide range of plays to its stage. It offers an
annual prize of $250 for the best original play submitted. Another
amateur group, the Mummers, organized in 1927, has established a,
reputation with a variety of plays from Greek ^tragedy to Sinclair
Lewis. Thyrsus, a Washington University organization, forgetful of
Founder Eliot's anti-theater pronouncements of 1851, gives both student
and professional plays. Another Washington group, the Quadrangle
Club, sponsors an annual musical comedy in which the book, the music,
and the production are by students. Such people as Fannie Hurst, Gus
Haenchen, Morris Carnovsky, and Melville Burke have been active in
these clubs. A dozen other "little theater" enterprises have come into
being in recent years. In the St. Louis Outdoor Civic Theater, organ-
ized in 1938, St. Louis actors perform on a profit-sharing basis.
Drama has become part of college curriculums. A new Washington
University course, co-operating with the St. Louis School of the Theater,
leads to a Bachelor of Science degree in education, with a major in
dramatics. The Missouri Workshop, of the University of ^Missouri,
presents plays in which much of the casting, staging, and directing is
done by the students. Stephens College, also at Columbia, in 1937 en-
gaged Miss Maude Adams as professor of the drama. Several teachers'
colleges, besides maintaining student theatrical organizations, have car-
ried their work nearer to the people through folk festivals. Actors from
this and other States gather at Cape Girardeau each spring, to present
THE THEATER 157
plays written by high school and college students in an annual contest
conducted by the Southeastern Missouri State Teachers College. In
1934, the first National Folk Festival was held in St. Louis, directed by
Sarah Gertrude Knott. An annual Ozark Folk Festival brings together
many Missouri groups.
lit the same category are the pageants staged for various town anni-
versaries and similat occasions. Probably the best known of these is
the Veiled Prophet celebration in St. Louis, which has been held early
each October since 1878. The celebration begins with a parade of
elaborate floats expressing some chosen theme, and this is followed by
dancing and street revels. The culmination of the celebration is a
formal ball at which His Mysterious Majesty, the Veiled Prophet,
picks with pomp and ceremony a Queen of Love and Beauty to reign,
over St. Louis social life for the coming season. One of the most
pretentious pageants ever given in Missouri was the Pageant and
Masque of St. Louis, presented in 1914, for which Thomas Wood
Stevens wrote the pageant, and Percy Mackaye the masque. In 1921,
the centenary of statehood afforded an opportunity for a spectacular
celebration at Sedalia, produced on a 6oo-foot stage at the State Fair.
In 1935, Ste. Genevieve held a bicentennial pageant lasting 4 nights.
and attracting an estimated 35,000 out-of-town visitors.
Numerous Missouri players have established national reputations on
stage and screen. ^These include Sol Smith Russel, born in Brunswick;
Mrs? Louis James and Mary Hall, who played Shakespeare; and
Robert T. Haines, once Mrs. Fiske's leading man. Nettie Gallagher
became leading lady for David Warfield and later for Otis Skinner.
Among other stage and screen celebrities whom Missouri claims by
either birth or residence are Wallace and Noah Beery, William Powell,
Walt Disney, Buddy Rogers, Ellen Drew, Jean Harlow, Jeanne Eagels,
Ginger Rogers, Grace Hopkins, who for several seasons was leading
woman for Thomas W. Keene, and Stanislaus Stange, a dramatist and
librettist as well as an actor.
Music
THE songs of the French voyageurs were the first civilized music
heard in Missouri. As these adventurers pushed their canoes
up uncharted Western streams in the eighteenth century, they
timed their paddle strokes to the ringing "Chanson du Nord," or to
ballads such as the one recorded later by John Bradbury, English
botanist, which began:
Beyond our house there is a. pond,
Fal lal de la,
There came three ducks to swim thereon;
All along the river clear,
Lightly my shepherdess dear,
Lightly, fal de la.
By 1780, a local event, the repelling by the French of a combined
British and Indian attack on St. Louis, had been commemorated in the
song "Chanson de L'Annee du coup," said to have been written by
Jean Baptiste Trudeau, a St. Louis schoolmaster. Celebrating the
traditional courage of all defenders,
When the enemy first appeared,
To arms we ran, no one af eared;
Townsmen, traders, grave and gay,
Bravely to battle and win the day,
the song unjustly accuses of cowardice Fernando de Leyba, Spanish
acting lieutenant-governor of Upper Louisiana, and ends on a jubilant
note of French victory.
Thomas Ashe, visiting the Creole settlement at Ste. Genevieve on
a summer's evening in 1806, found the inhabitants gathered about their
dooryards, "the women at work, the children at play, and the men
performing music, singing songs, or telling stories . . ." Between
numerous special occasions for group festivities, such as balls and holy
or feast days, the music-loving Creoles gathered night after night for
the pure joy of singing together. They sang of the tragedy of a mother
who unknowingly murdered her son in "Le Retour Funeste"; of the
trials of love in "L'Amant Malheureux" and "Belle Rose"; and of a
more reflective theme in "Le Juif Errant." Of all these old French
songs, perhaps the most familiar today is the ancient "La Guignolee,"
still sung by masked revelers on New Year's Eve at Ste. Genevieve and
Old Mines. The Creoles contributed little to the development of
158
MUSIC 159
modern music, but they had a great influence on the cultural history of
the State.
