Cass County, Missouri - Chapter 24: Progress and Development, 1917

ASPIRATIONS OF THU PIONEER - ' TRADITION - BOND OF SYMPATHY - COMMUNITY OF INTEREST - GOVERNMENT - THE LOG CABIN - HOSPITALITY - FARM MACHINERY - OBJECTIONS TO PRAI RIE - MODERN ADVANTAGES - VALUE OF PRODUCTION - LAND VALUES - OPPORTUNITIES - COMPARATIVE FIGURES.

The development of the county from primeval times has been tor¬ tuous and marvelous. As time passed the people had their hardships, and with these hardships and privations were mingled the pleasures and joys incident to the period of the transitions. The dreams, hopes and aspirations of the pioneer is simply and strikingly told in rhyme:

Tradition only, tells us of the very earliest stage of this pioneer life. This too, so long neglected, now stands before us uncertain and very much absolutely lost to future generations. In those days people were too busy in securing the necessities for existence, and making history, to care for its preservation for those who should come after them. His¬ torically speaking, those were the most important, for it was then the foundation of the county's history and after-developed prosperity. These early times were not remarkable for stirring events to impress the coun¬ try at large. It was a time of self-reliance and brave, persevering toil; of privations cheerfully endured through faith that in time a better time would come.

The experience of one settler was practically the experiences of all others. They were all poor, all faced the like conditions of hardships and all were upon the same footing. The experience of pioneers con¬ firms the theory that, after all, happiness is pretty evenly divided. Each had his or her privations and hardships, but they also had their joys. Their poverty excluded the burden of pride and vanity. Likewise were these pioneers freed from the anxiety and care that attend the possesssion of wealth. They had but few neighbors and they were scattered and widely apart. Envy and jealousy they did not learn and thereby much strife was avoided. Common interests and sympathy bound each to the other. This was their little world held to themselves. Good feeling pre¬ vailed and made them stronger. Here they were removed from the rush¬ ing, contentious and striving world, which assumed for themselves the higher civilization.

These pioneers realized such a community of interest that a commu¬ nity of feeling necessarily followed. There were no casts, save an aris¬ tocracy of benevolence. There was no nobility, save the nobility of gen¬ erosity. Neighbors never waited for a call to help. When distress or trouble was known to exist with one settler, all others, without any for- mal invitation to help, went to the rescue of the one so unfortunate. When a settler's cabin was destroyed by flood, or fire, or otherwise, the neighborhood appeared for the purpose of replacing the destroyed prop¬ erty. All came with as little hesitation and with as much alacrity as though the unfortunate was of the same family, and bound together by ties of blood. One person's interest was every other person's interest. The very nature of things made this spirit imperative. It was a com¬ mon safety and protection. They were far away from the well estab¬ lished rule of law, in a new country where civil authority was yet feeble and unable to afford protection and redress grievances. Remember, there were settlers in the county some time before there was an officer of the law within the borders of the county.

The government of the county was upon officers of the law in some adjoining county, to which the county was attached for civil purposes. These officers were not unfrequently seventy-five to one hundred miles away. Each person protected him or herself, and was always ready to go to the rescue of his neighbor. This condition rendered these hardy pioneers a terror to evil doers. Hardened criminals, who would take their chances in courts, and had no fear of jail or imprisonment, had great fear of the indignant pioneer. It was notoriously true the county was extremely unhealthy for the evil minded horse thieves would occa¬ sionally light here, but invariably found it the healthy thing to do, to move on. This was all accomplished without unnecessary threats or show. The very air they breathed seemed to invite such to move. They were not settlers.

The log-cabin is a thing of the past. We doubt if today there exists one of these old-time, typical homes. When new settlers arrived, the neighbors sized them up. If they passed inspection, the already settled, those to be his neighbors, gathered together and built the newly arrived settler a cabin. These structures were a cross between the "hoop cabin" and the "Indian bark hut." This was the introduction of the stranger and thereafter he was "one of them." The happiest days of man were when he lived in one of these "homely but comfortable old cabins." Window sash and window glass were unknown - except in the very rarest instances. The doors were openings without the formality of having to swing back any material to get in. Your entrance was not impeded. The windows had neither sash nor glass. It was simply an opening to assist the unchinked crevices between the logs, and the open door, in letting in God's light and pure air. This was the condition of the early home for the decade ending about 1830. Thereafter improvements were made. The doors became fastened by wooden latches, and yet for the convenience of friend, neighbor and traveler, the string to lift the latch always hung on the outside.

