Timeline Missouri
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LHN: http://members.xoom.com/mellis/default2.htm
The bluebird is the official state bird.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.E3)
St. Louis is the home of the Int'l. Bowling Museum and Hall
of Fame.
(SFC, 7/28/97, p.A3)
John Mackay, Irish immigrant, made millions in Jefferson City,
but died rootless while building an int'l. cable company.
(WSJ, 1/26/98, p.A16)
c7,400BC In 1998 specimens of
sandals were analyzed from a Missouri cave that dated to this time.
(SFC, 7/3/98, p.A2)
600Mil BC The North American continent began to break
apart in the middle and then stopped, leaving the area beneath the
Mississippi River fractured and weak.
(Arch, 1/06, p.35)
1400 Occupants of the Towosaghy
site near New Madrid, Missouri, burned their temple about this time.
Later evidence indicated that this coincided with a major earthquake in
the area.
(Arch, 1/06, p.34)
1698 Missionary John St. Cosme
celebrated the first Mass in what became St. Louis.
(SFC, 1/28/99, p.A3)
1764 Feb 15, The city of St. Louis
was established as a French trading post. Pierre Laclede Ligue and
stepson Auguste Chouteau notched a couple of trees that marked the site
for Laclede’s Landing that became St. Louis.
(SFC, 5/12/97, p.T5)(AP, 2/15/98)(440 Int’l.,
2/15/99)
1793 Cape Girardeau, Missouri, was
first founded where the present day Cape Rock Park sits, when Don Louis
Lorimier was given a land grant by the Spanish government. The City of
Cape Girardeau celebrated its 200th year in 2006.
(www.cityofcapegirardeau.org/)
1804 May 14, The Lewis and Clark
expedition to explore the Louisiana Territory left St. Louis. Explorer
William Clark sets off from St. Louis, Missouri, to travel upriver to
wait for Meriwether Lewis. The two will soon depart together on a
journey to reach the Pacific. The trip was retold in a TV movie by Ken
Burns in 1997. [see May 22]
(AP, 5/14/97)(SFC,11/4/97, p.B1)(HN, 5/14/99)
1804 May 22, The Lewis and Clark
Expedition officially began as the Corps of Discovery departed from St.
Charles, Missouri. [see May 14]
(HN, 5/22/99)
1805 Mar 3, Louisiana-Missouri
Territory formed.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1806 Jul 15, Lieutenant Zebulon
Pike began his famous western expedition from Fort Belle Fountaine,
near St. Louis, Missouri. Pike was the US Army officer who in 1805 led
an exploring party in search of the source of the Mississippi River.
(HN, 7/15/99)(MC, 7/15/02)
1806 Sep 23, The Lewis and Clark
expedition returned to St. Louis from the Pacific Northwest over three
years after its departure.
(AP, 9/23/97)(HN, 9/23/98)
1808 The first US newspaper west
of the Mississippi was founded in St. Louis by Joseph Charles, an Irish
refugee. He was financed by Meriwether Lewis, the local territorial
governor, who needed someone to print the local laws. In 1998 David
Dary published: "Red Blood and Black Ink: Journalism in the Old West."
(SFEC, 3/8/98, BR p.6)
1809 Oct 11, Meriwether Lewis
committed suicide at 35. [see Oct 12]
(MC, 10/11/01)
1809 Oct 12, Meriwether Lewis, of
the Lewis and Clark expedition, died under mysterious circumstances in
St. Louis. [see Oct 11]
(HN, 10/12/98)
1811 Mar 20, George Caleb Bingham
(d.1879), Missouri painter, was born in Virginia. He paintings included
"Fur Traders on the Missouri."
(WUD, 1994,
p.149)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Caleb_Bingham)
1811 Nov 16, An earthquake in
Missouri caused the Mississippi River to flow backwards. [see Dec 15-16]
(MC, 11/16/01)
1811 Dec 15-16, A 7.3 earthquake
struck the central US on the Mississippi River. It was centered at New
Madrid, Missouri. Aftershocks continued into 1812. In 1976 James Penick
Jr. authored "The New Madrid Earthquakes of 1811-1812." [see Jan 23,
Feb 7, 1812]
(HC, 6/7/98)(ON, 10/99, p.5,6)(SFC, 2/24/01,
p.A10)(NH, 3/1/04, p.66)
1812 Jan 23, A 2nd major
earthquake shook New Madrid, Missouri.
(NH, 3/1/04, p.67)
1812 Feb 7, A 3rd major earthquake
shook New Madrid, Missouri, and for a few hours reversed the course of
the Mississippi River. [see Dec 15-16, 1811, Jan 23, 1912]
(NH, 3/1/04, p.67)
1819 Jul, Stephen Long joined Gen.
Henry Atkinson's Yellowstone Expedition bound from St. Louis to the
Rockies on the steamboat Western Engineer. This was the first steamboat
to travel up the Missouri River into the Louisiana Purchase territory.
Edwin James, a medical doctor, botanist and ethnologist, also served on
the expedition.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Harriman_Long)
1819 Hannibal, Missouri, the small
Midwestern city and boyhood home of Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), was
settled by Moses Bates on land belonging to Abraham Bird. Clemens based
some of his stories on the small, Mississippi River city--many of the
landmarks in the books can be found nearby. Jackson’s Island is located
just off the Illinois shore of the Mississippi and Mark Twain Cave is
about two miles south of town. Besides its fictional uses, the cave
also served as a stop on the Underground Railroad and may have been one
of Jesse James` hideouts. Present-day Hannibal has a population of
approximately 18,000 (according to the 1990 census).
(HNQ, 2/6/01)
1820 Mar 3, The Missouri
Compromise was passed by Congress. It allowed Missouri to enter the
Union as a slave state and Maine to enter as a free state. [see Mar 6]
(PCh, 1992, p.389)(SC, 3/3/02)
1820 Mar 6, The Missouri
Compromise, enacted by Congress, was signed by President James Monroe.
This compromise provided for the admission of Missouri into the Union
as a slave state, but prohibited slavery in the rest of the northern
Louisiana Purchase territory. The compromise was invalidated in the
1856 Scott vs. Sanford case. [see Mar 3]
(HN, 3/6/98)(SFC, 11/30/00, p.A3)
1820 Sep 26, The legendary
frontiersman Daniel Boone died quietly at the Defiance, Mo., home of
his son Nathan, at age 85.
(HN, 9/26/99)
1820 Dec 20, Missouri imposed a $1
bachelor tax on unmarried men between 21 and 50.
(MC, 12/20/01)
1821 Aug 10, Missouri became the
24th state.
(AP, 8/10/97)
1821 Sep 1, William Becknell led a
group of traders from Independence, Mo., toward Santa Fe on what would
become the Santa Fe Trail.
(HN, 9/1/99)
1825 A law that defined and set
punishment for abortion was placed into the Missouri penal code. It was
the 2nd US abortion law after a 1821 law in Connecticut. The law
prohibited only abortions induced by poisoning.
(SFEM, 2/1/98, p.13)
1830 Jul 15, 3 Indian tribes,
Sioux, Sauk & Fox, signed a treaty giving the US most of Minnesota,
Iowa & Missouri.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1830s Henry Shaw made a fortune
outfitting westward bound wagon trains. He retired at 40 and began to
transform a wild prairie outside the city into magnificent gardens
known later as The Missouri Botanical Garden (Shaw’s Garden).
(SFC, 5/12/97, p.T5)
1833 By this time an outfitting
post was formally laid out and named Westport with Chouteau’s
settlement becoming known as Westport Landing. Both served to equip
parties headed out west.
(HNQ, 1/27/01)
1835 Nov 30, Samuel Langhorne
Clemens (d.1910), author, -- better known under his penname as Mark
Twain -- was born in Florida, Mo.
(HFA, '96, p.18)(AHD, 1971, p.1385)(AP, 11/30/97)
1835 The 1825 Missouri abortion
law was rewritten to prohibit instrumental abortions as well as those
induced by poisons.
(SFEM, 2/1/98, p.13)
1837 Jul 31, William Clarke
Quantrill (d.1865), Confederate raider, was born. He was known as a
successful and daring partisan ranger in Missouri during the American
Civil war. In 2003 Paul R. Peterson authored "Quantrill of Missouri,
The Making of a Guerrilla Warrior, The Man, the Myth, the Soldier."
(HN, 7/31/02)(www.cumberlandhouse.com)
1837 Conflicts broke up the Mormon
communities in Missouri and Ohio.
(NW, 9/10/01, p.48)
1838 Oct 31, A mob of about 200
attacked a Mormon camp in Missouri, killing 20 men, women and children.
In the massacre at Haun’s Mill in western Missouri 17 Mormon settlers
were killed. Joseph Smith was arrested and the Mormons were driver from
the state.
(HN, 10/31/98)(NW, 9/10/01, p.48)
1840 May 10, Mormon leader Joseph
Smith moved his band of followers to Illinois to escape the hostilities
they experienced in Missouri.
(HN, 5/10/99)
1841 Apr 6, Cornerstone was laid
for 2nd Mormon temple at Nauvoo, Missouri.
(MC, 4/6/02)
1841 May 1, The 1st emigrant wagon
train left Independence, Missouri, for California.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1841-1869 Approximately 400,000 settlers crossed the
American West on the Oregon Trail during this period. The influx of
settlers began after legendary mountainmen Thomas Fitzpatrick and Joe
Meek guided a small band of settlers out of Independence, Missouri, in
1841, heading west toward the Oregon Territory, 2,000 miles distant.
The route they used, pieced together from Indian and trapper paths,
would become known as the Oregon Trail. By the time the
transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, some 400,000 settlers
had traveled west on the Oregon Trail.
(HNQ, 4/18/99)
1843 May 22, The 1st wagon train
with over 1000 people departed Independence, Missouri for Oregon. Known
as the "Great Emigration," the expedition came two years after the
first modest party of settlers made the long, overland journey to
Oregon.
(MC, 5/22/02)
1845 John C. Fremont led his 3rd
surveying expedition through the central Great Basin of Nevada. He was
accompanied by Thomas E. Breckenridge, a Missouri fur trapper.
(BLM, 2001)(ON, 12/06, p.5)
1847 Feb 28, Colonel Alexander
Doniphan and his ragtag Missouri Mounted Volunteers rode to victory at
the Battle of Sacramento, during the Mexican War.
(HN, 2/28/99)
1847 Sep 5,
Jesse Woodson James (Jesse James, d.1882) was born in Kearney, Mo, the
son of a clergyman. At seventeen, James left his native Missouri to
fight as a Confederate guerrilla in the Civil War. After the war, he
returned to his home state to establish one of history’s most notorious
outlaw gangs. With his younger brother Frank and several other
ex-Confederates, including Cole Younger and his brothers, James robbed
his way across the Western frontier targeting banks, trains,
stagecoaches, and stores from Iowa to Texas. Eluding even the Pinkerton
National Detective Agency, the gang escaped with thousands of dollars.
(WUD, 1994 p.762)(USLC, 9/5/99)(MesWP)
1848 Oct 19, John "The Pathfinder"
Fremont moved out from near Westport, Missouri, on his fourth Western
expedition with 33 volunteers. The goal was to find a railroad route
across the Rocky Mountains. His failed attempt to open a trail across
the Rocky Mountains along the 38th parallel ended with some of his men
cannibalizing their comrades.
(HN, 10/19/98)(SFEC, 2/13/00, BR p.6)(ON, 12/06, p.5)
1848 George Caleb Bingham
(1811-1879), artist, won a seat as a Missouri legislator and served a
single term.
(WSJ, 11/3/07,
p.W16)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Caleb_Bingham)
1849 Mar 4, The US had no
President. Pres. James K. Polk officially stepped down as the 11th US
president and President Zachary Taylor refused to be sworn-in on a
Sunday. US Sen. Some say David Rice Atchison (1807-1886) of Missouri
then technically held office as president until Zachary Taylor took his
oath the next day. However Atchison’s term as president pro tempore of
the Senate had also expired, and his new term did not begin until March
5.
(AH, 2/03, p.18)
1849 May 17, A fire in St. Louis,
Mo., destroyed more than 400 buildings and two dozen steamships.
(AP, 5/17/99)
1850 Westport was chartered as
Kansas, named after the river.
(HNQ, 1/27/01)
1854 Aug 30, John Fremont issued a
proclamation freeing the slaves of Missouri rebels.
(MC, 8/30/01)
1854 The Missouri "Border
Ruffians" harassed the new settlers of the Kansas territory.
(WSJ, 3/27/98, p.W10)
1858 May 19, A pro-slavery band
led by Charles Hameton executed unarmed Free State men near Marais des
Cygnes on the Kansas-Missouri border.
