History of Vernon County, Missouri : past and present, including an account of the cities, towns and villages of the county Vol. I, Part 8

Author: Johnson, J. B
Publication date: 1911
Publisher: Chicago : C.F. Cooper
Number of Pages: 596


USA > Missouri > Vernon County > History of Vernon County, Missouri : past and present, including an account of the cities, towns and villages of the county Vol. I > Part 8


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While Missouri already holds high rank as a manufacturing


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state, there is no telling how great a future is ahead when all of the wasted energy of the Ozarks has been put to use. Gigantic factories will then dot the banks of the Meramec, Osage, Gascon- ade, Current, White, Point, Flat, Moreau, Black and other streams of the southern half of the state. In some of these rivers dams would have to be constructed to hold back the flood water for future use. The Osage and Moreau rivers, which in many places flow through narrow channels between high bluffs and raise from eight to twelve feet after every heavy rainfall, are two splendid specimens for damming purposes. Millions of pounds of energy are wasted in them annually alone.


COTTON SEED OIL.


But to get back to the original subject, "Missouri is a Cotton Growing State, " it is necessary to explain that most of the cotton seed produced annually here does not leave the state in that shape, being kept at home to be made into cotton seed oil in factories which are located in St. Louis, Kennett, Malden and Caruthers- ville. After the oil has been extracted what remains becomes food for stock in the form of meal and cotton seed hulls. Experts on the matter figure that a ton of cotton seed produces 40 gallons of crude cotton seed oil, 50 pounds of linters, 813 pounds of meal and 725 pounds of hulls.


In some sections of the South not a particle of the cotton plant is now wasted, as uses have been found for even the stalk and the roots.


A cotton plant is divided into four parts, namely : The fiber, seed, stalk and roots. The fiber of the plant is ordinary commer- cial cotton, which is made up into fabrics, jeans, thread, batting, absorbent cotton and gun cotton.


The seed of the cotton plant produces linters, grabots, meal cake, oil and hulls. The stalk of the cotton plant is now used for stock feed, coarse fiber, paper stock and fertilizer. The root of the cotton plant is being converted into medicine, fuel and fer- tilizer.


Of the products from cotton seed the oil is the most valuable and is put to more uses these modern days than any other por- tions of the plant, save the cotton fibre, as it goes to make up lard compounds, oleomargarine, salad oil and lubricating oil. Much


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of it is shipped abroad and finally finds its way back to this country mixed with medium grades of olive oil, in sardines, and many other eatables. As a food it has value and it not injurious, but, of course, inferior to butter, regular lard and pure olive oil. Tests have demonstrated that 5 per cent of cotton seed oil can be mixed with 95 per cent of olive oil without affecting the color or taste to any appreciable extent. In olive oil, with 30 to 40 per cent of cotton seed oil, the color or substance is not changed, and the taste only to regular users of the pure article. Soap manufacturers are using cotton oil in high grade soaps.


GOOD STOCK FOOD.


The hulls and the meal cake of the seed have high value as stock foods and make good fuel stock, but they are too valuable to be put to the latter use. Much of this food is shipped to Den- mark and Germany for their dairies. It is also valuable as a high- class fertilizer.


Recently a sort of a flour has been made from the meal and it in turn converted into a sort of a bread, biscuits and even cakes, which foods are said to be palatable, but that is probably more a matter of taste than anything else.


Experiments are now being made with the stalk of the cotton plant to produce a grade of paper as high class as the kind now made from wood pulp. But all the cotton stalks of the world would not supply enough paper to keep half of the publishing houses of New York running half time.


After the fiber has been removed from the seed by the process of ginning, there still adheres to the seed some threads of cotton. Special machines have been invented to remove these shreds and they become linters and brabots, which sell for from 3 to 8 cents a pound in bale form. They are made up at the cotton mills into coarse, cheap fabrics, felt, yarn and batting.


Adding the value of cotton seed oil and other by-products, which was $801,854, to the value of the cotton fiber, which was $3,225,324, gives $4,027,178, which represents the total amount the cotton growers, ginmen and oil mill owners received for Mis- souri cotton and by-products in 1909, making that the banner year in the amount of money realized for the state. With the Missis- sippi county cotton, which sold for $3,937, and which went out


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"in the seed," and the planting seed value added, the total St. Louis value, of the entire cotton crop, oil and by-products, was $4,064,161-a very snug sum, considering that Missouri is not generally classed as a cotton state.