Hospitality was a common virtue of the early settlers. No stranger ever arrived at one of these cabins near nightfall who was not invited to "come in," and was entertained to the best of the ability of the occupants of the cabin. No palace of the rich, the knight, or the king, ever shelt¬ ered a happier heart than these homely cabins. Another described the early cabin and furniture as follows : "These were of round logs, notched together at the comers, ribbed with poles and covered with boards split from a tree. Puncheon floor, a hole cut in the end and a stick chimney run up, clapboard door, a window hole in the side or end, two feet square (without glass). The logs are chinked and daubed with mud. This is a completed cabin. The furniture consists of a "one legged bedstead," constructed by boring holes in the end of a post, placing it at right angles in a corner of the cabin, running a pole in the holes so made in the post to like holes in the "log walls" of the cabin. Upon this structure is laidclapboards, or linn bark is interwoven from pole to pole. Upon this primitive structure the bed is laid. This bed often was the prairie grasses, easily gotten about the cabin, and the scanty bedclothes brought from the old home. As years passed the feathered denizens of the country furnished feathers to replace the grass. The cook stove in any form was unknown. The cooking was done by the faithful housewife (God bless her memory) in pots, kettles and skillets, on and about the big fireplace. The house was now ready and equipped for the life on the frontier to begin in earnest.

After all, these log-cabins of the pioneer were not so bad. The people of today, with charter oak cooking stoves and ranges, would be ill at home were they compelled to prepare a meal with no other conven¬ iences than those provided for the noble housewife of the log-cabin. In the rude fireplaces were built chimneys composed of mud and sticks, or perhaps an undressed stone. Such a fireplace served for heating and cooking purposes as well as for ventilation. Around this meals were prepared, and good meals, too, such as were conducive to the healthful nourishment of this race of people, whose lots was exposure and hard¬ ships. There were no dyspeptics in those days. There were no stove¬ pipes to fall to provoke profanity and for his lordship to adjust. Doesn't these surroundings account in a large degree for women being more faithful in divine worship. For not unfrequently the good housewife cooked on such a fireplace, with half a dozen small children around her feet, and while her liege lord of a husband sat in the corner smoking his pipe and home grown tobacco, with his long legs stretched on either side of the fireplace for the faithful wife to stumble over or get over as best she could in the preparation of the meal.

Before mills were established the hominy block was used. These exist now only in the memory of the oldest inhabitant, or come to us by tradition. It will be of interest to know the construction and use of this wonderful, and at that time, useful relic of the long ago. A tree of suit¬ able size, usually two feet in diameter, was selected. If the neighbor¬ hood happened to have a cross-cut saw the tree was ''butted" - that is, the end was sawed square, so as to stand steady when ready for use. If the cross-cut saw was not available, the strong arm of the woodsman and the sharp ax were ready to do this work. The proper length of four or five feet was secured and prepared. This done the block was raised on its end and the work of cutting out of a hollow in one end was accom¬ plished. This was generally done with a common sharp ax. When this cavity was deemed to be large enough a fire was built in it and carefully watched till the ragged edges were burned away. When completed the hominy block resembled the present day druggist's mortar. The pestle to crush the corn was prepared of suitable timber - sometimes with an iron wedge at the end - the large end down. This completed this useful machinery - sometimes made for use of a family, sometimes for a neigh¬ borhood.

Now came the labor on this machine in grinding the grain into meal. This devolved generally upon the housewife, as it did on the Indian squaw, her predecessor in the land. This ground or beaten corn and the meats of the country composed the ordinary meals of the settlers. Of meats there was abundance. Deer would be seen daily trooping over the prairie, elk was handy, and wild turkeys and prairie chickens were there in great numbers. Bears were here, their hides used for warming the person, and the flesh for food for the family. The screeching of the panther and howling of the wolves lulled these early settlers to sleep. The streams of water also abounded in fish and a good supply of these could be procured by the expenditure of a little time and labor - all of which the early settler had. There was then no necessity for long camp- in g trips to hunt or fish. All these were near each home in plenty. There was no risk of being ordered off some person's premises or arrested as trespassers when in search of game or fish. This was all between God and the settler.

It is true, there was in a sense, strange loneliness for the settler. The solitude at times was very oppressive. Months would pass without seeing a human face outside of their own family, and on occasions of special interest, such as elections, holiday celebrations or camp meet¬ ings, it was not unusual for the settlers near the place of meeting to entertain scores of neighbors from distant parts of the county.