(HN, 5/19/99)
1858 Sep 15, The Butterfield
Overland Mail Company began delivering mail from St. Louis to San
Francisco. The company's motto was: "Remember, boys, nothing on God's
earth must stop the United States mail!"
(HN, 9/15/99)
1849 In Missouri Henry Shaw, a
British immigrant, established the St. Louis Botanical Garden.
(SSFC, 7/5/09, p.M5)
1860 Apr 3, The US Pony Express
mail system began when one horse and rider carrying a bulging mail
pouch began the 10 1/2-day run from San Francisco, Calif., to St.
Joseph, Mo. Riders left St. Joseph, Missouri and SF, Ca., at the same
time. They averaged 12 mph over 75-100 mile segments between 153 (190)
change stations. The SF freight company of Russell, Majors and Waddell
began the service. The ride from SF was a publicity stunt and never
repeated. Sacramento was made the western terminus. The enterprise
failed after only 18 months, however, due to mounting financial losses
and competition from the ever-expanding telegraph network. Donald C.
Biggs (d.2000 at 72), prof. of history at SF State, later authored ”The
Pony Express: Creation of the Legend.”
(SFC, 2/15/97, p.D4)(AP, 4/3/97)(HN, 4/3/98)(SFC,
6/12/00, p.A24)(AH, 10/01, p.12)(SSFC, 1/3/10, DB p.46)
1860 Sep 13, John J. Pershing
(d.1948), aka "Black Jack," was born in Laclede, Missouri. He led the
campaign against Pancho Villa in Mexico and commanded the American
Expeditionary Force in France during World War I.
(HN, 9/13/98)
1860-1861 The Patee House Hotel (now the Patee House
Museum) served as the Pony Express headquarters, and the operators used
the hotel as a place to put up their riders.
(HNQ, 1/28/02)
1860-1865 Anti-slavery, pro-Union guerrillas in
Kansas during the American Civil War were commonly known as Jayhawkers.
As a bird, the Jayhawk does not exist, but Jayhawkers were very real.
Jayhawkers coursed about Kansas and Missouri, impelled by substantially
more malice than charity as they fought their Confederate counterparts,
the Bushwhackers, who favored the Confederacy. Some Bushwhackers were
semi-legitimate soldiers, even grudgingly acknowledged as such by the
Confederate Army. Such men as William Quantrill, "Bloody Bill"
Anderson, John Thrailkill, David Pool, Jo Shelby and Jeff Thompson were
in this category. Others were simply banditti with a quasi-military
excuse for vengeful ambush, robbery, murder, arson and plunder.
(HNQ, 5/24/01)(HN, 5/30/01)
1861 May 10, Union troops marched
on state militia in St Louis, Mo.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1861 Aug 10, General Nathaniel
Lyon died at the Battle of Wilson's Creek, Missouri. He was the 1st
Union general to die in the Civil War. The 2nd land battle of the Civil
War was fought along Wilson’s Creek in southwest Missouri. The fight
was considered a Confederate victory. This 1st major battle west of the
Mississippi was pivotal in determining the fate of the most populous
state west of the Mississippi River in the early months of the Civil
War."
(HNQ,
6/5/02)(www.civilwarhome.com/wilsonscreek.htm)(AM, 11/04, p.28)
1861 Aug 14, Martial Law was
declared at St. Louis, MI.
(MC, 8/14/02)
1861 Aug 15, Lincoln directed
reinforcements to be sent to Missouri.
(MC, 8/15/02)
1861 Aug 16, Union and Confederate
forces clashed near Fredericktown and Kirkville, Missouri.
(HN, 8/16/98)
1861 Aug 30, Union General John
Fremont declared martial law throughout Missouri and made his own
emancipation proclamation to free slaves in the state. However,
Fremont’s order was countermanded days later by President Lincoln.
Fremont was soon relieved of command after refusing Lincoln’s order to
rescind his proclamation and adhere to the terms of the August 6
Confiscation Act.
(HN, 8/30/98)(AP, 8/30/06)(ON, 6/10, p.1)
1861 Sep 20, Lexington, Missouri,
was captured by Union forces.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1861 Nov 7, Union General Ulysses
S. Grant launches an unsuccessful raid on Belmont, Missouri.
(HN, 11/7/02)
1861 Nov 9, During the Civil War,
soldiers of the Illinois 11th, 18th, and 29th Regiments, after forcing
the Confederates south, set up camp in Bloomfield, Missouri. Upon
finding the newspaper office empty, they decided to print a newspaper
for their expedition, relating the troop's activities. They called it
the Stars and Stripes.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stars_and_Stripes_(newspaper))
1861 Nov 28, The Confederate
Congress admitted Missouri to the Confederacy, although Missouri had
not yet seceded from the Union.
(DT internet 11/28/97)(HN, 11/28/98)
1862 Mar 3, General Pope laid
siege in front of New Madrid, MO.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1862 May 9, Battle of Farmington,
Missouri.
(MC, 5/9/02)
1862 Jul 29, At Moore’s Mill in
Missouri, the Confederates were routed by Union guerrillas.
(HN, 7/29/98)
1862 The dark clouds of civil war
gathered over the nation as two aggressive factions--the Wide-Awakes
and the Minutemen--plotted to gain political control of Missouri and
its most important city, St. Louis.
(HN, 7/29/98)
1863 May 24, Bushwackers led by
Captain William Marchbanks attacked a Federal militia party in Nevada,
Missouri.
(HN, 5/24/99)
1863 Jul 15, Confederate raider
Bill Anderson and his Bushwackers attacked Huntsville, Missouri,
stealing $45,000 from the local bank.
(HN, 7/15/99)
1863 Jul 23, Bill Anderson and his
Confederate Bushwackers gutted the railway station at Renick, Missouri.
(HN, 7/23/99)
1864 Sep 27, Confederate guerrilla
Bloody Bill Anderson and his henchmen, including a teenage Jesse James,
massacred 20 unarmed Union soldiers at Centralia, Mo.
(HN, 9/27/98)
1864 Sep 27, Battle at Pilot Knob
(Ft Davidson), Missouri. 1700 were killed or injured.
(MC, 9/27/01)
1864 Oct 15, Confederate troops
occupied Glasgow, Missouri.
(MC, 10/15/01)
1864 Oct 23, Forces led by Union
Gen. Samuel R. Curtis defeated Confederate Gen. Stirling Price's army
in Missouri.
(AP, 10/23/97)
1864 Dec 2, Major General
Grenville M. Dodge was named to replace General Rosecrans as Commander
of the Department of Missouri.
(HN, 12/2/98)
1864 Adolphus Busch (1839-1913),
German immigrant married to Eberhard Anheuser’s daughter (1861), began
working at his father-in-law’s brewery in St. Louis.
(WSJ, 5/27/08,
p.A18)(www.dol.gov/oasam/programs/laborhall/2007_busch.htm)
1865 Feb 27, A Civil War skirmish
took place near Sturgeon, Missouri.
(MC, 2/27/02)
1866 Feb 13, Jesse James took part
in his 1st bank holdup. At least a dozen former Southern guerrilla
soldiers, including Frank James and Cole Younger, held up the Clay
County Savings Association in Liberty, Missouri, of $15,000. Jesse
James was recovering from wounds suffered as a Confederate guerrilla
and probably wasn’t able to help brother Frank and Cole, but the
Liberty bank job is considered the James-Younger Gang’s first robbery.
Another outlaw legend, Charles "Black Bart" Boles baffled Wells Fargo
detectives during an eight year stint of 27 stagecoach robberies.
http://www.thehistorynet.com/WildWest/articles/2000/0800_cover.htm
(HN, 2/13/98)(HN, 7/18/00)(MC, 2/13/02)
1866 Oct 30, Jesse James gang
robbed a bank in Lexington, Missouri, of $2000.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1867 Mar 2, Jesse James-gang
robbed a bank in Savannah MO, 1 dead.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1867 May 23, Jesse James gang
robbed a bank in Richmond, Missouri, with 2 killed and $4,000 taken.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1868 Dec 7, Jesse James gang
robbed a bank in Gallatin, Missouri, and killed 1 person.
(MC, 12/7/01)
1868 In Missouri Henry Shaw
(1800-1889), British-born businessman, gave Tower Grove Park to St.
Louis. In 2005 Carol Grove authored “Henry Shaw's Victorian Landscapes:
The Missouri Botanical Garden and Tower Grove Park.”
(SSFC, 7/5/09,
p.M5)(www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-142885678.html)
1869 Railroad companies built the
first bridge across the Missouri River at Kansas City.
(SSFC, 11/12/06, p.G6)
1869 James Buchanan Eads
(1820-1887), American civil engineer, began building the world’s
longest arch bridge to cross the Mississippi River at St. Louis. The
bridge, completed in 1874, was the first of significant size to use
steel as its primary material.
(ON, 10/09,
p.5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Buchanan_Eads)
1869 The Stone Hill Winery was
built in Missouri and later became listed on the National Historic
register.
(SFC, 7/24/03, p.D5)
1871 A glass plant was built in a
Missouri town that was named Crystal City. By 1895 the factory was
acquired by Pittsburgh Plate Glass, later PPG Industries, which added a
glass factory billed as the largest in the world. In 1990 it was closed
and bulldozed, leaving lingering environmental contamination at the
250-acre site.
(WSJ, 9/16/08, p.A22)
1874 Jan 31, Jesse James gang
robbed a train at Gads Hill, Missouri.
(MC, 1/31/02)
1874 Jun 22, Dr. Andrew T. Sill of
Macon, Missouri, founded osteopathy.
(MC, 6/22/02)
1875 Jul 7, Jesse James robbed a
train in Otterville, Missouri.
(MC, 7/7/02)
1875 Missouri passed a law that
banned concealed weapons to curb gunslinging. The law was upheld by
voters in 1999.
(WSJ, 4/8/99, p.A1)
1878 Jul 9, An improved corncob
pipe was patented by Henry Tibbe in Washington, Mo.
(MC, 7/9/02)
1878 Dec 9, Joseph Pulitzer bought
the St Louis Dispatch for $2,500.
(MC, 12/9/01)
1879 Jul 7, George Caleb Bingham
(b.1811), artist and legislator, died in Kansas City, Mo. His paintings
included “The Jolly Flatboatmen,” which became a best-seller in 1846
after it was chosen by the American Art Union for its annual engraving.
(WSJ, 11/3/07,
p.W16)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Caleb_Bingham)
1882 Apr 3, Outlaw Jesse James
(34) was shot in the back and killed at his home in St. Joseph, Mo., by
Robert Ford, a cousin and member of his own gang for a $5,000 reward.
Jesse and Frank James, the bank robbing James brothers, were born as
Woodson and Alexander. In 1995 the body of Jesse James was exhumed for
DNA testing. The test proved that it was James, who was killed in 1882.
In 2000 Desmond Barry authored the novel "The Chivalry of Crime" based
on the story of Jesse James. In 2000 the body of a man, J. Frank Dalton
(d.1951), who claimed to be Jesse James was exhumed for DNA analysis.
(AP, 4/3/97)(SFC,12/26/97, p.C22)(SFEC, 4/23/00, BR
p.5)(SFC, 5/31/00, p.A4)(HNQ, 6/21/00)(HN, 4/3/02)
1882 Oct 5, Outlaw Frank James
surrendered in Missouri six months after brother Jesse's assassination.
(HN, 10/5/98)
1884 May 8, Harry S. Truman, 33rd
President of the United States (1945-1953), was born near Lamar, Mo. A
history buff, President Harry Truman penned this description of
Franklin Pierce, the 14th president, "Pierce was the best looking
President the White House ever had—but as President he ranks with
Buchanan and Calvin Coolidge." "If there is one basic element in our
Constitution, it is civilian control of the military." He decided to
drop the bomb that ended World War II and sent troops to Korea to halt
communist aggression.
(AP, 5/8/97)(AP, 1/17/99)(HN, 5/8/99)
1884 Jun, The steamboat Montana
(b.1879) tried to pass under a railroad bridge between the Missouri
towns St. Charles and Bridgeton, just a few miles from where the river
connects with the Mississippi. The boat struck the bridge and took on
water before running aground on the St. Louis County side of the river.
No one was hurt, but the Montana split in half.
(AP, 8/16/05)
1884 The First Congregational
Church was built in St. Louis, Mo. In 1992 it re-opened as the Grandel
Theater.
(WSJ, 8/30/06, p.D8)
1887 Nov 15, Marianne Moore, poet
(Pulitzer 1951, Collected Poems), was born in St. Louis.
(MC, 11/15/01)
1888 Nov 24, Dale Carnegie
(d.1955), public speaker, was born in Missouri. He authored "How to Win
Friends and Influence People" (1937).
