500 Dairies

Written by Ted W. Stillwell

Following the Civil War the cattle industry in this country was pretty well decimated. Farming in Jackson County, Missouri and across much of the of south and eastern part the United States was put on hold throughout most of the hostile times of the war. Soldiers on both sides butchered all the livestock they could get their hands on to feed the soldiers as the war ground on. What little cattle that remained after the war were sickly and infected which left them (for the most part) inedible. The only herds of any size anywhere in the country were the Texas Longhorns in the Great Southwest. Somehow they had to get those cattle back east where the markets were. Thus began the long cattle drives that cowboy folklore was built around. The cowboys drove those cattle in huge herds out of New Mexico and Texas, up through Oklahoma and Kansas to the nearest railhead, which at that time was Abilene, Kansas. The cattle buyers would load them on train cars and head them east toward Kansas City.

As the railroads began building westward from the east coast and out of Chicago they found the Missouri River to be a major obstacle for crossing. Bridging the river was an expensive undertaking, even for the railroad builders. Some foresighted early promoters and politicians in Kansas City managed to build the first railroad bridge across the wide Missouri, the Hannibal Bridge. Immediately all the railroads headed for Kansas City to cross that bridge. Kansas City as a result became the second largest rail center in the country, second only to Chicago.

So as the cattle from the southwest were shipped from Abilene into Kansas City they were able to transfer to other rails heading out in every direction back east for markets. Holding pens had to be constructed to transfer the cattle, thus creating the Kansas City Stockyards – again, to eventually become the second largest stockyards in the country, second only to Chicago. The Kansas City Stockyards were the first million-dollar industry in Jackson County and soon generated a million dollars a day.

It was the railroads and the cattle industry that transformed the small “Town of Kansas” into metropolitan Kansas City, thus earning it the proud title of “Cow Town U.S.A.”

The only problem with the Texas Longhorn was those skinny hindquarters. It made for tough meat and hard to chew steaks. It wasn’t long before the beefeaters were demanding a better steak.

Jackson County farmers jumped on the bandwagon and began trying to breed a better bull. To protect all the money being generated in the county by the new cattle industry, the bankers and corporate heads began building elaborate farm estates out across Eastern and Southern Jackson County in an attempt to be the first to develop a new breed of beef cattle. Suddenly it was the fashionable thing to do, each estate trying to outdo the next one. Cattle were imported from Europe and the United Kingdom and crossbred with the Texas Longhorns as the breeders searched for perfection. Jackson County soon became the “Cattle Capitol” of the country.

It was an outfit in Independence that finally made the right connection with a bull obtained in England named “Anxiety IV.” The majority of the table beef we buy in the grocery store today is the American Polled Hereford, the product of the perfect beef sired by Simpson and Gudgell on their Noland Road ranch just south of 23rd Street.

Not only was the perfect table beef discovered in the process, but also better milk producers were developed. Even hogs and sheep benefited. By 1926 Jackson County boasted, 3,345 farms, 200 of those were breeding stock farms, shipping cattle to all parts of the country. Another 500 were smaller family run dairy farms, and with the fertile soil and excellent growing conditions, 300 truck farms were growing produce for the American table. The largest farm was Highland Farm near Lee’s Summit, 7,600 acres; Highland became the country’s largest Hereford breeding estate. The most famous farms were Longview, Sni-A-Bar, Columbian, and Unity. Longview and Unity were the most beautiful anywhere in America.

It’s hard to imagine today in this ever-expanding metropolitan area that cattle and agriculture was so important to Jackson County. What happened to those huge cattle estates and those 500 dairy farms? Most of them were still in place as late as the mid 1960’s. Of course many factors have come into play, but the major corporate farms and corporate dairies have taken the biggest toll on the many family run farms.

As a youngster growing up in Eastern Jackson County I worked the farms during season: picking apples, cherries, and peaches at the many orchards across the county, picking strawberries, even picking up potatoes in the Courtney, Atherton river bottoms.

As I got older, Raymond Paschall would shake me out of bed every morning at 3:30 a.m. during my high school days. We would load up their little white milk truck and deliver milk in glass bottles to homes and restaurants all across Independence, at least until time for classes to start at William Chrisman High School. Raymond was the milkman, I was the shag boy, running bottles from the truck to the door and bringing back the empties to be washed and refilled the next day.

During the mid 1960’s however, as the milk industry changed and it became more difficult for those 500 small family owned dairies to compete, like many others, Paschall Dairy shut down and sold off their assets. Today Raymond is retired and living in the Ozarks at Houston, Missouri. I sat down with him recently and asked him to tell me about those days on the dairy farm.