MISSOURI IRON ORE.


Missouri is again taking rank slowly, but surely, for the amount of iron ore it places on the market annually. Years ago, in the days of the old Vulcan furnaces and rolling mill in Caron- delet (now the south end of St. Louis), the state ranked high for this commodity. Iron Mountain, in St. Francois county, was then the chief sources of supply. When iron ore began to depre- ciate in value the mines in Missouri shut down, one after another, with the exception of six or eight, close to the two smelters of the state, because it no longer paid to handle and haul the ore any great distance. Three years ago work on the deposits in and around Iron Mountain resumed, and since then many thou- sand tons have been sent from there to market. The building of new and extension of old railroads in south Missouri brought many other rich iron deposits closer to the consuming centers and has given this supposed dead industry a new stimulus, which has continued ever since.


Nearly all of south Missouri is rich in various grades of iron ore, but the chief sources of supply at present, beside the Iron mountain deposits, are : Cherry Valley, Steelville, Craig mines of Goltra, Mudville, Leslie, De Camp, Salem, Kerrigan, Hendrickson, Vulcan, Chaonia, Greenville, Salem, Poplar Bluff, Carson, Ander- son, Republic, Palmetto, Bois D'Arc, Pomona, Birch Tree, Willard, Brookline, Emmet, Billings, near Grandin, near Williamsville, near Jefferson City, near Sullivan. The ore consists chiefly of the red and brown hematite variety. Wayne county has made many large shipments during the last three years. Other leading producing countries besides St. Francois and Wayne, are: But- ler, Carter, Christian, Cole, Crawford, Dent, Franklin, Greene, Howell, Iron, Lawrence, Madison, Miller, Newton, Phelps, Shan- non and Stoddard. The shipments of iron ore from Missouri coun- ties in 1909, as reported by railroads, totaled up to 131,827 tons, valued at $278,082. While most of this ore was mined in 1909. yet some owed its origin to 1908 mining operations, a portion of the output being held over.


MISSOURI WEALTH


These figures must not be accepted as representing the quan- tity mined in 1909, for this reason. They are merely shipments to market. It also must not be lost sight of that some ore mined in the latter part of 1909, did not go to market until the early part of 1910.


MISSOURI COAL.


Two-thirds of that portion of Missouri which lies north of the Missouri river is underlaid with rich deposits of soft coal. Mil- lions of tons have been taken out in the last twenty years without reducing the visible and known supply to any extent. In some coal counties the deposits overlay one another, with foreign sub- stances of considerable depth, separating the beds. The figures of the United States geological survey, as prepared by the Na- tional Conservation Commission, indicate that the coal supply of the state still amounts to 39,854,000,000 short tons. At the pres- ent rate of mining, which amounts to about 4,400,000 tons per annum, our coal supply will last over 9,000 more years.


In annual production of coal Missouri surpasses Arkansas, Michigan, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and Washington, all states with extensive deposits, and is up to Vir- ginia. The remaining coal supply of Missouri is more than the remaining supply of Arizona, Arkansas, California, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Maryland, North Carolina, Oregon, put together, and each of these states is a coal producer.


PETROLEUM PRODUCTION.


Several oil wells, located southeast of Kansas City, furnish petroleum, but not enough to supply the demands of Missouri. Railroad and other returns show that the output for 1909 amounted to 10,480 barrels, valued at $5,450. This particular oil area covers thirty square miles, and is close to the Kansas border.


The natural gas area of Missouri at present amounts to sev- enty square miles. Prospectors are at work at various points in Missouri and may find a new supply at any moment. The same is true of petroleum. These facts about crude petroleum and natural gas are given for the purpose of showing that Mis- souri has even these products.


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HISTORY OF VERNON COUNTY


HONEY.


While the crop of honey produced by Missouri's little busy bees in 1909 was not as great as in former years, owing to the late and severe spring and unfavorable climatic conditions late in the summer, yet it was sufficient to give every man, woman and child of the state a pound and a half and then leave enough to ship out about 110,000 pounds.