(HN,
11/24/00)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dale_Carnegie)
1889 Apr 15, Thomas Hart Benton
(d.1975), painter, muralist, was born in Missouri.
(HN,
4/15/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hart_Benton_%28painter%29)
1889 Kansas, named after the
river, changing its name to Kansas City.
(HNQ, 1/27/01)
1889 Chris L. Rutt, a newspaperman
in St. Joseph, Missouri, began working on creating a self-rising
pancake mix. Within a year, he and two associates developed the first
pancake mix ever made. While seeking a name and package design for the
world's first self-rising pancake mix, Rutt saw a vaudeville team known
as Baker and Farrell whose act included Baker singing the catchy song
"Aunt Jemima" dressed as a Southern mammy. Inspired by the wholesome
name and image, Rutt appropriated them both to market his new pancake
mix.
(www.auntjemima.com/aj_history/)
1891 Nov 28, The National
Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (now IBEW) was founded in St. Louis,
home of Local 1.
(DT internet 11/28/97)
1892 Jul 4, The Omaha Platform was
adopted at the formative convention of the Populist (or People's) Party
held in Omaha, Nebraska. The People's party, more commonly known as the
Populist party, was organized in St. Louis to represent the common
folk, especially farmers, against the entrenched interests of
railroads, bankers, processors, corporations, and the politicians in
league with such interests. At its first national convention in Omaha
in July 1892, the party nominated James K. Weaver for president and
ratified the so-called Omaha Platform, drafted by Ignatius Donnelly of
Minnesota.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omaha_Platform)
1896 May 27, 255 people were
killed when a tornado struck St. Louis, Mo., and East St. Louis, Ill.
(AP, 5/27/97)
1898 The US Post Office featured a
stamp with the image of Eads Bridge in Missouri.
(SFC, 9/3/98, p.A19)
1899 Jun 16, Helen Traubel,
soprano (Met Opera Walkure/Isolde), nightclubs, was born in St Louis,
MO.
(MC, 6/16/02)
1901 After the 1901 baseball
season the Milwaukee Brewers were moved to St. Louis, Mo.
(ON, 6/09, p.11)
1901 The Monsanto Chemical Works
was founded in St. Louis, Mo., by John F. Queeny (1859–1933), a
purchasing agent for a wholesale drug company, to manufacture the
synthetic sweetener saccharin, then produced only in Germany.
(www.experiencefestival.com/a/Monsanto_-_Corporate_history/id/5306341)
1903 Jun 21, Al[bert] Hirschfield,
cartoonist (NINA, NY Times), was born in St Louis, Mo.
(MC, 6/21/02)
1904 Apr 30, At 1:06 p.m.
President Theodore Roosevelt officially opened the St. Louis World’s
Fair commemorating the centennial of the Louisiana Purchase. Although
the Fair was originally scheduled to open in 1903, the opening was
delayed for a year while the elaborate fairgrounds were completed.
Visitors were awed by 142 miles of exhibits shown in palatial buildings
like Festival Hall the centerpiece of the fair boasting an auditorium
seating 3,500 and the largest pipe organ in the world. Other wonders
seen at the St. Louis World’s Fair were the Liberty Bell, ice cream
cones. Food vendors, Arnold Fornachou (ice cream) and Ernest Hamwi
(sweet, rolled wafers), collaborated for the ice cream cones. In 1903
Italo Marconi received a patent for pastry cornets to hold ice cream.
Charles Menches sold ice cream at the fair and an anonymous Syrian sold
the zalabia pastry in the next booth.
(HN, 5/2/98)(SFEC, 5/23/99, p.B7)(SFC, 6/24/00, p.B3)
1904 Apr 30, The St. Louis World’s
Fair popularized the all-American hamburger. The fair lasted 7 months
and inspired the phrase "Meet Me in St. Louis." Cass Gilbert designed
the art museum in Foret park, the only building left over from the
fair. At the Louisiana Purchase Exposition the temperatures in St.
Louis soared and hot-tea vendor Richard Blechynden began pouring his
tea over ice thus the invention of iced-tea. The fair popularized
sausage in a bun, the hot dog with prepared mustard and the ice cream
cone.
(SFC, 8/18/96, Z1 p.2)(SFEC, 11/17/96, Par
p.19)(SFC, 10/12/97, p.T5)(SFEC, 4/19/98, Z1 p.8)(SSFC, 10/5/03, p.C3)c
1904 Although invented in Waco,
Texas in the 1880s, Dr Pepper first received national exposure at the
St. Louis World‘s Fair.
(HNQ, 10/25/00)
1904 May 14, The first Olympic
games to be held in the United States opened in St. Louis. Fewer than a
1,000 athletes competed from 13 countries. The US won 80 of 100 gold
medals. At the Olympics the game of golf was played for the last time
due to lack of general appeal. The 3rd modern Olympics were held at the
St. Louis World’s Fair. 1,505 contestants from 7 countries participated.
(SFC, 7/14/96, Par p.4)(AP, 5/14/97)(WSJ, 7/23/96,
p.A6)(PCh, 1992, p.658)
1904 Jul 23, By some accounts, the
ice cream cone was invented by Charles E. Menches during the Louisiana
Purchase Exposition in St. Louis. [see Sep 22, 1903]
(AP, 7/23/99)
1904 Oct 28, The St. Louis,
Missouri, police tried a new investigation method--fingerprints.
(HN, 10/28/98)
1904 Dec 1, The Louisiana Purchase
Exposition in St. Louis closed after seven months and some 20 million
visitors.
(AP, 12/1/04)
1905 Mar 28, Marlin Perkins, TV
host (Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom), was born in Carthage, Mo.
(MC, 3/28/02)
1905 Jul 17, Edgar Snow, American
author and journalist, was born in Kansas City, Missouri.
(www.umkc.edu)
1906 Apr 15, A mob in Springfield,
Mo., took 3 black men from a county jail, lynched them and burned their
bodies. 2 of the men were being held under suspicion of murder and the
3rd was accused of assaulting a white domestic. Gov. Folk ordered out
state militia to patrol the streets.
(SSFC, 4/16/06, p.A13)
1906 Jun 3, Josephine Baker,
dancer, singer, Parisian nightclub owner, was born to an Indian and
African mother and a Creole father in St. Louis. She was a talented
singer and dancer who got her show business start with the Dixie
Steppers vaudeville troupe and was the first black, female American
entertainer to achieve international stardom. She left home at 13 to
tour on the southern vaudeville circuit, later appeared on Broadway and
was noted in New York as a comedienne. Frustrated by the racism she
encountered in her homeland, Baker moved to France in 1925 and joined
the Folies Bergere. Her sensuous performances with La Revue Negre
earned her rave reviews and admiring fans. She returned to America in
1935 after 10 years in France only to find that racial barriers still
prevented her from attaining the same status she enjoyed in Europe. She
appeared in New York's Ziegfeld Follies but, when she did not achieve
any success there she returned to France, became a citizen, and married
a Frenchman. During World War II, Baker became active in undercover
work for the French Resistance movement. She later adopted twelve
orphans from around the world, calling them her "Rainbow Tribe."
Josephine Baker died in France in 1975 and was buried in Paris with
full military honors.
(HNQ, 6/3/98)(HN, 6/3/98)(HNQ, 12/28/98)
1906 Aug 5, John Houston, film
director of such movies as "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" and "The
Maltese Falcon," was born in Nevada, Mo.
(HN, 8/5/98)(MC, 8/5/02)
c1906 The College of the Ozarks
was founded.
(WSJ, 5/19/99, p.B6)
1906 In St. Louis Annie Turnbo
(b.1869) registered the "Poro" tradename to cover her Wonderful Hair
Grower product. Poro was a Mende (a West African) term for a devotional
society.
(SFEM, 8/23/98, p.30)
1907 The St. Louis "New" Cathedral
on Lindell Blvd. was begun. It was not finished until the 1990s and
grew to possess the largest collection of mosaic art in the world.
(SFC, 5/12/97, p.T5)
1908 Jul 12, The Missouri Gazette
began publishing under Joseph Charless.
(SSFC, 1/4/04, p.M5)
1909 Black author Chester Himes
(d.1984) was born in Jefferson City. He was best known for his crime
novels and settled in Paris in 1954. In 2001 James Sallis authored
"Chester Himes: A Life."
(SFEC, 3/1/98, BR p.7)(SSFC, 2/25/01, BR p.1)(WSJ,
4/6/01, p.W9)
1910 Jul 13, Meyer Friedman
(d.2001 at 90) was born in Kansas City. In 1939 he founded the Harold
Brunn Institute for Cardiovascular Research at Mt. Zion Hospital in SF.
He and Dr. Ray H. Rosenman coined the term "Type A" to describe
personalities with high-stress lifestyles.
(SSFC, 4/29/01, p.A26)
1910 Joyce Clyde Hall (b.1891) of
Nebraska and his brother began selling greeting cards In Kansas City,
Mo. This was the beginning of Hallmark Cards.
(http://pressroom.hallmark.com/comprehensive_timline.html)
1910 Tennessee passed a
Prohibition law that gave distillers one year to dismantle their
operations. George Dickel's operations moved to Kentucky and Jack
Daniel's to Missouri and Alabama.
(SFC, 2/04/04, p.D2)
1910 The Kansas City Livestock
Exchange was built in Kansas City, Mo., at the time was the largest
building in the world devoted solely to livestock.
(Econ, 12/1/07, p.38)
1911 Mar 3, The 1st US federal
cemetery with Union and Rebel graves opened at Jefferson Barracks
National Cemetery, St. Louis, Missouri.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1911 May 18, Joseph Vernon "Big
Joe" Turner, blues singer, was born in Kansas City, Mo.
(HN, 5/18/01)
1911 May 27, Vincent Price, actor,
was born in St. Louis, Mo. He became best known for his role in movies
of Edgar Allen Poe horror stories.
(SMTS, 10/1/86, p.4)
1912 Mar 1, Albert Berry
completed the first in-flight parachute jump, from a Benoist plane over
Kinlock Field in St. Louis.
(HN, 3/1/98)
1912 Jun 18, Glen Morris, Olympic
champion, actor (Tarzan), was born in Missouri.
(MC, 6/18/02)
1914 Union Station in Kansas City,
Mo., opened.
(SSFC, 11/12/06, p.G6)
1916 Sep 21, Ewing Marion Kauffman
(d.1993) was born in Garden City, Missouri. In 1950 he formed Marion
Laboratories and sold the company to Merrell Dow in 1989. He founded
the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in 1966 to foster education and
entrepreneurship.
(www.kauffman.org/ewingkauffman.cfm)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ewing_Kauffman)
1917 Jan 5, Jane Wyman (d.2007),
film star, was born as Sarah Jane Mayfield Fulks in St. Joseph, Mo.
(SFC, 9/11/07, p.A2)
1919 Jan 16, Nebraska, Wyoming and
Missouri became the 36th, 37th and 38th states to ratify Prohibition,
which went into effect a year later. Prohibition became law in the US
with the passage of the Volstead Act on Oct 28, which enforced and
defined the 18th Amendment. It was passed over President Wilson's veto
with the necessary two-thirds majority of state ratification.
(WSJ, 8/22/96, p.A14)(AP, 1/16/98)
1919 Jun 28, Harry S. Truman
married Elizabeth Virginia Wallace in Independence, Mo.
(AP, 6/28/97)
1920 Feb 13-1920 Feb 14, Andrew
“Rube” Foster (1879-1930) formed the 1st black baseball league, the
Negro National League, at a meeting at the Colored YMCA, Kansas City,
Mo.
(AH, 2/05,
p.17)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rube_Foster)
1922 The country Club Plaza of
Kansas City, Mo., opened as an elite alternative to downtown shopping
and was the 1st retailing concept to rely upon shoppers arriving by
car. The major shopping mall movement in the US began in 1956 with the
Edina, Minn., mall.
(WSJ, 1/30/04, p.W9)
1923 Nov 8, Jack S. Kilby (d.2005)
was born in Jefferson City, Mo. In 2000 he received the Nobel Prize in
Physics for his invention of the microchip (1958).
(SFC, 12/11/00, p.A2)(SFC, 6/22/05, p.A5)
1923 Walt Disney began producing
his “Alice” comedies and continued with the series to 1927. Virginia
Davis (1919-2009), hired at age four, appeared in 13 of the “Alice”
films. These included “Alice’s Day at Sea,” “Alice the Peacemaker,” and
“Alice’s Wild West Show.” Disney and his Laugh-O-Gram company were
based in Kansas City, Ms., when the series began.
(SFC, 8/19/09, p.D5)
1924 Feb 17, Margaret Truman,
pres. daughter, writer (Murder at FBI), singer, was born in Mo.
(MC, 2/17/02)
1924 Mar 6, Sarah Caldwell,
conductor, opera director (Flagstaff), was born in Maryville, Mo.
