Bit of History - March 12, 2025

From the front page of the Ridgeway Journal dated March 11, 1926:

The Ridgeway girls basketball team won a tournament in New Hampton that week, beating Gilman City (20-11), Eagleville (42-4) and Blythedale (48-3). They regretted that they didn’t get the chance to play against the Bethany team.

The boys played in the same tournament, but lost to the Bethany boys by only one point, 12-11.

Walter Bartlett visited Ridgeway friends to promote his new business in Bethany, Bartlett Motor and Implement Company. There was to be a grand opening that included the Ridgeway Old-Time Eight-Piece Orchestra as well as free service days, free milk tests, motion pictures and demonstrations.

Lois Cocklin, an eighth grade Ridgeway student, won the first prize in the Harrison County graded and hight school elimination spelling contest. She won $5 and a fountain pen and participated in the Northwest Missouri spelling tournament in Maryville. Rosemary Wood, another Ridgeway student, took second place, missing only three words. She won $2.50 and an Eversharp pencil.

A fire at the “Pete” McGowan farm just south of Ridgeway destroyed the barn, house, garage and smoke house. They also lost five horses, harnesses, corn and hay in the fire. Pete was away and “his wife and family and hired man were there, but the flames had gained too much headway for them to handle”.

The New Ridgeway Hotel was under new management. The hotel was purchased by Mrs. M. L. Hahn and Mrs. W. W. Turned of Springfield and Clinton respectively and had been in the hotel business many years.

Bit of History - January 22, 2025

From the pages of the Ridgeway Journal dated January 14 and January 28, 1926:

Mrs. J. J. Reed held a “vanishing luncheon” which included 5 guests as part of a fundraiser for the lyceum course.  Each guest paid fifty cents for the luncheon and agreed to host a luncheon themselves for four guests, each paying 50 cents.  “So the number of guests at each luncheon decreases each time by one although the number of luncheons increases.  In the end, 325 people will have been entertained”.  They hoped to raise $163.00 for the Lyceum fund if the chain wasn’t broken.

A thirteen year old boy, Vernal Killough, accidentally shot himself in the foot while hunting on the John Leazenby farm west of town.  Fortunately, Mr. Leazenby found him only a few minutes later and he was taken to a St. Joe hospital on the early morning train the next day for the shot to be removed.  He was recovering nicely at the last report.

Hiram Scott sold 10 spring pigs at the St. Joseph market for over $353.  He’d had two sows that produced 18 pigs and selling all of them gained hime $748 which would be over $13,339 in today’s money.

The Journal editor and owner Bill E. Schwarzel wrote several items about what was going on at the newspaper.  The offices were repainted by local painter Herschel Goodwin over a span of four weeks as the “old home paper had to come off the press on time”.  All the equipment had to be pulled out from the walls, then put back so that the paper could be printed.  

Another item reminded people that while the Journal always appreciated news submissions, it couldn’t handle them after 6 pm on Tuesdays “because we have but one linotype and it must finish its work each week on Wednesdays in order to get the old home paper on the press in time to routes out of Ridgeway.”  “If more of our good friends that have news items for us would remember to bring them in on Tuesday of each week, how happy everyone would be.”

In another item, the editor lamented that “everyone has colds” but he still had to get the paper out even though his staff and family were out sick and two of his employees had quit, but “such is life in a print show.”.  He then asked if “some of our good friends” who could help “while the editor gave his cold a rest everything would be lovely.”

Bit of History - June 12, 2024

In 1926, seven years after Governor Frederick Gardiner signed the act that would make the sale, manufacture and transport of alcohol illegal statewide.  However, instead of “drying out” the state, crime rates went up as many people turned to the illegal production and sale of alcohol.

Even in Ridgeway, people were arrested for the possession of alcohol.  In 1926, Harrison County Sheriff J. B. Manifold, Deputy Sheriff John York and Ridgeway officers raided the home of Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Winkler.  Prosecuting attorney L. R. Kautz obtained a search warrant from Justice B. P. Sigler after he had decided that liquor was being kept in the home.  They found two gallons of ethyl alcohol, two pints of “medicated alcohol meant to be used for external use” (aka rubbing alcohol) and eight pints of “bottled in bond whiskey” in the bottom of a piano in the front room of their home.  The Winklers were not home at the time, but a warrant for the arrest of Mr. Winkler was being sought.  He owned a restaurant in Ridgeway which had been searched the previous week, but the officers found nothing of significance there.  

Art Ham, who owned a café in town, also had his home and business raided by the officers when the Winkler restaurant was searched and “alcohol mopped up oc(?) the kitchen floor, where it had been poured as the officers began their search” of the café.  Both Winkler and Ham were expected to be charged for possession of intoxicating liquor, a lesser offense than the sale of intoxicants.

Bit of History - December 27, 2023

If you had no other plans for New Year’s Eve in 1926, you could attend one of three showings of “The Unknown Soldier”, a love story about a young mill worker who left his home and his sweetheart to fight in the Great War (WW1).  The couple met and lose each other several times in the film and the romance blossoms until the grand climax at the end of the film.  The Ridgeway Journal printed a synopsis of the story in the paper, though it is a bit blurry.

The Rex Theatre showed the movie three times and all proceeds were donated to the Ridgeway Legion.  In the large ad they placed in the Journal, they proclaimed that the film had an all-star cast which included Charles Emmett Mack, Marguerite De La Motte, Henry B. Walthall and Claire McDowell, per the entry for “The Unknown Soldier” in imdb.com.  The last showing of the film in Ridgeway was at midnight on New Year’s Eve, “with a Frolic and Good Time”.  

If you wanted a bite to eat before the show, the Ridgeway M.F.A. Farm Club served an oyster supper of both fried and stewed oysters in the City Hall.  They were “expecting everyone within a radius of twenty miles of Ridgeway to be in Ridgeway on TO SEE THE “UNKNOWN SOLDIER”.  They also wrote “Remember the soldier boys won the war and this show is put on by them.  We owe the Legion boys good attendance, they made victory possible for us.”

I don’t have any follow-up of how much the Rex Theater raised for the Legion — the Journal issue is missing for the next week, but I am sure they did well.