The production of honey for the year in question amounted to 5,960,051 pounds, which is a tremendous amount, considering that this mass of sweets must be collected drop by drop from the blooms of clover, buckwheat, alfalfa, willow and other plants. At 15 cents a pound all of this honey would have sold for $894,- 008, had it reached the market, but the farmers of Missouri are like any other mortals, and know a good thing when they have it. In addition nature has given each member of their family a sweet tooth, with the consequence that half of the honey was kept on the farm for home consumption during the long cold days of. the winter, it going well then on corn bread and biscuits of the variety which only a Missouri farmer's wife can turn out.


With about 2,900,000 pounds of honey kept on the farm to go with genuine country butter-of the kind which is made from real cream-in the easy task of reaching the heart by the way of the stomach, about 1,400,000 pounds more was sold in the 114 counties of the state, leaving only about 1,660,000 pounds for ship- ment to St. Louis, Kansas City and St. Joseph.


It took many millions of bees to collect the 1909 crop, and it is not their fault that the production was not as large as in 1908, when it reached a total of 7,946,735 pounds and a value of $957,- 810. They did the best they could, working overtime every pleas- ant, sunny day, collecting tribute, sip by sip, from each flower, in the effort to gather enough nectar to last their colonies through winter.


It is figured by State Bee Inspector M. E. Darby that the farm- ers of Missouri own 225,621 colonies of bees. In a favorable year the yield of honey amounts to about thirty-five pounds to the colony. It is a paying industry, one which ought to receive more attention from Missouri farmers, as there is always a market for the product, and honey will never again be cheaper than 12 cents a pound, wholesale, because of the ever-growing demand for it.


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Then, again, the clamor from consumers for beeswax is increasing year by year, as new uses are found for it. It is now needed for medical and scientific purposes as well as in the household.


No one has ever attempted to take a complete census of the ·number of bees in Missouri, or of any other state, not that these little busy bodies might object and show their antipathy to being counted, in a very effective and business like way, but chiefly owing to the fact that there are many hundred in each colony. Allowing a thousand to a colony (figures which are not correct) it would mean that 225,621,000 bees in 1909 collected honey, drop by drop, for the inhabitants of Missouri. If larger figures were given for the bee population of Missouri no one but an expert on bees would believe them, consequently no further estimating will be done. If the consumers do not get the pure, wholesome ar- ticle of the hive, it is not the fault of the bees, but rather that of man, who, in his anxiety and greed to make money, makes more honey by mixing the unadulterated article with foreign sub- stances, bottling the concoction, labeling it "honey," and sending it to the market in that shape to sell for a fancy price.


A honey expert can always tell by the taste what the bees have been feeding on, to produce the honey he is testing, as each specie of plants imparts a distinct flavor. In a season the value of honey increases as warmer weather brings forth blooms which are more suitable for this nectar.


The yield of beeswax for 1909 amounted to about 19,134 pounds, which, at 20 cents a pound, was worth $3,673. Alcohol can and has been distilled from honey, but it does not pay to use it thus at the present market price. In eastern countries an intoxicant, known as vinous hydromel, is made from it, a very popular and exhilarating beverage, with a pleasant taste strongly resembling that of sweet cider. Mead is also made from it.


Honey is found in a wild state in many parts of Missouri, esp cially in the southern counties. This variety brings about as much as the farm product, as it is preferred by some epicureans. The crop of honey for 1909, when reduced to tons, amounted to 2,890 tons. It would have required 171 freight cars, each holding 35,000 pounds, to haul the year's production of honey of Mis- souri's 114 counties to market-had all been sold-all this for another one of Missouri's better side lines. The only advice to farmers is, put in more hives for 1912, so that you will have honey


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to sell. The price per pound will be high enough to make the little extra work occasioned thereby profitable.


SPRING WATERS.


Millions of gallons of highly medicated spring waters are wasted annually in Missouri because their values are not generally known and the demand for them is not as extensive as it ought to be, and will be.


In 1909 more than a million gallons of Missouri's natural min- eral waters were shipped to the large cities of Missouri, Illinois and other states, and there sold at wholesale for about $125,000. For St. Louis this amount of money includes the receipts for medicated waters which were used for bathing purposes.