(MC, 3/6/02)
1924 Oct 20, Baseball’s first
"colored World Series" was held in Kansas City, Mo.
(HN, 10/20/98)
1925 Mar 18, The great Tri-State
Tornado killed 695 people in Illinois, Indiana and Missouri and injured
some 13,000 people, and causing $17 million in property damage. Several
other destructive tornadoes in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Indiana, as
well as tornadoes in Alabama and Kansas brought the total to at least
747 dead.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tri-State_Tornado)(SSFC, 5/11/03, Par
p.A11)(AP, 5/24/11)
1925 Dec 13, Dick Van Dyke, actor
(Rob Petrie-Dick Van Dyke Show), was born in West Plains, Mo.
(MC, 12/13/01)
1926 Nov 11, Pres. Calvin Coolidge
dedicated the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City, Mo., in honor of those
who died in WW I.
(SSFC, 11/12/06, p.G6)(http://tinyurl.com/wz55k)
1926 The President Hotel opened in
downtown Kansas City, Mo. It was the first hotel in the city that could
make its own ice. It re-opened in 2006 after being closed for 25 years.
(SSFC, 11/12/06, p.G6)
1926 A collection of US roads from
Chicago to Los Angeles were improved and formed what would be
designated as US 66. It was later replaced by 3 interstates, I-55 in
Illinois, I-44 in Missouri and Oklahoma, and I-40 to LA. Route 66 was
decertified in 1985. In 2006 Arthur Krim authored “Route 66:
Iconography of the American Highway.”
(WSJ, 6/17/06, p.P8)
1927 May 10, US aviator Charles
Augustus Lindbergh (1902-1974) picked up his plane, “The Spirit of St.
Louis,” in San Diego and flew it to St. Louis. The next day he
continued to New York using railroad maps that he picked up in a
drugstore for 50 cents each. The plane was powered by an air-cooled
Whirlwind engine built by Ryan Aeronautical Company. Charles Fayette
Taylor (1895-1996) worked on the engine design team. Taylor later
authored "The Internal Combustion Engine in Theory and Practice."
(WUD, 1994, p.832)(SFC, 6/23/96, Z1 p.2)(SFC,
6/30/96, p.B6)(ON, 2/08, p.2)
1928 Jun 14, The Republican
National Convention in Kansas City nominated Herbert Hoover for
president on the first ballot. George Barr Baker was Hoover's
confidential advisor during the campaign.
(AP, 6/14/98)(SFC, 12/30/98, p.A18)
1928 Jun 15, Republicans,
convening in Kansas City, named Herbert Hoover their candidate for
President.
(HN, 6/15/98)
1929 Nov 15, Edward Asner, actor
(Mary Tyler Moore Show, Lou Grant), was born in Kansas City, Missouri.
(www.filmreference.com/film/6/Edward-Asner.html)
1930 Mar 2, Harry Kuchins made the
first indoor glider flight inside the St. Louis, Mo, Terminal Building.
(HC, Internet, 2/3/98)
1930 Mar 24, Steve McQueen, actor
(Wanted, Dead or Alive, Blob, Bullitt), was born in Slater, Mo.
(MC, 3/24/02)
1932 Union Pacific constructed the
Katy Bridge over the Missouri River in Boonville, Mo.
(WSJ, 5/16/05, p.A1)
1934 In Kansas City political
elections 4 people died under the infamously corrupt political machine
of Tom Pendergast.
(SFC, 12/2/96, p.A10)
1936 Jan 2, The 1st electron tube
to enable night vision was described in St Louis, Mo.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1937 Jan 4, Grace Bumbry, soprano
(Venus, in "Tannhauser"), was born in St. Louis.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1937 Mar 18, In Missouri Jim the
Wonder Dog died at age 12 at the Lake of the Ozarks. The dog had
uncanny abilities that were verified but never explained. On May 1,
1999, a "Jim the Wonder Dog Memorial Garden" was dedicated.
(SFC, 3/29/99, p.A3)
1937 Tennessee Williams wrote his
play "Fugitive Kind" for the Mummers company in St. Louis.
(SFC, 1/16/03, p.E3)
1939 Tom Pendergast, boss of
Kansas City’s political machine, went to prison for failing to report a
large part of $620,000 in bribe and business income.
(SFC, 12/2/96, p.A10)
1940 A group of 14 bronze
sculptures by Swedish sculptor Carl Miles were installed to celebrate
the meeting of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers.
(SFC, 5/12/97, p.T5)
1940 The Winstead’s restaurant
opened and established a reputation for the world’s best hamburgers.
They were commonly served with a chocolate frostie.
(WSJ, 4/15/98, p.A20)
1942 Apr 3, Marsha Mason, actress
(Blume in Love, Cinderella Liberty), was born in St Louis, Mo.
(MC, 4/3/02)
1942 May 9, John Ashcroft, later
Missouri governor (1984-1992) senator (1995-2000) and US Attorney Gen’l
(2001-2004), was born in Chicago, Ill.
(USAT, 11/5/04, p.4A)
1942 Rudolph H. Hartman, an
investigator for the Treasury Dept., wrote a report titled "The Kansas
City Investigation: Pendergast's Downfall, 1938-1939" as a report to
his superiors, Elmer Irey and Treasury Sec. Henry Morgenthau. In 1999
Robert H. Ferrell published an edition of the work.
(WSJ, 7/19/99, p.A13)
1943 Jul 28, Bill Bradley, U.S.
senator, professional basketball player, was born in Crystal City, Mo.
(HN, 7/28/98)
1946 Jun 17, SW Bell inaugurated
mobile telephone commercial service in St Louis.
(MC, 6/17/02)
1946 Crown Cork & Seal Co.
introduced the 1st seamless, lined and lithographed aerosol canister,
the Spra-tainer. Aaron Lapin (d.1999 at 85) of Clayton Corp. used the
canister to hold his whipping cream and named the product Reddi-wip,
which he sold through milk men in St. Louis.
(SFC, 7/15/99, p.A25)
1947 Jun 22, Holt, Missouri,
experienced a world-record rainstorm when 304.8 mm (1 ft) of rain fell
in 42 minutes. June 1947 had been the wettest month of record since
record-keeping began in 1888 in northern Missouri. Holt is located in
both Clay and Clinton Counties, Missouri and had a population of 405 in
2000.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holt,_Missouri)
1947 Oct 24, Kevin Kline, actor
(Sophie's Choice, Big Chill), was born in St. Louis.
(MC, 10/24/01)
1951 Jul 14, The George Washington
Carver National Monument in Joplin, Missouri became the first national
park honoring an African American.
(HN, 7/14/98)
1951 Aug 11, The Mississippi River
flooded some 100,000 acres in Ks, Okla, Mo and Ill.
(MC, 8/11/02)
1952 Jul 2, Linda M. Godwin, PhD,
astronaut (STS 37), was born in Cape Girardeau, Missouri.
(SC, 7/2/02)
1954 GM transferred production of
the Corvette to St. Louis and 3,000 were produced in this year.
(WSJ, 7/12/02, p.W12)
1955 Nov 1, Dale Carnegie
(b.1888), author of “How to Win Friends and Influence People” (1937),
died of Hodgkin’s disease. In 2006 he was inducted into the Hall of
Famous Missourians in Jefferson City, Missouri; joining the likes of
Harry S Truman and Walt Disney.
(http://tinyurl.com/m73my)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dale_Carnegie)
1955 Richard (d.2004) and Henry
Bloch formed the H&R Block company in Kansas City, Mo. It grew to
become the world’s largest tax preparing firm.
(SFC, 7/22/04, p.B8)(LSA, Spring/06, p.64)
1956 Jul 2, Julie Montgomery,
actress (Samantha-1, Life to Live, Kindred), was born in KC, Mo.
(SC, 7/2/02)
1960 Mar 13, NFL's Chicago
Cardinals moved to St Louis.
(MC, 3/13/02)
1963 Nov 21, Robert Stroud, "bird
man of Alcatraz", died at the federal prison in Springfield, Mo. His
canary studies were done at Leavenworth, Kansas, and included the book
"Stroud’s Digest of Diseases of Birds." He also worked on a critical
history of the US prison system (Looking Outward).
(AHHT, 10/02, p.22)(SSFC, 9/22/02,
p.A8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birdman_of_Alcatraz)
1964 May 25, Ground was broken for
a new stadium in St Louis.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1964 Oct 15, St. Louis Cardinals
in their home park beat the New York Yankees in game 7 of Baseball’s
World Series (7-5). In 1994 David Halberstam authored “October 1964,”
an account centered on the series.
(www.baseball-almanac.com/ws/yr1964ws.shtml)(WSJ,
9/24/05, p.P12)
1965 Sep 25, 60 year old Satchel
Paige of the Kansas City A's pitched 3 scoreless innings.
(MC, 9/25/01)
1965 Oct 28, The Gateway Arch
(630' (190m) high), designed by Eero Saarinen, was completed in St
Louis, Missouri.
(http://archanniversary.com/)
1966 Busch Stadium, the ballpark
to house the St. Louis Cardinals, was completed in St. Louis, Mo. It
was demolished and replaced in 2005.
(AP, 11/4/05)
1967 Jan 15, The first Super Bowl
was played as the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League
defeated the Kansas City Chiefs of the American Football League, 35-10
in Los Angeles. The matchup was officially called the AFL-NFL World
Championship Game.
(WSJ, 1/28/97, p.A16)(AP, 1/15/98)
1967 Eero Saarinen's 630-foot
high, stainless steel Gateway Arch, opened in St. Louis, Mo.
(AP, 11/5/05)
1968 May 25, The Gateway Arch,
part of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial in St. Louis, was
dedicated by Vice President Hubert Humphrey and Interior Secretary
Stewart Udall.
(AP, 5/25/08)
1972 Dec 26, The 33rd president of
the United States, Harry S. Truman, died in Kansas City, Mo. In 1995
Robert H. Ferrell published the biography "Harry S. Truman: A Life." In
1999 Ferrell published "Truman and Pendergast."
(AP, 12/26/97)(WSJ, 7/19/99, p.A13)
1972 A Stetson Hat Factory moved
to St. Joseph, Mo. The handmade hats took 43 steps to produce.
(SFC, 7/31/98, p.A14)
1973 Jun 7, Pres. Nixon nominated
Clarence M. Kelley (1911-1997), chief of police in Kansas City, to
succeed J. Edgar Hoover as director of the FBI. Kelley retired in 1978
when Pres. Carter selected William Webster to serve as the director.
(SFC, 8/6/97,
p.A14)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_M._Kelley)
1973 Gene Taylor (d.1998 at 70)
was elected to the House of Representatives from southwest Missouri and
served 8 terms. He beat John Ashcroft, who was elected to the Senate in
1994.
(SFC, 10/29/98, p.C6)
1975 Jan 19, Thomas Hart Benton
(b.1889), US artist, died in Kansas City, Missouri. In 2009 Henry Adams
authored “Tom and Jack: The Intertwined Lives of Thomas Hart Benton and
Jackson Pollock.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hart_Benton_(painter))(Econ,
12/12/09, p.94)
1975 Sep 20, The Kansas City Lyric
Opera premiered Jack Beeson’s "Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines." It
was commissioned to celebrate founder and director Russell Patterson’s
40th and final year with the company.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Jinks_of_the_Horse_Marines)
1975 In Missouri Ernest Trova
(d.2009 at 82), artist, co-founded the Laumeier Sculpture Park with a
gift of over 40 large-scale artworks to St. Louis County.
(SFC, 3/12/09, p.B6)
1976 Aug 19, President Ford
narrowly won the Republican presidential nomination over Ronald Reagan
at the party's convention in Kansas City. The convention was called to
order by Mary Louis Smith, chair of the Republican National Committee
and the first woman to organize and call to order the convention of a
major US political party. In 2005 Craig Shirley authored “Reagan’s
Revolution: The Untold Story of the Campaign That Started It all.”
(AP, 8/19/97)(SFEC, 8/24/97, p.D8)(WSJ, 2/2/05,
p.D10)
1977 May 4, A large tornado swept
through Pleasant Hill, Mo., hitting the city’s high school and grade
school. Only minor injuries occurred due to superb tornado warnings and
drills.
(SFC, 5/4/09, p.D8)
1977 Aug 15, Police in Cape
Girardeau, Missouri, found Mary Parsh (58) and her daughter, Brenda
(27), lying nude side by side on a bed at home, their hands tied behind
their backs. Each had been shot in the head. In 2007 Timothy Krajcir
(63), a graduate from Southern Illinois with a degree in law
enforcement, confessed to their rape and murder and at least 4 more. He
was sentenced to 40 years in prison for the 1982 killing of a Southern
Illinois University Carbondale student, Deborah Sheppard. and, in
addition, was charged with five counts of murder and three counts of
rape against women in the Cape Girardeau, Missouri, area from 1977 to
1982. In 2008, Krajcir pleaded guilty and was sentenced to another 40
years in prison for the 1978 killing of Marion resident Virginia Lee
Witte.