When the Anglo-Americans surged across the Mississippi River
after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, French melodies were engulfed
in the musical literature of the American frontiersman, which, though
essentially naive, encompassed the range of human emotions. Typical
early songs are "Lord Thomas and Fair Annet," a variation of an
English seventeenth-century ballad, the tragedy of hard-hearted "Bar-
bara Allen," and "The Three Butchers," a story of female treachery
concluding:
She wrung her hands and tore her hair
And hung her head and cried,
"If I'd a-knowed it was Johnson,
Before I'd a-did it I'd a died."
The folk mind of the pioneer bred new songs on new subjects,
preserving in the old ballad form the memories of Fourth of July
celebrations, of political campaigns, and of other significant events.
The trials of "Joe Bowers frorn Pike" (see Tour 7 a} caught the tempo
of the California gold rush decade, and introduced a new type of Amer-
ican literature. An unknown Howard County Negro summed up the
conflicts of the Civil War in these lines :
God Bless the whole kepoodle
Hail Columbia Yankee Doodle
We're fightin' for the happy land of Canaan.
The ballad, "Jesse James," with its famous ending,
O Jesse had a wife, a mourner all her life
And the children they were brave,
But the dirty little coward that shot Mr, Howard
He laid Jesse James in his grave,
was a folk tribute to a character whose career expressed the trying
post-Civil War era. Similarly, the famous "Frankie and Johnny," with
its endless accretions and variations, reflects with genuine pathos some
of the qualities of urban living. More recently (1912), "Houn* Dog"
swept the country during Champ Clark's campaign.
These songs of earlier times, and of men who have become folk-lore
characters, are still sung in Missouri. One hears them frequently in
the fastness of the Ozarks and in quiet towns along the Missouri River.
"Fiddling" is no longer as common as it was, and the influence of the
radio and the talking movie is increasingly apparent, but young people
at parties, on hay rides, and about the fire at the end of a 'possum hunt,
will drift from modern tunes into such old songs as "The Oxford
Girl," "Maxwell's Doom," and "The Three Rogues," How long the
ld music will survive in memory it is impossible to estimate; some
l6o MISSOURI
observers feel that another generation will see its end. Many of the
old folk songs have been collected by the Missouri Folk-Lore Society
and appear in Ballads and Songs (1940), edited by H. M. Belden.
The group singing of hymns, many from the Sacred Heart, a popu-
lar early hymnal, is still common in Missouri. The custom is most
extensively preserved in the Ozarfc Highlands, where "singings" are
held in the small white churches on the hillsides. Often the groups
are organized into "schools/' which meet regularly for all-day singings
under the direction of a leader who, like the old circuit rider, travels
from community to community, instructing the younger generation in
the basic fundamentals of tone length, pitch, and tone shape. The
Christian Harmony Singing School Is an example of this type of musical
expression. It was organized in 1858, and each October holds an all-
day singing at the Mount Hermon Church in Dent County. As
popular as the singings are the "sociables," at which fiddlers' contests
are often held and singing games played (see Folklore and Folkways).
Very early in Missouri's history as a State, in trade centers such as
St. Louis and St. Charles, and, later, Fayette, Lexington, and Liberty,
there were families who had brought to their new homes the traditions
of cultivated music. In 1818, A. C. van Hirtum "late from Amster-
dam, Organ Factor and Professor of Music on the piano-forte/' adver-
tised classes at St. Louis, where a short time later Mme. Marie Victoirc
Adelaide Le Masurier de Perdreauville, formerly lady-in-waiting to
Marie Antoinette, opened an academy for young ladies, offering lessons
in both vocal and instrumental music. Early newspapers carried occa-
sional notices of concerts; music became a standard subject in female
schools; two individuals in the St. Louis Directory of 1821 were listed
as musicians. Not until the 1830*8, however, when German ^immigra-
tion into Missouri increased, did an interest in formal music become
general. Among the German farmers, tradesmen, and artisans who
settled in the State was a gifted group of German intellectuals. Notable
among these were Johann Weber, former Court Councilor of Coblenz,
William Robyn, and Charles Balmer, each of whom^made a distinctive
contribution to the development of music in Missouri.
Johann Weber arrived in St. Louis in 1834, bringing with him a
rich library of the compositions, many with full orchestral scores, of
Bach, Beethoven, Gluck, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Palestrina, Pergolesj,
and others. Through his enthusiasm and that of other members of his
talented family, the St. Louis Sacred Music Society was organized.
Meanwhile William Robyn, through his friendship with Wilson Primm,
conservator of French traditions in St. Louis and an amateur musician,
had become teacher of music at St. Louis University. Robyn organized
and trained the St. Louis Brass Band, and later served as conductor of
the St. Louis Musical Society Polyhymnia. Charles Balmer came to
MUSIC 161
St. Louis as accompanist to Madame Caradori-Allan, the celebrated
singer. A more prolific composer than either Weber or Robyn, Balmerp
in partnership with C. Henry Weber, opened a music store and music
publishing house (1848), which became one of the largest in the West.
Through this firm new compositions, many of them by Missourians,
were made available to the public.
The organizations formed by these and other men between 1830 and
1840 may be properly regarded as the ancestors of the St. Louis Sym-
phony Orchestra, though the line of succession is devious. By 1839, as
a result of the awakened interest in music, the J. C. Dinnies Company
of St. Louis was able to advertise for sale Italian, German, and French
violins, clarinets, trombones, bassoons, guitars, triangles, bass viols,
trumpets, various types of flutes, flageolets, fifes, bass and snare drums*
and "pianofortes from the most celebrated manufacturers." Gradually,
under the patronage of the church, the theater, and the schools, various
choral societies and instrumental music groups sprang up. By 1880,
however, St. Louis* musical population had centered its diffused interest
in the St. Louis Choral Society, parent organization of the St. Louis
Symphony Society. Second oldest in the United States, the St. Louis
Symphony Orchestra has in recent years ranked among the best in the
country. Its directors have included among others Alfred Ernst, Max
Zach, Rudolph Ganz, and, since 1931, Vladimir Golschmann.