In Raymond Paschall’s own words, “The dairy was run by my brother Gweldon and I, along with our father Ester and mother Esther. With similar names they were always called “he-Ester and she-Esther.” Paschall is a French name; however, my father grew up in rural Northwestern Tennessee. Recognizing as a teenager that there was no future there, he moved to Jackson County, Missouri. My mother grew up in Eastern Nebraska, the daughter of a German Methodist minister. When the Methodist changed language to an English speaking church, her parents Charles and Meta Sudbrock retired. Moving to Sugar Creek, they began milking a small herd of cattle. About 1934 Sudbrock sold his milk herd to our parents and Paschall Dairy began on Salisbury Road east of U.S. 24 Highway. My dad was good with the livestock. He-Ester was considered by many to be a herdsman, she-Esther was the business head of the family.”

“Our first milk truck was an old 1936 model and we sold raw milk, before the days of pasteurization.” Raymond recalled. “When I was young, I remember that we delivered milk door to door twice each day as there was no refrigeration other than ice boxes. At that time, we had four routes in Independence. In the late 1930’s we cut down to once a day when refrigeration became more common. When the Second World War came along and the gas, tires, etc. became rationed, we went to every other day delivery for each route.”

In 1944 Paschall’s moved the dairy to 1053 Courtney Road, (later when the city annexed the area the address was changed to 2501 N. Liberty Street). They soon expanded, building a dairy plant and begun pasteurizing and homogenizing. They furnished most of the milk for the children’s lunch program for the Independence schools, many local restaurants and neighborhood groceries. After Paschall’s ceased operations they donated the land on North Liberty Street for the construction of Mill Creek School. Our little white milk truck ended up on a Hollywood movie set of Hi-Lo Country, starring Woody Harrleson and Patricia Arquette in 1999 and recently appeared at the Antique Truck Show, June 1st, 2002, at the American Royal Building in Kansas City, Missouri.

To reach Ted W. Stillwell send e-mail to stillwellt2001@yahoo.com or call him at 816-252-9909.

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A Bittersweet Victory

Written by Ted W. Stillwell

The freedom the civil war brought to the black community of Eastern Jackson County was a bittersweet victory. The people who were up until this time considered slaves were now free to make their own way and do as they pleased. They could now reap the rewards of their own labor, however, the means to work were not always available. Most had been denied an education that would have enabled them a decent occupation. Land for farming was difficult to obtain for the black community. Employers did not hire blacks to responsible positions. With such handicaps many sank into terrible poverty and abominable housing conditions. A strong religious faith and a determination to do better kept many from despair. The church was a great help during these long years. The Second Baptist Church in Independence was the first black church, being organized during the civil war. Hiram Revels brought the African Methodist Episcopal Church to town in 1865.

Poverty was so hard after the Civil War that many young men turned to crime as a solution. The county jail on North Main Street had a large proportion of black inmates. However, justice then was not too careful to determine if a black person was truly guilty. It was said that many were arrested merely to get workers for the chain gangs to do roadwork for the county. When Mother Jerome Shubrick, a Sister of Mercy, came to Independence to start St. Mary’s Academy for girls, she heard about the dreadful conditions in the county jail. After surveying the situation she had a leather belt made with hooks on it to attach food and a big cape to cover it so she could smuggle food into the prisoners. Later after demanding better conditions she was given her own key to the jail. She would go into the cells and listen to the prisoner’s problems. Since most of the black inmates could not read or write, no one in their families knew where they were. Mother Jerome would write letters for them, or if they were local people she would go to their homes to tell their families where they were. She was much criticized by Independence “society” for these actions. The truth was that she was of the highest society the town had to offer. She was one of the famous and wealthy DuPont families of Delaware. A black convicted murderer named Smith once asked Mother Jerome to see that his body was properly cared for after his execution. He now lies next to her in Woodlawn Cemetery. When she died in 1894 her tombstone read “The Prisoners Friend.” Those black prisoners offered her much; they gave her meaning for her life. The Sisters of Mercy she left behind continued to carry prison reform to the rest of the nation.

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A Light in the Darkness

Written by Ted W. Stillwell

I can easily remember taking my Saturday night bath in a wash tub in front of the kitchen stove when I was a young lad out on the farm. That was well before we had indoor plumbing. My dear old grandmother was very proud and happy the day the men folks set a pump from the cistern and ran plumbing into her kitchen sink and the sparkling new bath tub. She would no longer have to make that trip out back to the ol’ outhouse on frosty cold mornings. However, I do not remember the day when they got electricity. That must have been achieved before I came along. Electric lights cost money to burn though, so the house was usually fairly dark of an evening before bed time. Grandma had only one dim twenty-five watt light bulb that hung low from the kitchen ceiling so that she could see to do her nightly chores. If someone would happen to venture off into another room for some reason they would light a candle or take the coal-oil lamp with them. When I asked my grandmother how come she didn’t just turn on the lights in the other rooms, she sat me down for one of her long stories.