(AP,
12/12/07)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Krajcir)
1977-1993 In Missouri a serial killer committed at
least 12 murders during this period. In 2004 Kansas City police used
DNA technology to charge Lorenzo Gilyard with 12 murders.
(WSJ, 4/20/04, p.A1)
1978 Jan 28, Fire swept through
the historic downtown Coates House hotel in Kansas City, Mo., killing
20 people.
(AP, 1/28/08)
1977 Aug 15, Police in Cape
Girardeau, Missouri, found Mary Parsh (58) and her daughter, Brenda
(27), lying nude side by side on a bed at home, their hands tied behind
their backs. Each had been shot in the head. In 2007 Timothy Krajcir
(63), a graduate from Southern Illinois with a degree in law
enforcement, confessed to their rape and murder and at least 4 more.
(AP, 12/12/07)
1978 Sep 13, The US Navy's F-18
Hornet makes its public debut during rollout ceremonies in St. Louis,
Mo.
(www.boeing.com/defense-space/military/fa18/fa18_milestones.htm)
1981 Jul 17, In Missouri 114
people were killed when a pair of walkways above the lobby of the
Kansas City Hyatt Regency Hotel collapsed during a tea dance.
(AP,
7/17/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyatt_Regency_walkway_collapse)
1981 Dec 10, Hundreds of people
were killed in the El Salvadoran village of El Mozote by an elite
US-trained army battalion. In 1991 the office of Maria Julia Hernandez
(1939-2007) published the first investigation into El Mozote. In 1992,
under a UN sponsored Truth Commission, the Argentine Forensic
Anthropology Team found 143 skeletons, 131 of which belonged to
children under 12. The bullet cartridges showed manufacture in Lake
City, Mo.
(SFC, 5/12/96, Z1p.4)(Econ, 4/14/07, p.97)
1982 Oct 18, Former first lady
Bess Truman (97) died at her home in Independence, Mo.
(AP, 10/18/97)
1982 The Hearst Corp. acquired
KMBC-TV, Kansas City.
(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A9)
1983 Mar 1, A tornado producing F2
damage touched down in St. Louis, Mo. It later strengthened and
produced F3 damage in Illinois causing five million dollars in damage.
(www.crh.noaa.gov/lsx/trivia/mar_trivia.php)
1985 Aug 29, In Missouri the St.
Louis Union Station, purchased by a New York financier, reopened as a
Grand Hyatt hotel. The massive, Romanesque-style building, designed by
architect Theodore Link in 1894, was once the largest and busiest
railroad terminal in the world. In 1976, the Saint Louis Union Station
was designated a National Historic Landmark.
(SFC, 10/12/97,
p.T5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Louis_Union_Station)
1987 Dec 6, In Missouri 3 Satanist
teenagers bludgeoned Steven Newberry (19), a learning-disabled youth,
to death and blamed the incident on heavy metal inspired Satanism.
(http://tinyurl.com/k36su)(www.creationism.org/csshs/v15n1p03.htm)
1988 Mar 15, NFL owners approved
the move of the St Louis Cardinals to Phoenix.
(www.sportsecyclopedia.com/nfl/az/cardsarizona.html)
1988 Sep 1, Leonor Sullivan
(b.1902), Rep-D-Missouri, (1955-77), died.
(http://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/sullivan6.html)
1988 Wal-Mart opened its 1st
supercenter in Washington, Mo.
(SFC, 8/4/05, p.C1)
1988 Willie Lawrence (19), a
paraplegic, was murdered along with his grandparents. Darrel Mease was
convicted in the murder of Lawrence and was sentenced to death. In 1999
the sentence was commuted.
(SFC, 1/29/99, p.A1)(SFEC, 5/2/99, p.A14)
1989 Mar 22, Ann Harrison (15) was
abducted as she waited for a school bus in front of her home in
Raytown, Missouri. African-Americans Roderick Nunley and Michael Taylor
forced her into a stolen car, raped and stabbed her to death. They left
her body in the boot of the car. Taylor and Nunley were convicted and
sentenced to death. In 2006 their execution was postponed pending a
decision on whether lethal injection constitutes cruel and unusual
punishment.
(Econ, 7/22/06,
p.36)(http://columbiamissourian.com/news/story.php?ID=18038)
1989 May, Dr. Joe T. McTibben
arrived at the College of the Ozarks and offered an endowment to Pres.
Jerry C. Davis. McTibben had been impressed by a WSJ article from 1973
that described the Univ. as "Hard Work U."
(WSJ, 5/19/99, p.B1)
1989 Jul 3, By a 5-4 decision, the
U.S. Supreme Court upheld abortion restrictions in the state of
Missouri.
(AP, 7/3/9)
1989 Sep 16, Debbye Turner of
Missouri was crowned Miss America at the pageant in Atlantic City, N.J.
(AP, 9/16/99)
1989 Dec 11, Dr. McTibben wrote a
letter stating that his estate would go to the College of the Ozarks.
McTibben died in California in May,1998, and left an estate valued at
about $12 million.
(WSJ, 5/19/99, p.B1,6)
1989 Seven hundred and fifty
archivists were charter members of the Academy of Certified Archivists,
founded at the Annual Meeting of SAA in St. Louis in 1989. Since then,
the Academy has established itself as the credentialing agency for
determining archival status
(SAA, 4/19/99)
1989 In Kansas City a firebomb was
thrown into a house and 6 people died.
(SFC,12/6/97, p.A7)
1990 Apr 16, The Supreme Court let
stand a ban on school dances in the Bible Belt town of Purdy, Mo.
(AP, 4/16/00)
1990 Dec 14, A Right to Die case
permitted Nancy Cruzan of Missouri to have her feeding tube removed.
She died 12 days later.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Cruzan)
1990 The Negro Leagues Baseball
Museum opened in Kansas City.
(SFEC, 4/12/98, p.T4)
1991 Jul 31, President Bush and
Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev signed START I, the Strategic
Arms Reduction Treaty in Moscow. The agreement included the
deactivation and removal by May, 1995, of 150 Minuteman II missiles in
Missouri. The treaty was set to expire in Dec, 2009.
(AP, 7/31/01)(WSJ, 5/23/96, p.A-1)(WSJ, 12/1/07,
p.A8)(Econ, 3/14/09, p.64)
1991 The first Int'l. Rodeo for
utility and line mechanics was held in Kansas City. The event moved to
Bonner Springs in 1999.
(WSJ, 9/3/99, p.B1)
1992 Oct 11, President Bush,
Democrat Bill Clinton and independent candidate Ross Perot met for the
first of three debates, this one held at Washington University in St.
Louis.
(AP, 10/11/97)
1992 At least 11 deaths at Truman
Memorial Hospital in Columbia, Mo., were later thought suspicious. In
2002 Richard A. Williams, a former nurse, was arrested and charged with
murder. Williams was released in 2003 due to flawed evidence.
(SFC, 6/4/02, p.A5)(SFC, 8/7/03, p.A3)
1993 Jun 5, Country star Conway
Twitty (born as Harold Lloyd Jenkins) died in Springfield, Mo., at age
59. He was entombed in Gallatin, Tenn.
(AP, 6/5/98)(SSFC, 12/15/02, Par p.2)
1993 Jul 16, The surging
Mississippi River charged through a levee at West Quincy, Mo., closing
the Bayview Bridge, the only bridge across the river to Illinois for
more than 200 miles.
(AP, 7/16/98)
1993 Jul 17, President Clinton,
with several Cabinet members in tow, traveled to Arnold, Mo., where he
heard the governors of eight flood-stricken states appeal for more
financial assistance; however, he held out little hope the government
could offer a total bailout.
(AP, 7/17/98)
1993 Aug 1, The city of St. Louis
found itself besieged by the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, which had
swelled to record levels after months of flooding in nine Midwestern
states.
(AP, 8/1/98)
1993 Sep 8, Christopher Simmons
(17), a Missouri high school student, kidnapped, bound and killed
Shirley Crooks by throwing her into a river from a railroad trestle. He
was arrested the next day, confessed and 9 months later was sentenced
to death. In 2003 the Missouri supreme Court changed the sentence to
life in prison due to Simmons’ age. In 2005 the Supreme Court ruled
against the execution of minors.
(SFC, 11/4/04, p.B3)(Econ, 3/5/05, p.31)
1993 Ewing Marion Kauffman
(b.1926) founder of Marion Laboratories (1950) and the Ewing Marion
Kauffman Foundation (1966), died.
(www.kauffman.org/foundation.cfm?topic=history)
1994 May, Missouri legalized
riverboat gambling. Riverboat gambling soon began at Riverside, Mo.
(Econ, 4/8/06, p.67)(WSJ, 2/24/04, p.A1)
1994 A Missouri law capped
contributions in state elections to $1,075. The law was overturned by a
federal appeals court and went to the Supreme Court in 1999.
(WSJ, 10/6/99, p.A1)
1994 Dr. William Howell Masters
and Virginia Johnson Masters closed their sex research institute in St.
Louis. The couple had divorced in 1992 after 35 years together.
(SFEC,11/30/97, Par p.2)
1995 Jul 5, More than 100 Grateful
Dead fans were injured when a deck on which they were gathered
collapsed at a campground near Wentzville, Missouri.
(AP, 7/5/00)
1995 Jun 21, Larry Griffin was
executed in Missouri for the murder of Quintin Moss (19). Griffin
asserted his innocence until he died. In 2005 the case was re-opened.
(Econ, 7/23/05, p.31)
1996 Oct 31, A grand jury
indicted a number of corrupt officials in Kansas City, Missouri. As
members of the Port Authority charged with assigning licenses to
riverboat gambling establishments, they accepted a $250,000 bribe in
1993 from Hilton Hotels Corp. Named in the indictments were Michelle
Lathan, Elbert Anderson (chmn. of the Port Authority), James Ramsey,
and a family friend of Anderson's, Charles Maurice Herron.
(SFC, 12/2/96,
p.A10)(www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/stories/1996/08/26/story2.html)
1996 Gov. Mel Carnahan signed a
bill that banned same-sex marriages. It was invalidated when a court
ruled that the bill dealt with too many unrelated subjects.
(SFC, 7/14/01, p.)
1997 Sep 5, The new Kansas City
Jazz Museum opened next to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.
(WSJ, 11/19/97, p.A20)
1997 Nov 15, Washington University
in Missouri announced that the Danforth Foundation, headed by former
Sen. John Danforth, had pledged a gift of $100 million to be delivered
over 5 years.
(SFEC,11/16/97, p.A11)
1997 Dec 5, In Kansas City a house
fire killed 7 relatives who had gathered for a birthday party. Sa smoke
detector had its batteries removed.
(SFC,12/6/97, p.A7)
1997 Dec 15, In Missouri the
nation’s last workable Minuteman II missile silo was destroyed in
Dederick. It was the last of 150 in Missouri aimed at the Soviet Union.
The missiles were deactivated and the silos destroyed due to the 1995
signing of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.
(SFC,12/16/97, p.A3)
1997 Feb 5, Susan Brouk (36) and
her two children, aged 12 and 9, were found dead in a farm pond in
Vichy. Two teenagers, Mark Anthony Christenson (18) and Jesse Carter
(17), charged in the slaying were arrested in Blythe, California, on
Feb 9.
(SFC, 2/11/98, p.A3)
1997 The St. Louis City Museum was
established by Bob and Gail Cassilly in the old Int’l. Shoe warehouse.
(WSJ, 4/25/00, p.A24)
1998 Sep 7, In baseball the
Cardinal’s Mark McGwire hit his 61st home run at Busch Stadium in St.
Louis against the Chicago Cubs in the first inning. This tied the 1961
record held by Roger Maris.
(SFC, 9/8/98, p.A1)
1998 Sep 8, Mark McGwire his 62nd
home run in St. Louis and broke the 1961 record set by Roger Maris.
(SFC, 9/9/98, p.A1)
1998 Sep 15, Mark McGuire hit his
63rd home run against the Pittsburgh Pirates.
(WSJ, 9/16/98, p.A1)
1998 Nov 10, In St. Joseph, Mo.,
police officer Bradley Thomas Arn (27) was killed and 3 others were
wounded by a gunman who was then killed by other officers. The gunman
was later identified as William Lattin Jr. (33) of St. Joseph.
(SFC, 11/11/98, p.A3)(SFC, 11/12/98, p.C3)
1999 Jan 26, Pope John Paul II
arrived in St. Louis. He was greeted by Pres. Clinton at Lambert Int'l.