The history of the Kansas City Philharmonic Orchestra follows a
similar pattern. Around the time of the Civil War, musical interest in
Kansas City was stimulated by the work of Frederick Schattner and
Philip Johns, musicians from the group of German intellectuals who
played so vital a role in all Missouri's cultural history. The work of
these men, however, resulted in no lasting organization. Attempts in
the early 1890*5 to establish a symphony orchestra and a string quartet
also were unsuccessful. Not until 1932, when the Co-operative Orches-
tra was organized, did the efforts of Kansas City music lovers achieve
any lasting results. The following year the Co-operative Orchestra
became the Kansas City Philharmonic, with Karl Kreuger as director.
Many other towns and cities in Missouri, such as Jefferson City
and Fulton, have little symphonies organizations whose members re-
ceive no pay. Of these the Sedalia Little Symphony, organized in 1935
and directed by Abe Rosenthal, is outstanding.
Opera and musical comedy have always been warmly received in
Missouri. The appearance of Mrs. Rowe's "Grand Melodramatic
Opera of Guy Mannering" in 1828, and the occasional presentation of
such works as Auber's Masaniello and Weber's Der Freischiitz created
an early enthusiasm for this musical form. During the 1850*3, the old
Varieties Theater in St. Louis held several amazingly successful opera
seasons. Arditi, whose "Kiss Waltz'* was composed in St. Louis, Brig-
1 62 MISSOURI
noli, the Italian tenor, and numerous other stars and companies kept
alive this early enthusiasm until 1919, when the St. Louis ^Municipal
Opera was established. Since its opening, this famous institution has
had audiences aggregating more than 10,000,000 persons (see St.
Louis). A Grand Opera Association, organized in St. Louis in April,
1939, is underwritten to present opera on a non-profit basis. The Civic
Music League each year brings to St. Louis a series of well-known
concert artists, dancers, and musicians.
The works of Missouri composers appeal to a wide range of musical
tastes. Compositions and compilations of songs appeared as early as
1821, when Allen D. Garden's Missouri Harmony or a Choice Collec*
tion of Psalm Tunes, Hymns and Anthems was published in Cincinnati.
A number of schottisches, marches, polkas, waltzes and galops, often
with local dedications, appeared all through the 1850*3. Representative
of these are "The St. Louis Gray's Quickstep," the "Missouri Grand
March," the "Missouri Belle Polka, inscribed to the Young Ladies of
Christian College," and an ambitious suite, the "Belles of Missouri
Quadrilles."
Among the first Missouri composers to win general recognition was
Carl Valentine Lachmund, born in Boonville in 1857, who studied
under Moszkowski and Liszt, and was the only American pupil for
whom Liszt wrote a recommendation. In New York, Lachmund be-
came a concert pianist, conductor, teacher, and composer, being best
remembered perhaps for his "Japanese Overture," Other Missouri
composers include Robert Goldbeck, protege of Alexander von Hum-
boldt; Jessie Love Smith Gaynor, known for her compositions for
children; Dorothy Gaynor Blake, her daughter; and Constance Owen
Faunt Le Roy Runcie, granddaughter of Robert Owen and versatile
composer of songs, chamber music, and symphonic compositions."^
Another group has written music inspired by literary masterpieces.
Samuel Bellinger based his dramatic overture, "Pompilia and Capon-
sacchi," on Browning's Ring and the Book; Richard S. Poppen received
favorable notice for his opera, Robin Hood; Ernest Richard jKroeger
has written overtures based on "Sardanapalus," "Endymion," "Thana-
topsis," "Atala," and Thomas Moore's "Lalla Rookh," and has also
composed "Ten American Sketches," in which he portrays the char-
acter of the American Negro and Indian, and gives impressions of
mountain and prairie life. Carl Busch, long associated with the de-
velopment of music in Kansas City, is also known as a composer. V John
J. Kessler, born in St. Louis in 1904, probably Missouri's most dis-
tinguished living composer, has produced a symphony, three symphonic
poems, chamber music, a concerto for piano and orchestra, and a quintet
for piano and strings. ^ ^
Many popular song writers from Missouri, among them Theron
MUSIC 163
Bennett, Ted Browne, Gus Haenchen, and Earl Haubrich, have pro-
duced national hits. Some of the early songs by these men were pub-
lished in St. Louis by the Victor Kremer Music Company, the Buck
and Lowney Music Company, and the John Stark Music Company.
Missouri has had few musical publications. The short-lived Poly-
hymnia; A Musical Anthology for the Piano, edited by William and
Henry Robyn in 1851, was followed by the popular KunkeFs Musical
Review (1879-1902). The only musical journal to attain genuine
distinction was The Clef, published in Kansas City fiom 1913 to 1915*
and edited by Laura Valworth Lull. Rupert Hughes, a native of Lan-
caster, Missouri, won early recognition by his essays in the Criterion,
and his books Musical Guide, and Contemporary American Composers*
(1900). An unusual but nonetheless effective contribution to the
history of music was Henry Robyn's invention of a press and five-type
system which made it possible for the blind to set type and print text
and music in Braille.