Rough and rude as the surroundings were the pioneers were honest, sincere, hospitable and kind. This is true, as a rule there is a greater degree of real humanity among the pioneers than there is when the county becomes old and rich. If there is an absence of what may be termed refinement, that absence is more than compensated in the presence of a generous heart and truthful lives. They are bold, sturdy, industrious and enterprising. They were earnest thinkers and pos¬ sessed of a diversified fund of useful, practical information. They do not always arrive at conclusions by means of a course of reasoning, but nevertheless get at real facts. They disliked cowards and shams, false¬ hood and deception were intolerable to them. They were of the highest type of honor in word and action. Such were the characteristics of the men and women who pioneered the way into this county as successors of the Big and Little Osage Indians.

These peoples of this very early decade of our settlement have passed away. Some of their descendants are among us today. It is hard for these descendants of this noble ancestry to forget the "old-time hospi¬ tality and free and easy ways." Of the early social affairs of the pioneer, it is written: "If a house was to be raised every man turned out, and often the women, too, and while the men piled the logs that fashioned the primitive place the women prepared the dinner. Sometimes it was cooked by the big log fires near the site where the cabin was being raised; in other cases it was prepared at the nearest cabin and at the proper hour was carried to where the men were at work. If one man in the neighborhood killed a beef, a pig or a deer, every other family in the neighborhood was sure to receive a piece. We were all on an equality. Aristocratic feelings were unknown and would not have been tolerated. What one had, all had, and that was the happiest period of life.

But today if you lean against a neighbor's shade tree, he will charge for it. If you are poor and fall sick, you lie and sufTer almost unnoticed and unattended, and probably go to the poorhouse. Like as not the man who informs the authorities of the case charges the county for the serv¬ ice. Not so with the early timers - the pioneers. They have all passed away. The present old men of former settlers can't remember back to the days we write of. But of these now departed pioneers it can be truthfully said, "they were excellent men and women of the very highest type of character and have left a deep and enduring impression upon the county." "They builded better than they knew." They were persons of decided activity and energy, else they would never have faced the trials and tribulations of the pioneer life. Doubtless they made mistakes - what generation or what manner of men have not. Many of their dreams have been fulfilled - others doubtless have come to naught. Looking backward over the situation, judging from the highest standpoint, it cer¬ tainly does not seem cheerful, and yet, for those who participated in the scenes - the old pioneer - it was a most enjoyable time.

We of this decade ought to shame ourselves. We complain of hard times and destitution. Think of the pioneers, cheerful and contented with their meager means and humble lot of hardships and deprivations during these early days. They lived within their means; they had to, however limited; not coveting more of luxury and comfort than their income would afford. The natural result was prosperity and content¬ ment. There was always room for the stranger at the fireside and a cor¬ dial welcome for the hungry guest at the table. Humanity, with all its ills, is nevertheless fortunately characterized with remarkable flexibility, which enables it to accommodate itself to circumstances. After all the secret of happiness lies in one's ability to accommodate himself to his surroundings.

Early entertainments were few and far between. Every cabin, how¬ ever, was a place of entertainment. On such gatherings, when bedtime young men slept in the wagon, outside. When morning came those came, the first family to retire would take the back part of the cabin and so continue filling up by families until the limit was reached. The nearest the door arose first and went outside to dress. Meals of corn bread, buttermilk, fat pork, and sometimes coffee, were served outside the cabin, where room for service could be had. On Sundays and extraor¬ dinary occasions, the meal was sometimes supplemented by a wheat bread meal. The wheat "tramped out," cleaned with a sheet, and pounded in the mortar by hand and baked on a flat rock especially heated for the occasion.

We have developed wonderfully in the use of agricultural machinery. It is interesting to observe the many kinds of useful machinery of today and reflect that in the days of old there was a total lack of such con¬ veniences. Let the children of such illustrious sires draw their own com¬ parisons, and may the results of these comparisons silence the voice of complaint which so often is now heard in the land. The early plow was the "bull-plow." The whole generally made of wood by the settler from the nearby forest. In later years the mould-board was improved, half being wood and half iron. However quaint, the old bull-plows did good service. They should be awarded the honor of first stirring the soil of Cass County.

The amount of money which some farmers of today invest annually in farm implements would have kept the pioneer farmer in farm machin¬ ery for life. The pioneer farmer did not invest in farm implements, because he hadn't the spare money to so invest, and neither would many of the present day implements be adapted to his primitive farming. The old bull-plow worked well among stumps and most early farms were made out of the timberlands.

There was too much danger on the prairie of fires burning the farm products and improvements, neither could stock be kept on the high prairie on account of a small black fly which literally stung the stock until they died. It was true, at seasons of the year, that people nor stock could live on the high prairie, because of the presence of the fly and dangerous prairie fires. We look back and wonder why the timber was settled before the prairie. The old pioneer knew well why it was. It is true the prairie was seldom settled until after the pioneer period. The hardest to cultivate was put under cultivation first.