Airport and called on the president to protect unborn children and end
armed conflict abroad. He was later scheduled to bless the 33-foot
steel statue of the Virgin Mary commissioned by Carl Demma and made by
Charles Parks.
(SFC, 1/26/99, p.A15)(SFC, 1/27/99, p.A1)
1999 Jan 27, Over 100,000 people
gathered at the Trans World Dome in St. Louis to see Pope John Paul II.
(SFC, 1/28/99, p.A3)
1999 Jan 28, Missouri Governor Mel
Carnahan commuted the death sentence of Darrel Mease (52) to life
without parole following the Pope's visit.
(SFC, 1/29/99, p.A1)
1999 Apr 5, In Kansas City, Mo., 5
decomposing bodies were found in the home of Gary Beach (56) and his
stepson. Beach was arrested the next day. The 5 dead included his
stepson and were thought to have been dead from 2-7 days.
(SFC, 4/6/99, p.A3)(SFC, 4/7/99, p.A2)
1999 May 23, Owen Hart (33), a
professional wrestler also known as "The Blue Blazer," was killed when
he fell 50 [78] feet while being lowered into the ring at a World
Wrestling Federation show in Kansas City. The fall was revised to 90
feet in front of 16,200 fans at the Kemper Arena.
(SFC, 5/24/99, p.A6)(SFC, 5/25/99, p.A3)(AP, 5/23/00)
1999 Jul 12, In St. Louis several
hundred workers and activists of MO-KAN blocked I-70 to demand that
more minorities be hired for state construction jobs.
(SFC, 7/13/99, p.A3)
1999 Aug 2, It was reported that
the national death toll from the recent US-East heat wave hit 185 with
80 dead in Illinois and 44 in Missouri.
(SFC, 8/2/99, p.A5)(WSJ, 8/2/99, p.A1)
1999 Sep 16, Missouri passed a
late-term abortion law with an override over Gov. Mel Carnahan's veto.
A Federal judge put the law on hold the next day.
(SFC, 9/18/99, p.A3)
1999 Nov 20, Negusse Zeleke of
Ethiopia, a shuttle bus driver at Kansas City Int'l. Airport, shot and
killed driver Michael Scott, wounded dispatcher Traci Riehle and then
shot and killed himself. He left a letter that complained about racist
treatment by "blood sucker" white people.
(SFC, 11/23/99, p.A5)
2000 Jan 24, The US Supreme Court
upheld a Missouri law that limited contributions to candidates for
statewide office.
(SFC, 1/25/00, p.A1)
2000 Jan 30, In Atlanta the St.
Louis Rams defeated the Tennessee Titans 23-16 in Super Bowl XXXIV.
(SFC, 1/31/00, p.A1)
2000 Feb 22, In Missouri Jake
Robel (6) of Blue Springs was caught in a seat belt and dragged to
death when Kim L. Davis (34) stole his mothers car.
(SFC, 2/24/00, p.A7)
2000 Jun 2, In Olathe, Kansas,
John Edward Robinson was arrested on sexual assault charges. 2 female
bodies were found on his property in La Cygne, Kansas, the next day and
3 more 2 days later in 55-gallon drums in a storage locker in Missouri.
3 of the women were identified as Beverly Bonner (49), who disappeared
in 1994, Suzette Marie Trouten (28), and Izabela Lewicka (22). Another
6 missing women were linked to Robinson. In July Robinson was charged
in connection with the death of Lisa Stasi, who disappeared in 1985. In
2003 Robinson pleaded guilty to another 5 murders in Missouri.
(SFC, 6/7/00, p.A10)(SFC, 6/16/00, p.A9)(SFC,
7/29/00, p.A7)(ST, 10/17/03, p.A7)
2000 Jun 12, Earl Murray, a drug
dealer, and his friend Ronald Beasley were killed by police during an
attempted drug arrest. The two men were unarmed and police fired 20
bullets into their car.
(SFC, 6/28/00, p.A11)
2000 Oct 16, Missouri Gov. Mel
Carnahan, his son, Roger Carnahan, and chief of staff Chris Sifford
were killed in a plane crash near St. Louis. Roger Carnahan piloted the
twin-engine Cessna in stormy weather.
(SFC, 10/17/00, p.A1)(SFC, 10/18/00, p.A3)
2000 Nov 7, Missouri’s late Gov.
Mel Carnahan won the Senate election over Rep. John Ashcroft.
Carnahan’s widow Jean had already agreed to assume the seat if her
husband won.
(SFC, 11/9/00, p.A11)
2000 Missouri adopted a
shoot-on-sight policy for feral hogs with no restrictions on time or
place.
(Econ, 12/6/08, p.42)
2001 Feb 1, John Ashcroft won
confirmation as attorney general on a 58-42 Senate vote, completing
President George W. Bush's Cabinet over strong Democratic opposition.
(AP, 2/1/02)
2001 Mar 6, In St. Louis a dog
pack mauled to death Rodney McAllister (10).
(SFC, 3/9/01, p.A2)
2001 Apr 2, The town of Edgar
Springs was named the population center of the US. It marked the point
where the US would balance if its 281 million population were equally
distributed. The actual center was 3 miles east of town.
(SFC, 4/3/01, p.A2)
2001 Apr 12, Tornadoes killed at
least 4 people in Iowa, Missouri and Oklahoma.
(WSJ, 4/13/01, p.A1)
2001 Apr 28, A young girl’s
decapitated body was found near an intersection in Kansas City, Mo. In
2005 “Precious Doe” was identified as Erica Michelle Marie Green. Her
mother and stepfather were charged with murder. In 2009 a park was
dedicated in her honor.
(SFC, 5/6/05, p.A7)(SSFC, 4/26/09, p.A7)
2001 Jul 2, Missouri Gov. Bob
Holden, Democrat, signed legislation to ban the execution of mentally
retarded inmates. This was the 16th state to do so.
(SFC, 7/3/01, p.A4)
2001 Jul 13, Gov. Bob Holden
signed into law a bill that restored Missouri’s ban on same-sex
marriages.
(SFC, 7/14/01, p.C1)
2001 Jul 13, A private plane
crashed into a home in Carterville and all 6 people aboard were killed.
(SFC, 7/14/01, p.A3)
2001 Aug 15, Robert R. Courtney, a
wealthy Kansas City, Mo., pharmacist accused of diluting chemotherapy
drugs surrendered to the FBI. He was later sentenced to 30 years in
prison.
(AP, 8/15/06)
2001 Nov 1, Anthrax spores were
found in 4 mailrooms in Rockville, Md., a postal facility in Kansas
City, 3 new locations in a Manhattan processing center and a 6th postal
facility in Florida.
(WSJ, 11/2/01, p.A1)
2001 Dec 5, The FBI arrested
escaped fugitive Clayton Lee Waagner in St. Louis. Waagner was
suspected of mailing as many as 550 anthrax hoax letters to abortion
clinics. He was also wanted for bank robbery and other offenses.
(SFC, 12/6/01, p.A13)(WSJ, 12/6/01, p.A1)
2002 Jan 24, In Bethpage,
Missouri, a mobile home fire killed 7 people.
(SFC, 1/25/02, p.A3)
2002 Feb 26, Pharmacist Robert R.
Courtney pleaded guilty in Kansas City, Mo., to watering down
chemotherapy drugs. Courtney was later sentenced to 30 years in prison.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2002 Apr 28, Storms hit the Ohio
and Tennessee valleys with tornadoes in Missouri and Maryland. At least
6 people were killed.
(SFC, 4/29/02, p.A3)(WSJ, 4/30/02, p.A1)(AP, 4/28/07)
2002 May 17, Midwest flooding left
as many as 9 people dead over the last 2 weeks. Missouri Gov. Bob
Holden asked Pres. Bush to declare 37 counties as disaster areas.
Illinois and Indiana were also hard hit.
(SFC, 5/18/02, p.A3)
2002 Jun 10, In Missouri Lloyd
Robert Jeffress (71) of Kearney killed 2 monks at the Conception Abbey,
a Benedictine monastery and seminary. Jeffress wounded 2 others and
killed himself in the chapel.
(SFC, 6/11/02, p.A6)(WSJ, 6/11/02, p.A1)
2002 Jul 26, In St. Louis, Mo.,
Casandra Williamson (6) was reported missing. Her body was found later
in the day and Johnny Johnson (24), a local transient, was arrested.
(SFC, 7/27/02, p.A3)
2002 Aug 21, Weldon Spring,
Missouri, was reported open to the public as tourist attraction. The
radioactive site opened after a $1 billion, 16-year cleanup.
(SFC, 8/21/02, p.A2)
2002 Dec 5, In Kansas City, Mo. a
pharmacist who had diluted chemotherapy drugs given to thousands of
cancer patients was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
(AP, 12/5/03)
2002 Dec 18, At least 4 tornadoes
hit Arkansas and Missouri and killed 3 people with 30 injured.
(SFC, 12/19/02, p.A4)
2002 Carl Schramm took over as
head of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, based in Kansas City,
Missouri.
(Econ, 11/5/05, p.72)
2003 May 5, Tornadoes across
Missouri, Kansas and Tennessee left at least 40 people dead.
(SFC, 5/6/03, p.A3)
2003 Jul 1, In Missouri an
employee shot and killed three co-workers and wounded four others at
the Modine Manufacturing plant on the outskirts of Jefferson City, then
drove into town and killed himself in a confrontation with police.
(AP, 7/2/03)
2003 Branson, Mo., was ranked as a
"hot, emerging" destination for travelers. It billed itself as the
"Live Music Capital of the World.
(SSFC, 11/16/03, p.C12)
2004 Mar 15, Missouri jurors
agreed that vapors from butter flavoring at the microwave popcorn
factory had permanently ruined the lungs of Eric Peoples. The verdict
was against International Flavors and Fragrances Inc. and its
subsidiary Bush Boake Allen Inc. The flavoring manufacturers were
ordered to pay $18 million to Peoples and $2 million to his wife.
(AP, 3/16/04)
2004 Apr 12, Miss Missouri, Shandi
Finnessey, a 25-year-old graduate student who has published a
children's book, was crowned Miss USA at the 52nd annual pageant.
(AP, 4/13/04)
2004 Jun 4, Pres. Bush nominated
John Danforth, former Republican senator from Missouri, to be US
ambassador to the UN.
(SFC, 6/5/04, A3)
2004 Jul 21, Richard Block (78),
co-founder of H&R Block (1955), died in Kansas City.
(SFC, 7/22/04, p.B8)
2004 Aug 3, Missouri voters
solidly endorsed a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.
The Democratic primary endorsed Auditor Claire McCaskill (51) over Gov.
Bob Holden.
(AP, 8/4/03)(SFC, 8/4/04, p.A2)
2004 Oct 8, In St. Louis,
Missouri, President Bush and Sen. John Kerry debated for a 2nd time.
(AP, 10/9/04)(SFC, 10/9/04, p.A1)
2004 Oct 19, Thirteen people were
killed when a Corporate Airlines commuter turboprop crashed near
Kirksville, Missouri. 2 survived with only broken bones.
(www.airsafe.com/events/fatal04.htm)
2004 Oct 21, The St. Louis
Cardinals won the National League pennant with a 7th game win over the
Houston Astros.
(SFC, 10/22/04, p.D1)
2004 Nov 1, Andre Hicks, better
known as rapper Mac Dre of Vallejo, Ca., was shot and killed in a
freeway shooting in Kansas City, Mo.
(SFC, 11/2/04, p.B1)
2004 Nov 2, Mat Blunt (R) was
elected governor of Missouri.
(SFC, 11/4/04, p.A18)
2004 Dec 16, Bobbie Jo Stinnet
(23) was found strangled to death in Maryville, Mo., with her baby girl
cut from her womb. Police within days arrested Lisa M. Montgomery (36)
of Melvern, Kansas. The baby was rescued alive. Montgomery faced trial
for allegedly strangling Stinnett, performing a crude Caesarean section
on her and parading the infant around as her own. Montgomery was
convicted in Oct, 2007, and sentenced to death in April, 2008.
(SFC, 12/22/04, p.A3)(AP, 12/16/05)(SFC, 4/5/08,
p.A3)
2005 Apr 13, It was reported that
Kansas City Mayor Kay Barnes wanted developers to add thousands of more
downtown rental units and condos, mainly by converting old office
buildings. Some 1,400 new apartments had already been added since 2000.
(WSJ, 4/13/05, p.B4)
2005 Apr 13, Johnie Johnson
(b.1924), pianist who worked with Chuck Berry, died in St. Louis.
Johnson had initially hired Berry as a replacement in his
rhythm-and-blues trio.