Musical education throughout Missouri has been furthered by the
Federation of Music Clubs, organized in 1918, and by the Missouri
State Teachers Association. Excellent music courses are offered in the
various schools and universities, with the Swinney Conservatory of
Music at Central College, Fayette, and the Kansas City Conservatory
of Music outstanding in the field. Religious groups at liturgical centers
such as Conception Abbey, near Conception Junction, and at the Con-
vent of O'Fallon, have won recognition for their studies of Gregorian
chants.
Since 1936, the WPA Missouri Music Project, under the direction
of Elmer Schwartzbeck, has further stimulated an interest in and a
knowledge of music by the organization of teaching projects, bands, and
orchestras in Kansas City, St. Louis, Jefferson City, and Sedalia.
Project units conduct classes in schools, give demonstration programs
in both rural and urban communities, and assist in organizing orchestras,
bands, and choral clubs. The work of the St. Louis project is typical:
during 1939 and 1940, the three St. Louis units the Little Symphony,
the Brass Sextet, and the Colored Dance Orchestra played more than
1,500 engagements to a combined audience of approximately 1,500,000
persons.
Within the development of American music, but independent and
sometimes quite oblivious of it, the American Negro has slowly evolved
a mode of musical expression known as jazz, which some critics chiefly
European have come to accept as the only distinctly American con-
tribution to music. The origins of jazz lie deep in the experience of
the Negro people, extending back into their slavery days, or possibly, as
many scholars believe, to their life in Africa. Certainly the subtle and
164 MISSOURI
intricate rhythms suggest a racial memory, a long sustained overtone of
African drums.
/ Early in their American experience, Negroes began to produce a
folk music about their labor in the fields and on the river fronts, weav-
ing elements of white ballads into their own unconstrained harmonies.
These songs, and their religious music, the vast literature of Negro
spirituals, are choral in nature, achieving their effects through a sim-
plicity of melody and the subtle repetition of melodic phrases.
In Missouri, as elsewhere, religious groups of Negroes have sung
from the earliest times such familiar spirituals as the beautiful "Were
you there when they crucified my Lord ?" and the plaintive "Every time
I feel the spirit moving in my heart, I will pray. . . ." To express
his more personal melancholy and dejection, the Negro sings "the blues."
The blues are, originally, casual and spontaneous inventions. The
singer merely sings a phrase stating the theme, and then repeats it
while he thinks of another line. Hundreds of blues songs have been
created, and as soon forgotten, throughout the South, particularly along
the Mississippi. Occasionally, however, some musical listener will
repeat and embellish a phrase that pleases him. Later, others will take
it up. Thus the sorrow of some lone cotton picker or wharfhand be-
comes, eventually, part of the living body of Negro music. When W.
C. Handy, composer of the famous "St. Louis Blues," published his
collections of blues songs, he acknowledged that they were little more
than notations of themes picked up in his wanderings along the river. "
When instruments became more easily available to Negro musicians,
this folk music entered a new stage, that of jazz and recently
swing, which has been described most succinctly as "collective improvisa-
tion." Although these styles may have originated in New Orleans, and
have reached their most perfected form to date in Chicago, their gradual
evolution was brought about by countless anonymous musicians on their
journey north along the river.
From 1895 until 1905, St. Louis was the home of a group of gifted
Negro musicians, some of whose work has become part of the repertory
of jazz bands everywhere. Among these were Scott Joplin, who came
to St. Louis from Sedalia, wrote the "Maple Leaf Rag" and other
brilliant and difficult compositions, and died in wretchedness and in-
sanity f"W. C. Handy, dean of American jazz composers, who wrote
the "St. Louis Blues," "Beale Street Blues," "Aunt Hagar's Blues,"
and others; and Tom Turpin, who, according to E. Sims Campbell,
was "swinging and playing the blues years before white America recog-
nized them." Turpin was a pianist and a prolific composer. Inces-
santly engaged in the production of new works, he received constant
rebuffs from publishers, who declared the bass runs, quixotic chords,
and grace notes of his compositions too difficult for the average player
MUSIC 165
finding them perhaps, as Campbell did, "as intricate as Bach." In
1896, Turpin succeeded in finding a publisher and the "Harlem Rag"
was followed by the ''St. Louis Rag," "The Buffalo," and others.
Meanwhile, in excursion boats cruising up and down the river, in river-
front saloons, in honky-tonks and bawdy-houses, unknown Negro musi-
cians, most of them natural players with no knowledge, of written
Hiusic, began experiments with free orchestration, leaped from con-
ventional arrangements to an individualized expression, and reached the
extreme of decorative elaboration known as "sewing an overcoat on
the button."
How many of the names prominent in swing music are associated
with Missouri is difficult to say. The life stories of many of these
musicians have not been told in written form, but are passed by word
of mouth from player to player, from city to city; for musicians are,
by virtue of their trade, nomadic.
Coleman Hawkins, tenor saxophonist from St. Joseph, Missouri,
has been judged by some critics to be without a superior in instrumental
technique. M. Hughes Panassie, connoisseur of swing music, finds "no
more intelligent playing than Hawkins'," adding that he "would really
have to be a virtuoso because the melodic line of his solos is sometimes
so complicated that without an impeccable performance they would be
very sorry affairs. The variations he plays are among the most com-
plicated in the whole field of hot interpretation." The same critic has
observed in the recording of Ben Moten's orchestra, late of Kansas
City, "the atmosphere of an actual performance by a great swing band."
"Count" Basie, born in New Jersey, received his first important notices
in Kansas City, where the ingenious showman, Cab Galloway, took out
his union card. Basie, a brilliant pianist, invents his propulsive solos
against the beautifully integrated music of an orchestra that consistently
produces distinguished improvisation. "Red" McKenzie of St. Louis,
white jazz singer, has been called by some critics one of the two best
white singers in the field of swing. Possessed of an unusual voice, of
"beautiful somber cast," McKenzie uses it to create instrumental effects.