From this picture of conditions and methods of pioneer days let us peruse the official reports, State and national, and gather from them if we can some picture of the present status, and leave the reader to judge of the development of Cass County, from the days of old to the present. The natural resources and advantages of this part of Missouri, make Missouri the leading State of the Union for opportunities to manu¬ facturers, capitalists, farmers, dairymen, horticulturists, stock and poul¬ try raising. The commodities holding high rank are corn, wheat, oats, strawberries, watermelons, tomatoes, and big red apples, peaches, flour,

Located as it is, between the thirty-eighth and thirty-ninth parallels of north latitude and between the ninety-fourth and ninety-fifth merid¬ ians of west longitude, Cass County, is strictly within the temperate zone in which the great work of the world is accomplished. Its climate is conducive to health and physical strength. Health is promoted by pure air, bright sunshine and good water. The federal census of vital sta¬ tistics makes plain the claim for this part of the State is not an idle boast. The annual death rate of the Union is 16.3 per thousand, in Mis¬ souri only 12.2 per thousand. The annual birth rate by the same author¬ ity is given for the whole United States as 11.2 per cent, while in Mis¬ souri it is 13.8 per cent. Thus it is seen Missourians are born more numerously and die less rapidly than elsewhere.

Its temperature makes for more adapted to products hereinbefore enumerated than other parts of the country. The cereal crops of the greatest commercial value are corn, wheat, hay, oats, potatoes and fruits. Corn stands at the head of the list, with wheat, timothy, hay and clover ranking near in value as money makers. We glean from the Federal Census of 1910 the value from products in stock and cereals for the whole State, the following: Cattle, $72,883,664; horses and colts, $113,976,563; mules and mule colts, $43,438,702; swine, $31,937,573; sheep and lambs, $7,888,878; poultry, $11,870,973.

The total value of domestic animals exceeded three hundred million dollars in value for that year. Since then the commercial values of such have largely increased. Cass County's part of the surplus of such values shipped, far exceeds the value of three million dollars. From the same authority we gather domestic animals, poultry and bees combined increased in a decade 78 per cent.; horses and colts increased in the same time in value 170 per cent.; mules increased in commercial value in the same period, 180 per cent.; swine, 93 per cent., and sheep and lambs, 135 per cent. It is interesting to note poultry is greater in value than sheep, and one-third as great as hogs.

the approximately 600,000 acres of land in Cass County nearly 5 per cent., or 30,000 acres are low lands, swamp and overflow. These in many instances are the most fertile and productive of our lands. Little atten¬ tion has been given to such parts of the county until recent years. These lands can be and will be made to produce a hundred bushels of corn per acre and have until quite recently been practically non-productive. Such lands are being sought by speculators, who at once proceed to drain the same so as to make them profitable to hold.

The shame of our county is the drift of our young people to the cities from the farm. Thus leaving the accumulation of a lifetime by their ancestors, or taking same with them, to return in a few years and assume the place of the hired man, when but a very few years they occu¬ pied the position of landlord.

Should we adapt ourselves to more intense farming, stop many un¬ necessary wastes, cultivate more closely what we have, there would be a marvelous increase in the products of the farm. Perhaps little over half of the area of the county suitable for agriculture is under cultivation. "If every available acre suitable for cultivation was properly tilled our output in crops would more than double." "This, it is estimated, would still be further increased by scientific and intensive farming." Compar¬ atively few farms are being worked for all their soils can produce. Fer¬ tilizers are but little used. Why should farm lands elsewhere demand a price of several hundred dollars per acre, and which do not produce as much as ours, and are not located so favorably to a great market? Oldtime methods have passed away.

This is a day of present opportunity. The forest has passed before the woodman's ax. The prairie is broken and ready. With dredge and ditch large acreages, rich as the far-famed Valley of the Nile, is being developed almost as if by magic. Here is the opportunity for the man of brain and brawn. An opportunity where there is no oppression, where the churches, schools, transportation facilities and comforts of civiliza¬ tion are ready made and await the comer. Nowhere, not even elsewhere in our own commonwealth of Missouri, are as desirable lands, as cheap in price, power of production considered, and as accessible to as great a market as Kansas City on our north. We have no wind-swept wastes, no sterile, wasted, worn out and abandoned farms; no robbed and ex¬ hausted soil. Peopled by a hardy, hospitable, charitable citizenship, not tied to tradition, ever ready and more than glad to welcome the worthy.