(SFC, 4/16/05, p.B4)
2005 May 5, "Precious Doe," a
slain girl mourned but unknown for four years in Kansas City, Mo., was
identified as Erica Michelle Marie Green; her mother and stepfather
were charged with murder.
(AP, 5/5/06)
2005 May 23, Kansas City rapper
Anthony Watkins (24), aka Fat Tone) was found shot dead in the Southern
Highlands area of Las Vegas.
(SFC, 5/26/05, p.B5)
2005 Jun 1, Missouri opened its
1st season of legal hand-fishing following fierce lobbying efforts by
Noodlers Anonymous, a local support group for catching catfish by hand.
(Econ, 5/28/05, p.37)
2005 Jun, The BATS (Better
Alternative Trading System), led by Dave Cummings, was incorporated.
Within 2 years the Kansas City operation became America’s 3rd largest
stockmarket.
(Econ, 3/17/07,
p.74)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Alternative_Trading_System)
2005 Nov 4, The St. Louis
Cardinals announced demolition plans for Busch Stadium, the ballpark
that has housed the team since 1966. A 10,000-pound wrecking ball will
be used to knock down the southern half of the ballpark over a 60-day
period.
(AP, 11/4/05)
2005 Dec 15, In Missouri a breach
in a 50-acre reservoir on top of Profit Mountain released a
billion-gallon torrent that swept away at least 2 homes and several
vehicles. 3 children were critically injured. The reservoir was part of
a hydroelectric plant run by AmerenUE.
(SFC, 12/15/05, p.A3)
2005 Francis Slay, Democratic
mayor of St. Louis, was expected to be re-elected.
(Econ, 3/12/05, p.34)
2006 Mar 12-2006 Mar 13, Swarms of
tornadoes killed at least 10 people across the Midwest states of
Indiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas, South Dakota, Minnesota and
Wisconsin. It caused so much damage in Springfield, Ill., that the
mayor compared it to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
(AP, 3/13/06)
2006 Apr 2, Thunderstorms packing
tornadoes and hail as big as softballs ripped through eight US states,
killing at least 27 people. Tennessee was hit hardest, with tornadoes
striking five western counties and killing 23 people, including an
infant. Severe thunderstorms, many producing tornadoes, also struck
parts of Iowa, Kentucky, Arkansas, Missouri, Ohio, Illinois and
Indiana. Strong wind was blamed or at least three deaths in Missouri.
(AP, 4/3/06)
2006 May 14, Marsha Spicer
(41) was raped and murdered in Lafayette County, Missouri. On July 31,
2008, Richard D. Davis (44) was found guilty of murder in her
videotaped sexual torture and slaying. In June 2008 Davis was
convicted in the kidnapping and rape of Michelle Huff-Ricci (36), whose
body was found in June, 2006. On Oct 10 Davis was sentenced to death.
(http://mylifeofcrime.wordpress.com/2006/05/27/marsha-spicer-murder-51406/)(SFC,
8/1/08, p.A4)(AP, 10/10/08)
2006 Jul 6, The Amalgamated Santas
gathered in Branson, Missouri, for their first annual convention. In
2007 the group started to splinter following internal squabbles.
(WSJ, 7/10/08, p.A1)(http://tinyurl.com/5mw4kv)
2006 Jul 24, Power companies
worked to restore electricity to thousands of customers throughout
California as a scorching heat wave threatened to push the state into a
power emergency with the potential for more blackouts. Storm problems
cut power to areas of New York and Missouri.
(AP, 7/24/06)(WSJ, 7/25/06, p.A1)
2006 Aug 18, In western Missouri
bone fragments from at least two people were found on a three-acre
wooded property northeast of Drexel. Michael Lee Shaver Jr. (33) was
arrested the next day and charged with murder for a killing in 2001.
Shaver claimed that he had killed, dismembered and burned 7 men in his
home following drug transactions.
(AP, 8/20/06)(SFC, 8/21/06, p.A3)
2006 Sep 10, Bennie Smith (72),
St. Louis blues guitarist, died.
(SFC, 9/15/06, p.B8)
2006 Sep 15, In Missouri Stephenie
Ochsenbine (21) was slashed in the throat and had her week-old baby
stolen. Police recovered the baby on Sep 19. On Sep 20 Shannon Torrez
(36) was charged with kidnapping and assault and ordered held on $1
million bond. On September 12, 2008, Torrez was sentenced to 30 years
in prison.
(AP, 9/20/06)(http://tinyurl.com/3mgvbe)
2006 Oct 6, John Jordan O’Neil
(b.1911), aka “Buck” O’Neil, baseball’s charismatic Negro Leagues
ambassador, died at a Kansas City, Missouri-area hospital. He
barnstormed with Satchel Paige and inexplicably fell one vote shy of
being elected to the Hall of Fame in February 2006.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_O'Neil#_note-1)
2006 Oct 17, Megan Meier (b.1992)
of Missouri committed suicide following a series of cruel messages on
the MySpace online social network. In 2008 Lori drew (49) of Missouri
was indicted for perpetrating an online hoax, which led to Meier’s
suicide. Drew was convicted on Nov 26 of only three minor offenses for
her role in the Internet hoax. The federal jury could not reach a
verdict on the main charge against 49-year-old Lori Drew, conspiracy,
and rejected three other felony counts of accessing computers without
authorization to inflict emotional harm. A final decision on the
verdicts was still pending in 2009.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megan_Meier_suicide_controversy)(SFC,
5/16/08, p.A4)(AP, 11/27/08)(Econ, 7/11/09, p.232)
2006 Oct 19, The St. Louis
Cardinals beat the New York Mets to win the National League pennant.
They will face the Detroit Tigers for the World Series.
(SFC, 10/20/06, p.A1)
2006 Oct 27, In Missouri the St
Louis Cardinals won the World Series by beating the Detroit Tigers 4-2
in game 5, claiming their first MLB crown in 24 years.
(Reuters, 10/28/06)
2006 Oct 30, A new ranking
compiled by Morgan Quitno Press listed St. Louis as the most dangerous
city in the USA, leading a trend of violent crimes rising much faster
in the Midwest than in the rest of nation. The study looked at crime
only within St. Louis city limits, with a population of about 330,000
under Mayor Francis Slay. The safest city in 2005 was Brick, N.J., with
a population about 78,000, followed by Amherst, N.Y., and Mission
Viejo, Calif. The second most dangerous city was Detroit, followed by
Flint, Mich., and Compton, Calif.
(AP, 10/30/06)
2006 Nov 7, Missouri approved a
measure backing stem cell research.
(AP, 11/8/06)
2006 Nov 24, Robert McFerrin Sr.
(b.1921), opera singer and the father of Grammy-winning
conductor-vocalist Bobby McFerrin, died in suburban St. Louis at age
85. He was the first black man to sing as a member of the NY
Metropolitan Opera (1955).
(SFC, 11/30/06, p.B7)(AP, 11/24/07)
2006 Nov 27, In southwest Joplin,
Missouri, an early morning fire at the Anderson Guest House group home
for the mentally disabled killed 10 residents and a caretaker and sent
at least a dozen more to a hospital. In 2011 a judge concluded that the
blaze was preventable.
(AP, 11/27/07)(SFC, 1/19/11, p.A5)
2006 Dec 2, The National World War
I Museum opened in Kansas City, Missouri. The $26.5 million museum at
the Liberty Memorial joined the ranks of The National World War II
Museum in New Orleans and other definitive repositories for key events
in history.
(www.libertymemorialmuseum.org)(WSJ, 11/29/06, p.D10)
2006 Dec 16, In Kansas City,
Missouri, Hersel Isadore (35) killed 6 people including 4 of his
children before shooting himself to death.
(SFC, 12/18/06, p.A4)
2006 Dec 17, In Kirksville,
Missouri, a 911 call reporting a "strange odor" from a duplex apartment
led police to the bodies of seven people.
(AP, 12/18/06)
2006 A study by Ron Brakke, a
Dallas-based animal health consultant, found that the region around
Kansas City, Mo., housed over 120 companies serving the animal health
and nutrition industries. This led to a branding campaign by Kansas
City to designate the region as the “Animal Health Corridor.”
(Econ, 12/1/07, p.38)
2007 Jan 12, In Missouri 2 missing
boys were found at the suburban St. Louis home of Michael Devlin (41).
William Ownby (13) had been missing for 5 days; Shawn Hornbeck (15) had
been missing since Oct 2002. In October Devlin was sentenced to
multiple life terms for kidnapping and sexual assault.
(SFC, 1/13/07, p.A5)(SFC, 10/9/07, p.A6)(AP, 1/12/08)
2007 Jan 12, Larry Stewart (58),
known as “Secret Santa” for the millions he passed out with no strings
attached to people in need, died at St. Lukes Hospital in Kansas City,
Missouri of esophageal cancer. Stewart, from the Kansas City suburb of
Lee's Summit, made his millions in cable television and long-distance
telephone service.
(www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,243578,00.html)
2007 Jan 15, The death toll from a
powerful winter storm rose to 36 across six states as utility crews
labored to restore service to hundreds of thousands of Missouri
households and businesses enduring cold weather without electricity for
heat and lights.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 17, A US snow and ice
storm was blamed for at least 64 deaths in nine states. These included
20 deaths in Oklahoma, 9 in Missouri, 8 in Iowa, 4 in New York, 5 in
Texas, 4 in Michigan, 3 in Arkansas, and 1 each in Maine and Indiana.
(AP, 1/17/07)(SFC, 1/18/07, p.A3)
2007 Feb 24, Broncos running back
Damien Nash (24) collapsed and died after a charity basketball game in
suburban St. Louis, less than two months after the slaying of teammate
Darrent Williams.
(AP, 2/25/07)
2007 Mar 22, Missouri’s state
board of education voted to take over the St. Louis school district,
effective in mid-June.
(Econ, 3/31/07, p.38)
2007 Mar 25, In Ste. Genevieve,
Missouri, William Huck Sr. (60) was arrested on child sex charges and
has since told authorities he molested 40 children over a 30-year
period.
(AP, 4/6/07)
2007 Apr 25, US federal
authorities arrested John P. Tomkins (42) of Dubuque, Iowa, a man
suspected of mailing dud pipe bombs to financial companies in Chicago
and Kansas City, Mo., and threatening letters that were signed "The
Bishop."
(AP, 4/25/07)
2007 Apr 29, In Kansas City, Mo.,
David W. Logsdon, driving a dead woman’s car, was shot and killed by
police after he killed 2 people in the parking lot of a mall.
(SFC, 4/30/07, p.A3)(AP, 4/29/08)
2007 Apr 29, St. Louis Cardinals
relief pitcher Josh Hancock, 29, was killed in the crash of his sport
utility vehicle.
(AP, 4/29/08)
2007 Jun 2, Kelsey Smith (18) went
missing when she went to a Target store in the Overland Park suburb of
Kansas City to buy a gift for her boyfriend. On June 6 police found her
body in a wooded area near Grandview, Mo., about 20 miles east of the
Target store. Edwin R. Hall (26) was arrested shortly after her body
was found. In 2008 Hall pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in
prison.
(AP, 6/7/07)(AP, 7/23/08)
2007 Jun 6, Police arrested a man
in the abduction and death of 18-year-old Kelsey Smith, whose body was
found in a Missouri park four days after she'd disappeared from a
Kansas store's parking lot.
(AP, 6/6/08)
2007 Jul 20, Tammy Faye Messner
(65) died in Missouri. As Tammy Faye Bakker she had helped her husband,
Jim, build a multimillion-dollar evangelism empire that collapsed in
disgrace. She divorced her husband of 30 years, with whom she had two
children, in 1992 while he was in prison for defrauding millions from
followers of their PTL ("Praise the Lord" or "People that Love")
television ministries.
(AP, 7/22/07)
2007 Aug 12, In southwest Missouri
a gunman opened fire at the First Congregational Church killing three
people and wounded five. The local Micronesian congregation rented the
church for its services and the gunman, also Micronesian, deliberately
targeted elders of the congregation. Suspect Eiken Elam Saimon was
charged with murder. On March 20, 2009, Saimon (54) pleaded guilty to 3
counts of murder.
(AP, 8/13/07)(AP, 8/12/08)(SFC, 3/21/09, p.A4)
2007 Aug 22, The death toll across
the Upper Midwest and from the remnants of Tropical Storm Erin that
swept Texas, Oklahoma and Missouri over the past week rose to at least
26. Three people were electrocuted by lightning at a bus stop in
Madison, Wis.
(AP, 8/23/07)
2007 Aug 28, Miyoshi Umeki
(b.1929), Japanese-born actress, died in Licking, Mo. She was the first
Asian performer to win an Oscar, which she and Red Buttons received for
their supporting roles in the 1957 film “Sayonara.”