Still playing the excursion boats in and out of St. Louis, as he has for
more than 20 years, or beating fantastic rhythms out of pianos in
black-and-tan cafes, is Fate Marable, who brought Louis Armstrong
up the river, and was the leader of one of the first swing bands.
Jazz music, in spite of the virtuosi who employ it as their medium,
still is, as Wilder Hobson has remarked, an essentially folk expression,
an untutored music, spontaneous, and free of the constraints of conven-
tion. To many, especially to those whose tastes have been conditioned
by the musical standards of the white man's music halls, the intricate
structure of swing music, the constant invention and variation, and the
1 66 MISSOURI
new prominence in solo work of instruments that ^ Jl eretofo
used only to supply contrasts, constitute sheer chaos. Others, especially
the Europeans, find in swing music the vitality of new forms and fresh
combinations, the challenge of a new idiom.
Art and the Crafts
MISSOURI'S first artists were the housewives, blacksmiths,
potters, carpenters, and itinerant portrait and sign painters
who, without formal training, succeeded in combining the
"useful with the agreeable." Only recently has a maturing public
judgment come to appreciate the best of this handwork as a folk expres-
sion constituting a genuine indigenous art. Since 1937, the Missouri
WPA Art Project, under the direction of James MacKenzie, has em-
ployed artists to record examples of these pioneer creations.
Of all the early Missouri folk arts, perhaps none was as generally
practiced nor as highly developed as the making of coverlets ("cover-
lids") and quilts. The coverlets were hand woven of wool, or of wool,
linen, and cotton, colored blue, red, green, yellow, brown, or black with
dyes made from roots and berries. Variations of a square geometrical
motif were most popular, but flowers, turkeys, eagles, and peacocks were
also common. The early quilts, frequently of exquisite needlework,
often reveal a striking originality of color and design. Stylized applique
patterns based upon natural forms the tulip, ivy, grape, oak, and
maple leaf, and others vied in favor with the earlier all-white quilts
embroidered in almost microscopic stitches. Other "female arts" in-
cluded cross-stitch and needle-point embroideries, samplers and pictures,
arrangements of wax flowers and fruits, decorations and jewelry woven
of human hair, fruit and flower groups painted on velvet, and various
types of ornamental beadwork.
The village blacksmith, who was often gunsmith, locksmith, and
implement maker as well, made ironwork of traditional design. Hinges
and locks unmistakably French remain on the older houses in Ste. Gene-
vieve. German artisans produced many strap and pad hinges, locks
and wrought-iron latches, and elaborate wrought-iron crosses and grave
fences.
A pottery was established in Ste. Genevieve before 1777, and as
tettlement spread nearly every community boasted at least one pottery
Hanuf act u ring jars, jugs, pitchers, milk pans, flower pots, urns, and
lard lamps and pig banks. Tile stoves were made at the New
florence pottery in the late i88o j s.
Examples of early stone carving consist mainly of gravestones,
including several at Hermann with Classic detail of caineo-like delicacy,
167
168 MISSOURI
and some at Zell of Gothic and of eighteenth-century German-baroque
During the Colonial period, cultured settlers brought into Missouri
portraits, paintings, miniatures, and portfolios of engravings and sketches
of European origin. Paintings and religious objects, salvaged from the
French Revolution, or presented by benefactors such as Louis XVIII of
France and the Baroness de Condite de Ghysinghem of Flanders, found
their way to the Roman Catholic churches in Missouri. German
Lutheran groups also brought their treasures. These importations en-
couraged an early appreciation of the fine arts.
Paxton's St. Louis Directory for 1821 indicates that frontier leaders
understood the importance of these collections. "It is a truly delightful
sight to an American of taste/' says Paxton, "to find in one of ^the
remotest towns of the Union a church decorated with the original
paintings of Rubens, Raphael, Guido, Paul Veronese, and a number ^of
others by the first modern masters of the Italian, French, and Flemish
schools. The ancient and precious gold embroideries which the St.
Louis Cathedral possesses would certainly decorate any museum in the
world."
In the same period, an increasing number of artists, both European
and American, came west to sketch and paint the Indians and "the
inconceivable grandeur" of the country. Titian Ramsay Peale (1800
85), and Samuel Seymour, an English-born Philadelphia engraver and
landscape artist, were members of Long's expedition up the Missouri in
1819-20. Seymour was to "furnish sketches of landscapes . . . dis-
tinguished for their beauty and grandeur . . . miniature likenesses, or
portraits of distinguished Indians and . . . groups of savages engaged
in celebrating their festivals, or sitting in council." Charles Alexandre
Lesueur (1778-1846), a talented French artist, visited Missouri in
1826, and sketched many villages and frontier scenes. The Swiss artist,
Charles Bodmer (k 1805), accompanied Maximilian Prince of Wied, on
his tour of the West (1832-34). Rudolph Friedrich Kurz (1818-71),
of Bern, Switzerland, sketched old buildings in St. Louis and Indian
groups near St. Joseph in the late 1840'$; and Frank Blackwell Mayer
paused to sketch in St. Louis and Clark County, Missouri, in 1851.
