125 Years Ago: 1901
Maryville held a parade to celebrate those who owned wagons. Many of the owners of the wagons got them through working for the Maryville Daily Forum. The Daily Forum gave anybody who sold 100 subscriptions for the next year a free wagon as an incentive. They also threw in a harness for the first person to reach this goal of 100 subscriptions.
A shed caught on fire and spread quickly to a schoolhouse in Maryville, causing significant damage. The repairs to the schoolhouse were estimated to be $18,000. An investigator on the case said that he believed the fire was started by members of the school who were unhappy with the condition of the building.
The Hopkins telephone company received 100 new drop switchboards. This allowed them to operate 900 more telephones and lower the price of telephone lines to just $1 dollar a month. This change meant that more farmers would be able to use the phone service.
A debate took place in Parnell about how they should display the year in Roman numerals. For a quick reference, the Roman numeral M stands for the number 1000, the letter D is 500, and the letter C is 100. This meant that MDCCCCI, MDCDI and MCMI all could be used to represent the year 1901. However, the traditional rule is that you can only use a letter 3 times in a row for Roman numerals. It was unclear which number Parnell would ultimately go with, but the Parnell Sentinel newspaper supported using MCMI.
75 Years Ago: 1951
A Nodaway County initiative came to an end this week in 1951. Chairman Z. R. Alexander had previously requested $5,000 in donations from county residents. This money would be donated to the Red Cross in the name of Nodaway County.
Selective service continued to draft young men from across Nodaway County. This week 6 local residents were drafted, all aged 22. The men included Donald Dreher, Harold Watson, Robert Farnan, Gerald Holt, Robert Shields, and Gerald Bottorff.
The school board voted on a pay raise for public school teachers of Maryville. The vote gave teachers a new yearly salary of $200 a year, if they accepted the offer. Alongside this, a vote was cast to increase the tax on people who lived in the school district by 20 cents, which would be added to the current yearly tax of $1.60. In other local tax news, the county also voted to increase the tax on gasoline by 2 cents.
The registrar of Northwest Missouri State College announced that 21 students were ready for graduation at the end the quarter. Ten of these graduates had business administration degrees, 6 had degrees in science, 3 in English, 1 in vocational economics, and 1 in physical education.
The community of Elmo held the fourth meeting for the American Legion. The meeting took place at the Bradley-Carver Post. The post was named after two citizens of Elmo, Walter Bradley and Robert Carver, both of whom served in WWII. The commander of the post, Harold Holt, ensured that every member made the meeting by visiting every member’s house and transporting all those who did not have their own way to the meeting.
50 Years Ago: 1976
The current Representative of the 6th District of Missouri, Jerry Litton, received a nomination by the Democratic party for a Senate seat in Missouri. He visited Skidmore and Maryville to speak with local residents.
A Supreme Court decision affected the way that Nodaway County divided the district for county courts. The decision required that townships could no longer be split between districts. This decision was made to prevent local gerrymandering.
Janet Beattie, an 8th grader at the South Nodaway middle school, won a contest sponsored by the Daughters of the American Revolution. Beattie received her award in St. Louis and was part of a group of 12 essays that were in contention for a national award.
The pastor of the Baptist Church in Clearmont announced it had a sharp increase in membership, and they were out of room in their church building. However, the group finally was able to start construction last July with the goal of building a 260-person capacity building with space for six Sunday school classrooms. Reverend Donald Barnett conducted the dedication services in the newly completed building.
The US Postal service declared that due to more people moving to cities and the increased cost of upkeep for the buildings in smaller cities, they were closing 4 post offices in Nodaway County, including Quitman, Pickering, Clyde, and Conception Junction.