(SFC, 9/12/07, p.A17)
2007 Sep 9, The remains of Sam (7)
and Lindsey (8) Porter were found near the Missouri River in Sugar
Creek, Mo. They had been missing since their disappearance on June 5,
2004. On November 20 their father, Dan Porter (44), already in jail for
their kidnapping, was charged in their shootings.
(SFC, 11/21/07,
p.A4)(www.kmbc.com/news/14090631/detail.html)
2007 Sep, In Missouri 2 St.
Louis-area men disappeared. Their mutilated bodies were found weeks
later in Missouri and Illinois. In 2009 police were reported to be
investigating the Invaders motorcycle gang in connection with the two
murders as well as a 2007 slaying of a gang member, who had possibly
cooperated with authorities..
(SFC, 5/4/09, p.A4)
2007 Oct 8, Michael Devlin
was sentenced to life in prison for kidnapping one of two boys he'd
held captive in his suburban St. Louis apartment. Devlin later pleaded
guilty to dozens of other counts, resulting in a total of 74 life
sentences.
(AP, 10/8/08)
2007 Oct 26, A federal jury in
Kansas City, Mo., decided that Lisa Montgomery, convicted of killing
expectant mother Bobbie Jo Stinnett and cutting the baby from her womb,
should receive the death penalty.
(AP, 10/26/08)
2007 Nov 9, In Newton County,
Missouri, David Spears (24) and another, unnamed, 24-year-old man, were
arrested in the death of Rowan Ford. Rowan had been missing since Nov
3. Her body was found on private land about 10 miles south of the
girl's hometown of Stella.
(AP, 11/10/07)
2007 Nov 18, Detroit pushed past
St. Louis to become the nation's most dangerous city, according to a
private research group's controversial analysis of annual FBI crime
statistics. Flint, Mich., ranked 3rd and Oakland, Ca., ranked 4th.
(AP, 11/19/07)(SFC, 11/19/07, p.A3)
2008 Jan 7, Tornadoes were
reported or suspected in southwest Missouri, southeastern Wisconsin,
Arkansas, Illinois and Oklahoma. Two people were killed in Missouri.
(AP, 1/8/08)
2008 Feb 7, In Kirkwood, Missouri,
a gunman stormed a council meeting, yelled "Shoot the mayor!" and
opened fire, critically wounding Mayor Mike Swoboda (69), killing two
police officers and three city officials. Swoboda died on Sep 6.
Charles Le "Cookie" Thornton, who had lost a free-speech lawsuit
against the St. Louis suburb 10 days earlier, was fatally shot by law
enforcers. He had claimed in the past city leaders stifled and harassed
him.
(AP, 2/8/08)(SFC, 9/7/08, p.A3)
2008 Mar 19, Flooding forced
hundreds of people to flee their homes and closed scores of roads
across a wide swath of the US midsection as a huge storm system poured
as much as 10 inches of rain on the region. Flooding was reported in
parts of Arkansas, southern Illinois, southern Indiana, Missouri and
Kentucky with over a dozen deaths.
(AP, 3/19/08)(AP, 3/20/08)
2008 Mar 27, In Kansas City, Mo.,
a judge convicted Terry Blair (46) of killing 6 women in 2004. Blair
faced life in prison.
(SFC, 3/28/08, p.A4)
2008 May 2, Severe storms rolled
across Arkansas and killed 8 people, including a teenager crushed by a
tree while she slept in her bed. The deaths came after earlier storms
seriously damaged homes and businesses in the Kansas City, Mo., area.
(AP, 5/2/08)(AP, 5/3/08)
2008 May 10, A tornado rumbled
through Picher, Okla., killing at least 7 people. The same storm system
then moved into southwest Missouri, where tornadoes killed at least 15
others. The storms moved eastward and killed at least one person the
next day in Georgia.
(AP, 5/11/08)(SFC, 5/12/08, p.A2)
2008 May 24, In Branson, Missouri,
“Noah – The Musical” opened at the Millennium Theater.
(Econ, 5/24/08, p.48)
2008 Jun 18, Floodwaters breached
two levees in western Illinois and threatened more Mississippi River
towns in Missouri after inundating much of Iowa for the past week. One
official estimated up to 47 square miles could be flooded.
(AP, 6/18/08)
2008 Jun 27, Archbishop Raymond
Burke of St. Louis, a church law expert known for his tough stance that
politicians who support abortion rights be denied Holy Communion, was
named to head the Vatican's supreme court.
(AP, 6/28/08)
2008 Jun 27, The Mississippi River
burst a levee inundating the small town of Winfield, Missouri.
(WSJ, 6/28/08, p.A1)
2008 Jun 30, Missouri Gov. Mat
Blunt signed a bill outlawing cyberbullying. The bill updated state
laws against harassment by removing the requirement that the
communication be written or made over the telephone. This was in
response to the suicide of Megan Meier (13) on October 17, 2006.
(SFC, 7/1/08, p.A5)
2008 Jul 13, Belgian-based brewer
InBev announced it will buy Anheuser-Busch for $52 billion.
(http://www.kansascity.com/382/story/703682.html)
2008 Nov 4, In Missouri Democrat
Jay Nixon was elected governor replacing Republican Gov. Mat Blunt, who
did not seek re-election.
(SFC, 11/5/08, p.A14)
2008 The population of Missouri
stood at about 5.8 million people.
(Econ, 8/30/08, p.34)
2009 Jan 21, In Missouri a father
was arrested in Daviess County after two sealed coolers with the
remains of two infants were found. a third child is believed to have
died in Oklahoma. A surviving child, a 3-year-old boy, was in state
custody. The man was suspected of fathering four children with his
teenage daughter and faced charges of killing at least one after human
remains were discovered at their rural home.
(AP, 1/24/09)
2009 Jan 28, President Barack
Obama signed requests from Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear and Arkansas
Gov. Mike Beebe for federal emergency declarations as crews worked
around the clock to resurrect power lines downed by thick ice in both
states. Since the storm began building on Jan 26, the weather has been
blamed for at least six deaths in Texas, four in Arkansas, three in
Virginia, six in Missouri, two in Oklahoma, and one each in Indiana and
Ohio.
(AP, 1/29/09)
2009 Jan 30, US Senator Claire
McCaskill (D., Mo.) introduced legislation that would limit the salary,
bonuses and stock options of executives of financial companies getting
federal bailout aid to no more than what the US president earns:
$400,000 a year, excluding benefits.
(WSJ, 1/31/08, p.B1)
2009 May 8, In the Midwest a wave
of storms damaged or destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses in
Kansas, Kentucky, Illinois, and Missouri. 5 people were left dead.
(AP, 5/9/09)
2009 May 26, Russia's uranium
export company signed a groundbreaking $1 billion package of contracts
to supply three US utilities with enriched fuel for nuclear power
plants. Tenex signed contracts to provide enriched uranium fuel to San
Francisco, California-based Pacific Gas & Electric Company; St.
Louis, Missouri-based AmerenUE; and Dallas, Texas-based Luminant. Tenex
will supply fuel to the US utilities from 2014 through 2020 under the
contracts, which provide the option for renewal.
(AP, 5/26/09)
2009 Sep 4, US regulators closed
the First Bank of Kansas in Missouri, pushing to 85 the number of US
banks that have failed this year.
(SFC, 9/5/09, p.D1)
2009 Oct 13, The Missouri Dept. of
Revenue sent letters to 140 yoga and Pilates telling them they must
collect sales tax on fees for their classes and services.
(SFC, 11/5/09, p.A8)
2009 Oct 21, Alyssa Bustamante
(15) of St. Martins, Mo., strangled, stabbed and cut a 9-year-old
neighbor's throat. She told authorities she did it because she wanted
to know what it was like to kill someone.
(http://news.aol.com/article/alyssa-bustamante-15-charged-as-adult-in/772912)
2009 Dec 17, In Kansas City, Mo.,
Chester Harvey Jr. (38), of Laddonia, and his son Chad Michael Harvey
(19), of Eolia, tortured and killed James William Boyd McNeely (20) of
Ohio in the trucker's basement with the help of several other people.
On Dec 30 prosecutors filed for first-degree murder and other charges
against the men.
(AP, 12/31/09)
2010 Jan 7, In St. Louis, Mo.,
three people were killed and four wounded after a man armed with an
assault rifle and a handgun opened fire at a manufacturing plant.
(AP, 1/7/10)
2010 Mar 10, The Kansas City, Mo.,
school board narrowly approved a plan to close nearly half the
district’s schools in a desperate attempt to avoid a potential
bankruptcy.
(SFC, 3/11/10, p.A6)
2010 Apr 22, In Jefferson City,
Missouri, Chris Shaw (29), a tattooed father of three, came forward as
the $258 million winner of the 10th-largest Powerball jackpot ever.
(AP, 4/23/10)
2010 May 19, Khalid Ouazzani (32)
of Kansas City, Mo., admitted that he sent $23,500 to Al-Qaeda between
2007-2008. The Morocco-born auto parts dealer became a US citizen in
2006.
(SFC, 5/20/10, p.A6)
2010 Nov 2, Missouri passed the
Puppy Mill Cruelty Prevention Act. The state was home to 1,462 licensed
commercial dog breeders. A newly elected legislature soon gutted the
meat of the proposition.
(Econ, 11/13/10, p.36)(Econ, 5/14/11, p.20)
2010 Nov 21, A national US study
by CQ Press found St. Louis as the nation's most dangerous city in
2009, overtaking Camden, NJ. Detroit, Flint, Mich., and Oakland,
Calif., rounded out the top five. For the second straight year, the
safest city with more than 75,000 residents was Colonie, NY.
(AP, 11/22/10)
2010 Dec 14, In Missouri Secret
Santa II hit the streets in a long-standing Kansas City tradition of
handing out $100 bills, sometimes several at a time, to unsuspecting
strangers in thrift stores, food pantries and shelters.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 31, In Arkansas a tornado
killed 3 people in the hamlet of Cincinnati. A storm spawned by the
same weather left 3 people dead near Rolla, Missouri. A 4th person,
injured in Rolla, died the next day.
(SFC, 1/1/11, p.A6)(SSFC, 1/2/11, p.A11)
2011 Feb 9, US federal prosecutors
announced charges against 41 alleged gang members for activities
ranging from racketeering conspiracy to drug and gun trafficking and
murder in four states and Washington D.C. Some 29 defendants were
arrested and more arrests are expected in connection with the separate
cases from Los Angeles; McAllen, Texas; Kansas City; Washington D.C.;
and Las Vegas.
(Reuters, 2/9/11)
2011 Feb 10, In Missouri a St.
Louis police officer shot and killed an off-duty sheriff's deputy late
in the day when the deputy, described as intoxicated and agitated,
appeared to pull out a gun during an argument.
(Reuters, 2/11/11)
2011 Mar 8, In Missouri a US
federal marshal was shot and killed in St. Louis while trying to arrest
a suspect on assault and drug charges. 2 other officers were wounded
and the suspect was killed.
(SFC, 3/9/11, p.A6)
2011 Apr 22, In Missouri a tornado
tore through a terminal at St. Louis Lambert Airport, causing several
injuries and sending people scurrying for shelter as plated glass
shattered around them. Gov. Jay Nixon announced a state of emergency,
allowing state agencies to assist communities with their emergency
responses to the storm's aftermath.
(AP, 4/23/11)
2011 May 2, The US Army corps. of
Engineers exploded a section of the Mississippi River Birds Point levee
in Missouri to protect the small town of Cairo, Ill. Water levels
receded but a second, smaller section was detonated May 3 to allow
water back into the river.
(SFC, 5/3/11, p.AA4)(AP, 5/5/11)
2011 May 5, US Government
engineers blew up a third section of a Mississippi River levee to
manage flooding, as a wall of water roared down the nation's largest
river system, threatening towns and cities all the way to the Gulf of
Mexico.
(Reuters, 5/5/11)
2011 May 22, A massive tornado
that tore a 6-mile path across southwestern Missouri killed 117 people
as it slammed into the city of Joplin leaving a forest of splintered
tree trunks behind where entire neighborhoods once stood. The National
Weather Service said it was the single deadliest twister in the past 60
years.
(AP, 5/23/11)(AP, 5/24/11)
2011 May 25, The death toll from
the May 22 tornado that savaged Joplin, Missouri, rose to 125. A
violent storm system across a wide swath of the Midwest and South
spawned tornadoes and powerful winds. 9 people were killed in Oklahoma,
2 in Kansas and 4 in Arkansas.
(Reuters, 5/25/11)
2011 May 26, The death toll from
the May 22 tornado in Joplin, Missouri, rose to 126. More than 230
people were still listed as missing.
(SFC, 5/27/11, p.A8)
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
Subject = Missouri
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