Peter Rindisbacher, the meticulous recorder of Wisconsin Indian
types, settled on a farm near the present village of Mehlville. Also
a resident was Paulus Roetter (1806-94), who sketched Missouri scenes,
and nautical and botanical specimens for Louis Agassiz and Dr. George
Engelmann. Charles Deas (1818-67) of Philadelphia wandered to
St. Louis in the early 1840*8, after having sketched Indian types in the
upper Mississippi and Missouri River regions, and according to his own
testimony found in that city all that "a painter can desire in the
patronage of friends and general sympathy and appreciation." He
ART AND THE CRAFTS 169
remained in St. Louis until his death in 1867, painting, among other
subjects, Long Jake, the mountain hunter, The Indian Guide, The
Voyageur, The Trapper, and an epic canvas of Clark's meeting with
the Shawnees at the Council of North Bend during the Revolutionary
War. In his latter years, according to Henry T. Tuckerman's Book
O/ the Artists, Deas was confined to an asylum, yet "his talent even
when manifest in the vagaries of a diseased mind, was often effective;
one of his wild pictures, representing a black sea, over which a figure
hung, suspended by a ring, while from the waves a monster was spring-
ing, was so horrible, that a sensitive artist fainted at the sight." Sur-
realism, it would seem, also existed on the frontier.
The interest in the frontier exhibited by both Easterners and Euro-
peans was exploited in panoramic views of the Mississippi River. These
forerunners of the motion picture, painted on long strips of canvas, were
exhibited by unrolling them before the audience, usually to the accom-
paniment of running comment. Six panoramic views of the Mississippi
are known to have been painted, five by St. Louis artists. One of the
first was exhibited in Boston in 1839 by John Rowson Smith (181064),
who had been a scene painter in a St. Louis theater as early as 1832.
This panorama was destroyed by fire, but by 1844 Smith completed a
new picture "four miles in length," which he successfully exhibited in
America and abroad.
Most widely known of the Mississippi panoramists was John Ban-
vard, who displayed his work in Eastern cities and In Europe in 1847
and thereafter. Probably the most talented was Henry Lewis (1819-
1904), who came to St. Louis from England in 1836; he began work
on a panorama of the upper Mississippi in 1848, and completed it the
following spring with the aid of four assistants. "We went to see it
in the same spirit that we are wont to ramble through the living
forests," comments the editor of a St. Louis periodical in October,
1849. The panorama, A Tour of the Eastern and Western Hemi-
spheres, painted in St. Louis about 1858 by Eduard Robyn, brother of
Henry and William Robyn (see Music) , reflects the artist's training
as a lithographer. The canvas was discovered by the Missouri Writers 1
Project and is now in the Missouri Historical Society in St. Louis.
The earliest portrait painters to visit St. Louis were itinerant
French artists who came up from New Orleans during the summer
months. The first professional portraitist knowr\ to have resided in
Missouri was Francois M. Guyol, who advertised in the Missouri
Gazette, March 5, 1812, that he "executes Portraits in oil colours, also
in Miniature and assures an exact resemblance. He paints Profiles (a
la quarrelle) [sic] for five dollars, including the frame." Evidently,
the artist did not depend entirely upon his art, for the advertisement
concludes: "Lessons given in Architecture, Planimetry, plane and
I7O MISSOURI
spheric Trigonometry, Algebra, with Drawing, and Fortification so as
to prepare them for an entrance into the engineer corp of the Unitecf
States Army."
In 1819, an artist who exhibited in St. Louis a traveling "Museum
of Wax Figures and large Paintings" with patriotic subjects advertised
"Profiles correctly taken and framed." The following year, the St.
Louis Missouri gazette proudly announced the completion of M. Bas-
terot's* painting of "the vow of Ste. Genevieve consecrated by St.
Germain, bishop of Auxerre and St. Loup, bishop of Tours," for the
church of Ste. Genevieve. "It is/' the editor notes, "the first original
historical picture the Missouri region can boast of. . . ."
Chester Harding came to Missouri in 1819 to paint a portrait of
the aged Daniel Boone. An engraving was made of this portrait by
James Otto Lewis, and about two hundred copies were sold locally.
The portrait itself was later cut down, only the head being preserved ;
so that this engraving, of which a copy, perhaps unique, is in the Mis-
souri Historical Society collection, is now the sole key to the original
painting. Lewis was commissioned by the Indian Department from
1823 to 1834 to make portraits of Western Indians, an early instance
of Federal patronage of the arts.
Although the work of these early artists possessed a sort of sporadic
relation to Western life, George Caleb Bingham (1811-79) was the
first to attempt a serious interpretation of the region. Brought to Mis-
souri at the age of eight, Bingham was self-taught during the first
period of his career. In 1834, ne me * Major James S. Rollins, Co-
lumbia attorney, who became his life-long patron and sympathetic
friend. The following year he opened a studio in St. Louis. Bingham's
genre paintings have been compared with the work of European painters
of the seventeenth century, and it is possible that the artist saw and
studied the work of foreign masters in St. Louis collections. St. Louis
University owned at that time various Spanish paintings of the seven-
teenth century, as well as The Cobbler and The Knife-Grinder, at-
tributed to Teniers.
From 1837 to I 856, Bingham divided his time between Missouri
and the East, where he studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine
Arts in Philadelphia, and painted portraits in Washington. His most
significant work of this period is a series of genre paintings of Missouri
subjects which began to appear about 1845. In the early 1850*8, he
painted a group depicting typical phases of a Missouri political cam-
paign. Keenly observant, his social appraisals were always mellowed
by a rich sense of humor.
