Tales from Days Gone By

Behind the big themes, celebrated figures, and dry dates of history are the interesting stories of life in the past and ordinary people. Southeast Missouri has a varied and rich history that you often don’t hear about in history classes. Join Bill Eddleman of the State Historical Society of Missouri to hear about these stories with “Tales from Days Gone By.”

Nearly 100 Years of Brewing in Old Appleton

One of the longest-running local breweries in southeast Missouri, Old Appleton Brewery, started with a German immigrant, Caspar Ludwig.

11-26
04:12

St. Francois County’s Oldest Settlement: Big River Mills

One of the first American settlements in the Ste. Genevieve District was at a cluster of land grants on the west side of Rivere Grande, or Big River, in present-day St. Francois County.

11-12
03:57

The Unquiet Grave of Nathan Watson

Among all the stories in Southeast Missouri history that have sparked tales of ghosts and hauntings is one that should have but has not.

10-22
03:51

The Bowie Family in Southeast Missouri – Before the Bowie Knife

Few people realize that the family of James, or Jim, Bowie, who made the Bowie Knife famous and later died at The Alamo, spent time in Southeast Missouri at the beginning of the 19th Century.

10-08
03:56

Samuel Scism: A Stoddard County Unionist’s Civil War Tale

Samuel Scism’s story is a common one among Civil War soldiers who survived prison camps. Vegetables in their diets might have prevented many cases of chronic dysentery. The state of medical care of the time meant that the malady was untreatable and subject to recurrence.

09-24
03:59

Disaster in Chicopee: The Burning of the Jesse Gunn Store

The quiet of the early evening of March 26, 1912, Chicopee on the Current River in Carter County would soon be broken by a catastrophe.

09-10
03:59

The Many Moves of Aaron Pinson Jr.

Sometimes we underestimate the mobility of the early generations of European settlers in what became the U. S.

08-27
04:10

A Biological Storm: Passenger Pigeons in Eastern Missouri

A traveler from southeastern New York, Christian Schultz, descended the Ohio River in 1807. He stopped at the mouth of the Ohio River on the Missouri side on October 24, 1807, and noticed a strange phenomenon.

08-13
03:59

The Tangled Web of Clacy T. Kinder

The morning of November 15, 1923, was out of the ordinary at the Bank of Patterson in Wayne County. The cashier, Clacy T. Kinder, failed to appear.

07-23
03:58

The St. Michael Flood of 1814

Heavy rains fell in late spring and early summer of 1814 in the eastern part of Missouri Territory.

07-09
03:53

The Grassy Towersite and Fire Towers in Southeast Missouri’s Past

A short drive down County Road 508 in Bollinger County leads to the quiet site of the former location of the Grassy Towersite.

06-25
03:58

Taking the Waters: “The Wonders of Lithium Have Not Half Been Told”

In early 1882, three would-be entrepreneurs from Illinois, Dr. Henry Clay Fish, Richard P. Dobbs and James G. Christian, tested the waters of several springs in Perry County.

05-21
04:13

Land of Her Own: Hannah Williams’ Preemption Claim

The road to getting federal land into private hands through purchase was often complicated in the early 1800s.

05-07
03:53

“The Most Efficient Officer…”: William H. McLane in War and in Peace

William H. McLane, born July 6, 1816, was the youngest of six sons of John McLane and Lydia Lawrence McLane.

04-23
03:59

Captain Henry Whitener – Early Settler on Upper Castor River

Perhaps the most prominent man and largest landowner from Lincoln County, North Carolina, to move to Missouri in the early 1800s was Captain Henry Whitener.

04-09
04:06

“An Exclusive American Community”: Bellevue Valley and Its Settlement

Early settlers in the old lead belt that became Washington and adjacent counties were French until the late 1790s.

03-26
04:10

An 1850s Transportation Marvel Across the Bootheel: The Blanton Plank Road

One of the factors that plagued east-west transportation in the Missouri Bootheel was blockage by swamps running mostly north-south.

03-12
03:59

Zimri A. Carter: Namesake of Carter County

Missouri’s counties are named for national or religious heroes, Presidents, geographic features, and politicians, among others.

02-26
03:59

"New Poles on Front Street": Telephone Services Come to Bollinger County

Even though Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone in 1876, the invention caught on slowly.

02-12
03:59

“All in Ironton are Black Except…”—A Civil War Confederate Spy Map

A Civil War map in the National Archives in College Park, Maryland reads, “S. E. Missouri, Country Around Ironton” on its reverse. It is a sketch map of the Arcadia Valley from Pilot Knob to Arcadia, including Ironton. The map was prepared in 1861, according to its title in the National Archives, “1861 Confederate Map of Ironton, Missouri and Vicinity.”

01-22
03:54

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