From the front page of the Ridgeway Journal dated June 6, 1935:
Northwest Missouri had been hit with heavy rains through the spring which resulted the Grand River flooding and the destruction of the bridge on the farm market road between Mt. Moriah and Cainsville. The flooding also destroyed three other bridges and Trail Creek, Big Creek and Painter Creek were all over their banks. The flooding delayed farm work for W. W. Bush who said that a “week of straight sunshine would not put the ground in condition for working in many fields.” He also described Mosquito Creek, “ordinarily something like an exaggerated trickle, was nearly 100 yards wide and would swim a horse Saturday.”
One positive note to the flooding was that damage caused by chinch bugs was expected to be lessened. Chinch bugs are small insects that feed on the sap of grass and grain crops, causing damage by injecting toxins into the plants. They thrive in hot, dry weather like the drought of 1934. The flooding delayed their reproductive cycle and as long as the weather remained wet, they would not cause as much damage as expected.
The paper also reported that 480 feet of pipe slid into the city well that week during repairs. Workers had been pulling the pipe to look for faulty valves to determine why the water was not filling the bowl and not enough water was available for an emergency supply. They were unsure at first if the pipe had plunged all the way to the bottom of the well and made plans to take measurements to find out. Meanwhile, Mayor Leazenby and City Marshall Crosby went to Kansas City to order more pipe at a cost of $400. This was part of a series of problems fixing the well that ended up lasting 10 days before they could turn the water back on. (For the rest of the story, see the Bit of History for July 3, 2024 at RidgewayCBA.blogspot.com.)
