History
An article published in the August 22, 1918 edition of the West Plains Gazette called attention to what was apparent to Howell county residents; the immense pine forests were gone. Yellow short-leaf pine is the only pine species native to Missouri. It grows well all over the county but had self-...
Born in 1879, George Oliver Rothwell’s obituary in 1969 indicated he had been a lifelong resident of Willow Springs, but he lived in other areas of Howell County, including Lost Camp and Hutton Valley. I only knew him as Pappy. That’s what my stepfather and mother called him, and I did, too.
In...
A 1904 book titled "The State of Missouri, an Autobiography," produced on the occasion of the World's Fair in St. Louis, extolled the value of various farm products in the state. Dairying was high on the list because, as the book put it, "Missouri is a dairy State. Its climate, soil, situation...
Following the Battle of West Plains, the afternoon of February 19, 1862, a thorough search of the town was conducted by Union troops. Any man of military age was arrested unless he could prove his loyalty to the Union cause. West Plains had been in rebel hands since the war began, and Union...
In 2015, my WSHS class celebrated its 50-year anniversary. At the annual alumni banquet, the alumni association presented scholarship awards to recent graduates. A member of our class gave the keynote speech and observed that at our commencement, the fifty-year class would have graduated in 1915...
In the 1990s I became a Special Assistant United States Attorney, and the Justice Department sent me for special litigation training in various cities across the country. Two of the trips were to the DOJ Advocacy Center in Columbia, South Carolina.
After classes were finished each day, I would...
The weather had turned winter-like, typical for mid-February today and one hundred sixty years ago. A windy front streaming down from the north brought steady sleet that pelted the backs of the Union troopers as they approached West Plains on horseback. Their line of march had also been from the...
A waist-high brick wall surrounds Faurot Field inside Memorial Stadium on the University of Missouri campus. On the wall, names of legendary coaches and all-American football players who wore the black and gold are set in concrete plaques.
On the west side, about mid-field, one commemoration...
Several years ago, I was invited to the home of Ron White to look at a small, maybe five by seven-inch scrapbook made one hundred years earlier by Willow Springs businessman J. Nolan Wilton. I've written about Wilton before, and it would take another dozen articles to detail the many...
As I was researching in old newspapers, an article triggered a long-forgotten memory that made me think about former WSHS teacher Neil Pamperien. According to the article, in 1966 Holiday Inns of America, Inc. wanted to build a new, two-million-dollar motel at the northwest corner of Monroe and...