Dr. Mumford, dean of the State Agricultural College, says, "One man in Missouri grows more corn each year on his farm than is grown in the nine States of Utah, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Idaho, Mon¬ tana, Rhode Island, Wyoming and Nevada combined. Three counties in Missouri grow more corn than nineteen other states, in which are included all of New England. These three counties grow more corn than is reported for the State of New York, or Maryland, or West Virginia.

Missouri grows three times as much corn as all of South America, threefifths as much as all of Europe, and nearly one-half as much as is pro¬ duced in the whole world outside of the United States. The State stands fourth among the states in the production of farm crops. Cass County is among the foremost counties of the State in the production of all classes of farm products. We are decidedly in the lime-light in our won¬ derful progress in agriculture.

The move lately made in the building of good roads is another boost to the county and evident progress and uplift to the county. The men who back such progressive movements deserve the co-operation and assistance of all good citizens. These good roads bring us nearer to the great markets, thereby giving better prices for our produce.

Professor Nelson, of the State Board of Agriculture, speaking of the SUite at large, says: "The 1913 Missouri wheat crop amounted to more than 35,000.000 bushels - more, according to preliminary figures by the United States Department of Agriculture, than that of any other states, save six. This is more than twice as much wheat as was grown either in Oklahoma or Oregon, both heralded as wonder wheat states. It is more than three times as much as was grown in the entire State of Texas, where the wagon haul to railroad is often as long as is the railroad haul in Missouri. It is more than three times as much as is grown in Colo¬ rado, where the millionaire goes for air, and almost thirty times as much as is grown in Arkansas, where many go for bear. It is more than was grown in Alberta that year, and in this same Missouri, land of balmy days and blue grass, is grown a wheat crop equal to one-sixth of all Can¬ ada." "Seven Missouri counties each grew more than a million bushels of wheat. Referring again to the State farm crops, the general govern¬ ment statistics show Missouri excels all states of the Union save Texas, Illinois and Iowa, all three exceeding Missouri in area. Missouri raised more bushels of corn than either Texas or Kansas, and raised more corn per acre. Texas raised twenty-one bushels, Kansas twenty-three bushels, while Missouri raised thirty-two bushels per acre.

To give a more definite idea of the commercial value of surplus stock shipment, we turn again to statistics gathered from the State Bureau of Labor. One million, one hundred and twenty thousand, six hundred and thirty head of cattle and calves were shipped to market; 3,555,692 head of hogs; 144,305 head of horses and mules, 1,120,250 head of sheep and lambs, besides goats, jacks, stallions and other stock. These do not include the stock sold or slaughtered locally. Two-fifths of the cattle and hogs were shipped out, one-fifth sold locally and two-fifths remained on the farm. It took more than a hundred thousand freight cars to haul this vast array of live stock to market. Cass County was second in the shipment of hogs, having shipped 128,825 head to 136,676 head shipped from Nodoway County.

In 1854 Senator Stephen A. Douglas said, "Indeed, fellow citizens, your resources are such that Missourians might arm a half million of men and wall themselves within the borders of their own State and with¬ stand the siege of all the armies of this present world. What wonders are wrought since then. Last year Con Roach truthfully said, "Before another generation shall have passed away a land owner in Missouri may well consider himself one of the elect." As showing the progressive development we give a late statement of the financial development of Kansas City, for Kansas City is but the business center of this county. Business in Kansas City, measured by bank clearings, made a greater gain in 1916 than in any previous year. The increase in the exchanges through the clearing house was $1,118,000,000, or 29 per cent., and the total for the year fell only a little short of $5,000,000,000.

The increase in 1916 exceeded the entire year's clearings in any year prior to 1905, and the total was double that of seven years ago. The year started with an increase in January of less than 8 per cent, and the ratio increased until October, when the clearings were 47 per cent, greater than in the corresponding month of the preceding year.

Twenty years of growth of Kansas City is reflected in the record of yearly bank clearings for twenty-one years, which shows only one year when the clearings did not show a gain over the preceding year's. Yearly bank clearings since 1896 are here shown:

Bank deposits, as well as clearings, showed a larger expansion in 1916 than in any previous year. The increase was almost $100,000,000. Total deposits of national and State banks of Greater Kansas City, accord¬ ing to the last published statements, were $258,000,000, and aggregate resources $290,000,000. These figures do not include those of the Fed¬ eral Reserve Bank, which has $35,000,000 in deposits and $41,000,000 in total resources. That institution is a reserve depository for other banks and therefore its figures cannot fairly be added to the total for Kansas City.