Missouri was not slow to recognize Bingham's talents. Nearly
every Missouri family of consequence "sat to Mr. Bingham." The
Mercantile Library of St. Louis commissioned important works. In
ART AND THE CRAFTS I?I
1851, the editor of the Western Journal (St. Louis) commented en-
thusiastically: "BINGHAM well known in the East as the Missouri
Artist and being 'par excellence* the American Artist, has come to spend
the winter in St. Louis. BINGHAM'S style is one which is now
rapidly forming a School of pure American Art. He has no occasion to
copy the old masters. He himself is a master one of the new masters."
The Journal also published woodcuts of Bingham's paintings by the St.
Louis engraver, G. A. Bauer.
Other artists shared with Bingham the growing appreciation for
the arts. Among these were Manuel Joachim De Franca (d. 1865),
of Portugal, a fashionable artist in St. Louis; Miss Sara M. Peale
(180085), daughter of the artist, James Peale, who painted, among
others, Thomas H. Benton and Lewis F. Linn ; and William Coggswell,
who came to St. Louis about 1858, and Matthew Hastings (1834-
19*9) * primarily portrait artists, although Hastings is chiefly remem-
bered for his caricatures and his pictures of frontier scenes. George
Fall painted portraits in Fayette for a short time during 1846, and in
1869, Charles P. Stewart made a prosperous visit to Columbia.
The general interest in Western subjects was reflected in the demand
for inexpensive lithographed town views and Missouri scenes, and in
various types of commercial art used by book and music publishing firms.
In 1840, the St. Louis Republican published a series of colored views of
St. Louis, "painted from nature and drawn on stone by J. C. Wild/*
Work by other artists, nearly all of them German, followed. Perhaps
the most talented Missouri lithographer of this period was Eduard
Robyn. His work, published by various St. Louis firms, includes
colored views of Washington and Hermann.
Harriet Hosmer (1830-1908), Massachusetts sculptress, came to
St. Louis in the fall of 1850 to study anatomy at Dr. McDowell's
Medical School. Later, she executed a commission for the Mercantile
Library Association, her Beatrice CencL Her statue of Thomas Hart
Benton was unveiled in Lafayette Park, St. Louis, in 1868. During
this period, James Wilson MacDonald (1824-1908) was studying in
St. Louis under Alfred Waugh, completing in 1854 W & fi rs * work in
marble, a bust of Thomas Hart Benton.
Other artists who worked in Missouri at this time are Alban Jasper
Conant (1821-1915), whose work has a severe, Almost photographic
quality; Joseph R. Meeker (1827-69), one of the first to paint the
southeastern Missouri bluffs along the Osage and Gasconade Rivers,
and the lead mining region of southwestern Missouri; and Thomas
Satterwhite Noble (d. 1907), who specialized in. character studies,
particularly of Negroes. Noble's The* Last Sale of Slaves St. Louis
Courthouse, a favorite exhibition piece for many years, is now owned
by the Missouri Historical Society.
172 MISSOURI
In 1841 two years after its invention was announced In Paris
the daguerreotype was in use in Missouri. That year Messrs. Moore
& Ward advertised in St. Louis that they were "prepared to take
daguerreotype likenesses in a superior style, which, being the reflected
forms of the subjects themselves, far surpass in fidelity of the resem-
blance, anything which can be accomplished by the eye and the hand of
the artist." John H. Fitzgibbon, who opened his St. Louis studio in
1841, made regular trips West to photograph Indians and frontier
scenes. In 1877, he established the St. Louis Photographer and Illus-
trated Monthly Journal, which became "the exponent of photographic
art for the great valley." In time, the effects of photography were felt,
and the lucrative field of portrait painting was virtually destroyed.
Next to Bingham, the most important Missouri artist in the middle
years of the nineteenth century was Carl Ferdinand Wimar (1828-62).
Wimar came to Missouri in 1843, and studied under Leon Pomarede,
a panoramist for whom he worked* An unexpected legacy enabled him
to study in Diisseldorf from 1852 to 1856 under Emanuel Leutze, after
which he returned to Missouri. Wimar was one of the first artists in
America to recognize the value of photography as an aid to painting.
In 1858, he went on the first of a series of trips to the Far West, to
make photographs and sketches of Indians. His last work was the
murals in the dome of the old St. Louis Courthouse, in which he com-
bined classical allegories with historical events.
Missouri was now no longer an isolated region. The growth of
the railroads and the great prosperity of the 1850*3 made extensive
contact with the East and with Europe possible. Missouri artists went
abroad to study, and brought back copies of the old mastery and original
canvases. Painters of the Western scene were influenced by the schools
of Dusseldorf, Weimar, Munich, and Paris. The closer contact with
foreign cultures encouraged a wide interest in the arts. In 1846, the
St. Louis Mercantile Library Association began assembling a permanent
art exhibit. Commissions were given to well-known Missouri artists
and a representative collection was gradually acquired.
Beginning in 1857, loan exhibitions of art were an annual attraction
of the St. Louis Agricultural and Mechanical Association Fair. In the
same year, Boonville dedicated Thespian Hall, with one room as an art
gallery. In 1859, a committee headed by Manuel J. De Franca assem-
bled a notable collection for the St. Louis Fair.
A museum of art was first advocated in St. Louis in 1851. In 1860,
largely through the efforts of A. J. Conant, the Western Academy of
Art was established, with Henry T. Blow as president, and Ferdinand
T. L. Boyle, a New York artist, as director. The Civil War disrupted
this society, however, and scattered its collection.