As it now is, what waters are not made use of for commercial purposes, including bathing, are allowed to run to waste, the con- sumption, not near equaling the flow at most springs. If all was bottled there would be enough natural mineral water in Missouri alone to supply the entire country, and the income from the sale thereof, at 10 cents a gallon, would reach many million dollars. But all this is a thing for the future, as the day is surely coming when not a drop of these precious waters will be wasted, and all will be used everywhere to give renewed health and more vigor to the invalids of the land.


HIGH CURATIVE POWERS.


Missourians, when ill and in search of health-restoring waters, need not leave the state to find them, as in various localities are springs, gushing forth clear and sparking, and filled to the over- flowing with medical qualities. The water is free to all, as a rule, and is ready without further preparations to begin its cura- tive powers.


And that the waters of Missouri's mineral springs have cur- ative powers is attested to by the thousands who have used them, and by the constant growing demand for the same.


In the Ozark regions are scores of springs of valuable and highly curative waters, now not made use of because they are not easily accessible, and it is a difficult task to bring their prod- uct to market, but the time is coming when they will make that section of Missouri famous as a health resort. Even the regular fresh-water springs of this part of Missouri have been pronounced


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the purest in the country, being, when not medicated, entirely free of foreign substances. Probably this is the chief reason why the Ozark mountain counties of Missouri have the lowest death rate for the United States, and reduce the general death rate for the state to twelve annually, per thousand, which makes Missouri the most healthful commonwealth of them all.


In 1908 the natural mineral waters of Missouri used for com- mercial purposes amounted to 752,663 gallons, which quality sold for about $100,000. The gain therefore for 1909 amounts to nearly 275,000 more gallons used commercially, and the increase in re- ceipts about $25,000-making in all a snug sum to gush forth, year in and out, without any productive efforts on the part of man, from the foothills of Missouri.


As the value of these waters for medical purposes becomes better know the springs will be more heavily drawn on for their production. Large quantities of the mineral waters of Lewis county are being shipped to Chicago, through which city the knowledge of their curative powers has spread.


With a little more advertising there is no doubt but that Mis- souri can be made famous for its mineral water springs, and in- valids will flock into the state by the thousands in search of the fountains of youth.


LEAF TOBACCO.


The night riders of Kentucky and Tennessee, when they began their war on the tobacco syndicate, little figured that they, by their depredations in those two states, would revive and virtually restore in Missouri an industry which had almost become a lost art-the growing of leaf tobacco.


It is estimated that in all, farmers of Missouri, in 1910, de- voted 5,000 acres of land to tobacco, and at an average production of 885 pounds to the acre, the entire crop for that year amounted to about 4,425,000 pounds of leaf. At 13 cents per pound, this mass of nerve-soothing "weed" was worth $575,250, if all had been sent to market.


When a comparison is made with the crop of 1908, it is at once plain that the increase in acreage for 1909 was 100 per cent, and in yield of tobacco, over 102 per cent. In other words, in one year the industry of growing tobacco doubled, and in two years it nearly tripled itself.


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Returns to the Bureau of Labor Statistics from railroads and express companies indicate that 2,104,262 pounds of raw leaf were shipped to St. Louis and made up there either into cigars, plug, twist or smoking tobacco, and finally in that shape con- siderable left the state.


With the entire crop of tobacco for 1909 of Missouri at 4,- 425,000 pounds and 2,104,262 pounds shipped to St. Louis, this left over half, or 2,329,588 pounds for the other cities and towns of the state and for home consumption in the counties in which the leaf was raised. The St. Louis shipments consisted chiefly of white burley, and was pronounced as good as the average of this variety.


White burley and other varieties of tobacco are grown, more or less, in about half of Missouri's 114 counties, but in most of them only for home use. The large producers are Platte, Chari- ton, Cooper, Carroll, Pike, Jackson, Buchanan, Randolph, Schuy- ler and Shelby. Anyhow, these are counties which did most of the shipping in 1909, and are the ones which reported the largest acreage planted for 1910. At the present price, in large producing counties, farmers are realizing from $100 to $250 per acre on land which formerly yielded only $25 to $40 for corn, wheat and oats, but it must be stated that this is only for soil peculiarly adapted for white burley. In Platte and Chariton counties the yield per acre runs from 1,000 to 2,000 pounds, an amount which, if it could be kept up, would, in a few years, make the owners of the land rich.