Rural electricity out on the farm has not really been around all that many years young’un, and old habits die hard, she started. “When I was a child growing up, there were no electric lights. You read by the light of the fireplace after dark or maybe candles which we made ourselves in a candle mold. We only had a couple store bought coal-oil lamps in the house, but we were usually too poor to buy the coal-oil. Real coal oil was actually made out of coal, but the oil we called coal oil when I was a child was really kerosene which was made from petroleum over at the Standard Oil refinery in Sugar Creek. We could make ourselves a pretty fair light though if we just had a ‘possum, some lard oil, or even a skunk. A nice dead skunk of course, which hadn’t had time to advertise. From either one of these little critters, we could render oil that would actually burn in our home made lamps. We would take a tea cup or a bowl of some kind and fill it about half full of sand, then imbed a little nail with the point sticking up in the middle and hooking a wick on the point – almost any old kind of rag would make a good wick. We would soak the wick in the oil and then pour the rest of it in the sand and light it. We then had a pretty good Betty lamp much like they used back in the old country.”

“Of course” she said, “we had all sorts of candlesticks and candelabras. My father even made a real fancy Western chandelier for the living room by using an old wagon wheel, and another one out of a double tree from an old horse’s harness. Those two coal-oil lamps we did have were also pretty fancy. One of them had a flat-wick, which didn’t give off very much light and the other one had a round-wick, which produced a circle of flame and considerably more light, maybe equal to 10 or 12 candles. Anyway, people used to worry about them being so bright that it would ruin their eyes. Your eyes are supposed to rest after dark child, so you probably ought to get off to bed now.”

In cooperation with The Lee’s Summit Tribune, Ted W. Stillwell is available to speak before any club, church, civic, senior, or school groups. These informative and entertaining programs have been well received over the past number of years across Jackson, Cass, and Clay Counties.

To reach Ted W. Stillwell send e-mail to teddystillwell@yahoo.com or call him at 816-252-9909

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Bank Robbers

Written by Ted W. Stillwell

The people of Missouri suffered many hardships at the hands of soldiers and the Bushwhackers during the Border Wars along the Missouri-Kansas border, only to witness the horrors of the Civil War during the early 1860’s. If that was not bad enough, following the Civil War the Federal government held reign over Missouri because of its Southern sympathies during the conflict. To top it all off, the outlaws then ran ram shod across the state for many more years. Frank and Jesse James were ex-Bushwhackers and struck back against the government by robbing banks and holding up trains. But, if the wars had toughened the ex-guerrillas, it also produced a civilian population that didn’t frighten easily. They were not always eager to give up their bank deposits.

For example, at high noon on March 2, 1867, five armed horsemen rode into the town of Savannah, Missouri. Leaving one man to hold the horses, four of them entered the bank. At the sight of four strangers coming in during lunch hour, Judge John McClain, the banks owner, reacted quickly. He leaped up, slammed the door of the vault shut, and grabbed his gun. He began shooting at the robbers. The bandits were caught off guard but returned the fire and Jesse dropped the judge. The judge’s son watched in horror and dashed outside screaming, “Robbers! The bank is being robbed.” The man holding the horses fired at the boy, but his horses suddenly reared in fright and it was all the man could do to hold on to them.

The bandits ran out of the bank, caught their horses and galloped out of town with an empty grain sack. A posse set out in hot pursuit, but returned several days later without success, because the robbers had split up and rode off in five different directions. Judge McClain later recovered from his wound and came to be quite the hero. The townsfolk would point him out in later years as the man “lucky “enough to have been shot by the famous Jesse James.

Two and a half months later, the gang robbed the Richman bank. Remembering their bitter defeat in Savannah, the boys decided to follow the Bushwhackers old attack plan for raiding towns during the war. Richman was peacefully conducting its business that spring day when twelve to fourteen men galloped into town from all different directions, firing off their revolvers and screaming the rebel yell. Four of the men dismounted and dashed into the bank with the grain sack, demanding money. They got about $4,000. Several citizens realized at once that their bank was the target. They began shooting at the outlaws. The bandits fired back. The mayor of Richman was shot to death as he ran toward the bank with his pistol. A young man shooting at the bandits from behind a tree was struck in the head with a bullet and died instantly. Seeing his young son fall, his father ran toward him and was also shot down. The robbers galloped out of town, but the fight in the street gave a posse time to overtake them. After a brief skirmish, the outlaws escaped and vanished in the brush.

Several of the men were recognized. All were ex-Bushwhackers, and all were friends of Frank and Jesse James. Several of them were arrested or attempts were made to arrest them. One member of the gang, Payne Jones, shot it out with the sheriff’s men at his father’s home in Independence, but somehow managed to escape. Thomas Little was arrested and lynched by an angry mob at Richman before he was brought to trial.

Ref: Wanted, Frank & Jesse James, the Real Story
By Margaret Baldwin and Pat O’Brien

To reach Ted W. Stillwell send an e-mail to teddystillwell@yahoo.com or call him at 816-252-9909.