Following the Civil War, the taste of the art world seems to
ART AND THE CRAFTS 173
undergone a change ; the catalogue for the art exhibit at the St. Louis
Agricultural and Mechanical Association Fair for 1879 apologizes for
the fact that "most of the contributions are the products of native art,"
but assures the public that this art "has been highly spoken of by Eng-
lish and French critics" the collection included such eminent American
painters as W. M. Chase, P. P. Ryder, George Inness, and the best
Missouri artists. The exhibit of 1894 was devoted largely to French
impressionists. By 1899, however, public interest had swung back to
native art. According to the catalogue for that year, the exhibit con-
sisted "principally of the work of American artists. It is a gratifying
fact that, as the years go by, it is less and less necessary to go abroad for
art works worthy of satisfying the demands of critical and discriminat-
ing amateurs." Five years later, the handbook of the Artists' Guild
exhibit at the World's Fair, St. Louis, declared: "There is no doubt
American art ... is gradually evolving in different localities distinct
characteristics." Regional art was on its way.
The prophet of the new order was Halsey Cooley Ives (1847-1911),
a designer and decorator who came to St. Louis as an instructor in the
Polytechnic School in 1874, and almost immediately became the leader
of local art activities. In 1875, he instituted a free evening drawing
class at Washington University. This expanded rapidly, and paintings
and art objects were collected. In 1879, the university incorporated
the St. Louis School and Museum of Fine Arts as a separate depart-
ment, with Ives as director. One of the first such schools in the Middle
West, it immediately became a focal point for the art enthusiasts of the
region. As teacher there, Ives moulded the development of many Mis-
souri artists. Shortly, it was obvious that the enlarged school must have
more adequate quarters. Wayman Crow, long a patron of the arts
and a friend of Ives, consequently erected a building on the corner of
Nineteenth and Locust Streets in 1881 which he deeded to the Univer-
sity as a memorial to his son, Wayman Crow, Jr., who had died in 1878.
In the meantime, Ives and his friends were instrumental in estab-
lishing a number of art groups, associations, and exhibits. The Art
Society, founded in 1872, was followed in five years by the St. Louis
Sketch Club, organized by the artist J. R. Meeker. In 1886, a group
of Sketch Club members organized the St. Louis Artists' Guild. Pro-
fessional as well as social in purpose, the guild has proved a meeting
ground for artist and layman, and a vital force in St. Louis.
In 1877, Hercules L. Dousman of St. Louis built a wing onto his
residence to house his art collection. This gallery was open to the
public on certain days, but did not fill the need for a city museum. A
building was erected, however, for the St. Louis World's Fair of 1904,
which assembled an excellent exhibit of paintings from 26 nations, one
of the most notable collections shown in the Midwest up to that time.
174 MISSOURI
In 1907, St. Louis voted to support by public tax a permanent museum
in this building "to aid in developing a national artistic conscience
the consciousness of national motive or Inspiration in art . . ," (see
St. Louis).
The integration of art interests in Kansas City followed much the
same pattern as that in St. Louis. With the close^the Civil War,
and the development of Kansas City as a major shipping center, came
a desire for the amenities as well as the necessities of life. In 1870,
George Bingharn moved to Kansas City. He had studied at JDiisseldorf
between 1856* and 1859, and after his return had become involved in
Civil War questions. In the years that followed, he held various politi-
cal jobs until 1877, when he was appointed professor^ of art at the
University of Missouri. During this time, Bingham painted numerous
portraits, but many of these lack the vigor of his earlier period. Occa-
sionally, he painted landscapes; Order No. n> a melodramatic portrayal
of General Thomas Ewing's Civil War order to evacuate the Missouri
counties along the Kansas border, also belongs to this period. The
popularity of an engraving of this painting did much to preserve his
memory. In Kansas City, Bingham divided his time between art and
politics, until his death in 1879- He is buried in old Union Cemetery.
Other artists made Kansas City their home for varying periods
Frederic Remington, John Mulvaney, George Colby, and others. A
sketch club of artists and laymen was organized about 1885. This
group organized the Kansas City Art Association and School of Design,
opened in January, 1888, with Lawrence S. Brumidi of the National
Academy of Rome as director. Drawing was taught in Kansas City
public schools before 1870, and a number of early clubs and groups
brought training in arts and crafts to children and amateurs. In 1906,
the Fine Arts Institute was organized, and has since increased its
attendance and its activities.
William Rockhill Nelson, owner and editor of the Kansas City
Star, became champion of the movement to secure a museum for the
city* With a collection of copies of old masters purchased in Europe,
he opened The Western Gallery of Art on West Ninth Street in 189?-
The collection was later transferred to the Board of Education and
increased from time to time by further donations from Nelson. Other
groups brought contemporary paintings to Kansas City. Efforts to vote
a bond issue for a museum were, however, defeated. Upon his death
Nelson provided for the construction and endowment of the present
William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art. Additional funds from the
estate of Mrs. Mary McAfee Atkins were utilized for the Atkins Mu-
seum of Fine Arts wing (see Kansas City}.
Recently, smaller communities have also developed art centers. St.
Joseph organized an Art League in 1914, and Joplin in 1921, to sponsor
ART AND THE CRAFTS 175
lectures and exhibitions; Sedalia has an art gallery -in the public library.
The State Fair at Sedalia, like many county fairs, has offered annual
awards for the best portraits, oil paintings, and woodcarvings presented.
No artist has been able to support himself in Missouri through
painting alone, and many have inevitably been drawn to larger cities.
Among these was Paul Cornoyer (1864-1923), who studied in Paris
and gained recognition in the East, but who returned to St. Louis to
teach, aq4 painted many of his best pictures there. James Carroll
Beckwith (1852-1917), born in Hannibal, and Leopold Seyffert (b.
1887), of California, Missouri, became prominent New York portrait
pa 