MISSOURI AS A SILVER STATE.


The ancient legend that somewhere in south Missouri, probably in the depths of the Ozarks, there exists a rich deposit of silver, which was worked by the Indians a century or two ago, is borne out, to an extent, by the fact that this valuable white metal is found mixed with the lead ore which comes from St. Francois, Madison, Washington, Jefferson and other counties in the same section.


It is the belief of some metallurgists that traces of metal in- dicate that not far distant is the original mother lode, and if this suggestion is true, then somewhere in the heart of the Ozarks is the lost cave of silver Indian tradition deals with, ready to enrich the lucky man or woman who re-locates it.


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The production of this valuable ore for the year 1909, accord -.. ing to Eastern smelters, was 49,500 ounces, and the value of the. same, at 52 cents an ounce, was $25,740. In 1908 the production, was 49,411 ounces and the value $26,390.


The 1909 figures may undergo slight changes, as the United, States mint and the geogolical survey have not quite finished the task of properly dividing the production of the white metal for that year between the silver states which produced it.


It takes a high grade of refining to "recover" Missouri silver from the lead ores which contain it, and this work is at present done entirely by eastern smelters. That it pays to separate the more valuable metal from the other, is proven by the fact that it is done and has been done for years.


In the near future, when capitalists discover that there is wealth in the now wasted water power of the Ozarks, then all this high grade smelting and refining will be done in Missouri, and at a handsome profit to those who erect the necessary build- ings and properly fit them with modern machinery. All lead, zinc, iron, copper, nickel and other ores which the hills of south Missouri are so full of, will then be smelted and refined at home and all valuable alloys, such as silver, cadmium and cobalt recov- ered here and made use of without having to leave the state as a compound and coming back in pure shape, with the consumers here, paying the freight going and returning.


Silver in Missouri, just think what this means. All that is missing to make our natural resources complete is the finding of a large deposit of gold, and this may also happen, as traces of this more valuable substance have several times been reported by prospectors in various counties. It has often been said that Mis- souri could be enclosed with a wall, and if all inhabitants were kept within, they would live as happily and contented as they do now, without help from the outside world, as everything necessary to sustain and make life worth living, is either grown or pro- duced here.


In the free silver movement of 1896, Missouri was one of the leading states and had one of its favorite sons, "Silver Dick" Bland, to put forward as a candidate for the Democratic nomina- tion for president, but it was not then generally known that silver ore was one of our natural resources and that there was enough here to pay a handsome profit on the task of "recovering" it.


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Even now it is not realized everywhere that silver is found in pay- ing quantities, mixed with the lead ore of south Missouri, and, therefore, it is necessary to call attention to this fact as an ad- ditional reason why desirable settlers should flock here and take up the vacant lands in the Ozarks. If the lost cave of silver is more than an Indian tradition, some one is certain to find it in the next five or ten years and make an easy fortune.


LOST CAVE OF SILVER.


There are several legends in circulation in connection with Missouri's lost silver mines, some dating back centuries to the period when explorators first reached the meeting of the waters of the Mississippi and Missouri. Natives they found here wore silver ornaments plentifully and even had weapons which were tipped and decorated with this precious metal. When asked where they procured the silver they pointed to the southwest and made signs which meant that the mines were four or five days' journey away.


More Indian lore locates the long sought for cavern in the mountains of Barry county, not far from the White river. Its exact location was known to the Indians only a hundred years ago. A band of Chickasaws were driven westward across the Mississippi, and finally located on the banks of the White river, in Barry county, where fish and all kinds of wild game were in abundance. They had only been in the new territory a short time when one of the redskins was driven into a large cave by an approaching storm and discovered that the cave's walls were a solid mass of silver. The silver mine was worked by the Indians for several years. Large quantities of the ore were melted out in a hollowed out rock and moulded into large bars in moulds made of stiff clay and stored away in the cave. Jewelry of va- rious kinds was made of the silver and carried to St. Louis and St. Charles, Mo., and traded for blankets and other necessities.


Fearing an attack by Spaniards from the southwest, all val- uables of the little band were placed in the cave and prepara- tions made for a move to new territory. The entrance to the cave was closed up with rock and dirt scraped from the mountain side and covered to a depth of several feet.




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