Among the holidays that Joplin celebrated with parades was Labor Day. For this Labor Day, we offer up an editorial cartoon from around 1908 that represents at least one newspaper’s feelings on the matter.
Source: Joplin News Herald
Among the holidays that Joplin celebrated with parades was Labor Day. For this Labor Day, we offer up an editorial cartoon from around 1908 that represents at least one newspaper’s feelings on the matter.
Source: Joplin News Herald
Joplin was a stopping point for many hoboes and railroad tramps and one can only assume that they hoped to find a square meal as they roamed its streets and alleys. On one occasion, hoboes were able to secure themselves a free meal, but probably not the feast they had hoped for.
Early one morning, young boys roamed the streets of Joplin with free samples of shredded wheat biscuits. At every doorstep the boys visited, they left a small box that contained two shredded wheat biscuits. It was not long, however, before a tramp caught on and began to trail behind the boys collecting the boxes of shredded wheat. Before noon “over two dozen tramps had been told the joyful tidings” and soon each tramp had at least “half a dozen boxes.”
Armed with plenty of shredded wheat, the tramps and hoboes fled to the safety of the Kansas City Bottoms, where “cans, old buckets, cups, and in fact anything that would hold liquid were pressed into use.” A nearby farmer was talked out of a “gallon or so of milk.”
The newspaper, which often frowned upon weary willies, declared that perhaps the boxes of shredded wheat “did more good to mankind” that day than if it had remained on the doorsteps of its intended recipients. One has to wonder if hoboes reminisced years later about the time they feasted on shredded wheat in Joplin.
White Man’s Heaven, by Kimberly Harper, has been released more than a month early!
As previously covered here on Historic Joplin, White Man’s Heaven: The Lynching and Expulsion of Blacks in the Southern Ozarks, is a non-fiction account of a string of violent episodes that occurred through Southwest Missouri and Harrison, Arkansas, between 1894 – 1909. Two chapters of the book are dedicated to the lynching of Thomas Gilyard that occurred in Joplin in April, 1903, which should be of interest to any who have a passion for Joplin’s past, both bright and dark.
Buy a copy soon, as Amazon.com only has 5 copies left as of 8/30! You can also purchase copies from the University of Arkansas Press and Barnes & Noble.
We previously discussed the emergence of Joplin’s first professional baseball team, the Colts who soon after became the Miners. After some research, we uncovered what appears to be the schedule for the team that season in the Missouri Valley League.
In the earlier post, we offered a team photo from that year. To keep things fresh, we’ve added a photograph of the 1904 team. A glance between the supplied rosters for the teams reveals some old faces and some new.
Sources: Joplin News Herald, Historic Joplin Collection
Shrill screams pierced the air. Residents who lived in the vicinity of Sergeant and Fourth Streets emerged from their homes at two o’clock in the afternoon to investigate the horrific screams. Two women were struggling in the street. Upon closer inspection, it was clear that one woman had the upper hand as she “had seized the other by the hair was applying a whip vigorously over her head and shoulders. Hence the screams.”
Spectators intervened and the two women were separated. The woman who wielded the whip, Mrs. John Essry, turned herself in to Officer Robinson. She explained that her husband had been courting Miss Anna Rosser, a young woman who still lived at home with her parents on Sergeant Avenue. After she discovered that her husband had taken Miss Rosser on a Sunday buggy ride the preceding week, Mrs. Essry decided that revenge was the best course of action.
She drove to the Rosser home and pretended to be looking for a young woman to work for her selling samples. While in the street, Mrs. Essry drew her whip and began beating Miss Rosser.
But the beating was not enough. The following week, Mrs. Essry once again unleashed her fury against Miss Rosser. This time she returned to the Rosser home armed with rocks. She began to bombard the house with rocks, breaking windows. The Rossers escaped out the back door and ran to a neighbor’s home as Mrs. Essry continued to assault the Rosser home until she managed to break down the door. Finding no one inside, she went to the neighbor’s home, but was given an evasive answer.
Mrs. Essry was not finished. She returned to the Rosser home, picked up a hatchet, and smashed what she could. “Doors, windows, furniture, stove and household fixtures” were destroyed. Spectators watched her frenzied hatchet attack but did not intervene. Joplin police officers arrived and took Mrs. Essry into custody.
She quickly bonded out of jail “as public sympathy is strong in her behalf. Her neighbors speak highly of her in her struggle to maintain five small children almost wholly without aid from her profligate husband.” Her husband’s advances towards Miss Rosser had driven her “wild.”
The girl’s mother had attempted to keep the two apart, but the girl “is at that giddy, gosling period when a waxed mustache, soft talk, and a musk befogged handkerchief would turn her head more in a minute than maternal precept could right in a day.” It was said that Miss Rosser had left town.
Just after the turn of the century, Joplin attorney Fred Basom received the first speeding ticket issued in Joplin. He was “hailed by an officer of the law while out for a spin,” after the mayor’s recent instructions to the police department to arrest drivers who violated Joplin’s city ordinance that set the speed limit at six miles an hour. The news item did not explain how fast Mr. Basom was going when he was ticketed or what the fine was for breaking the speed limit, but it can be expected that attorney Basom was able to secure adequate representation for his police court appearance.
Source: Joplin News Herald
Becky Brill, of the city of Joplin, was kind enough to drop by and leave us an update on the status of the nominations that went before the Missouri Advisory Council on Historic Preservation on Friday. For those of you following the status of the Joplin and Wall Historic District and the South Main Street Historic District, Becky had some good news! Both districts were approved by the council and were recommended to be placed upon the Federal Register of Historic Places as commercial districts (which bring important tax benefits). That final decision will be made by the Federal government in Washington, D.C. Becky’s comment noted that that decision will probably come in October. Let’s hope for good news in the fall!
For those of you who missed our initial coverage of the nomination of the districts, here’s the post with all the details.