125 Years Ago: 1901
It was announced that the next year’s Christian Bible School Convention would take place in Maryville. This was one of the biggest annual conferences held by a Protestant denomination.
A new church called Workman’s Union Chapel opened its doors this week. The church was located 13 miles northwest of Maryville and was named for Uncle John Workman, one of the wealthy old settlers of the county. Workman had no specific denomination and donated the money to build this church because he wanted it to be a church that people of all religious beliefs could use.
J.H. Struck was remodeling Joseph Binter’s house in South Maryville, and it was estimated that it would be worth $1,600 when it was completed.
A Maryville doctor made a house call to a woman who was too sick to get out of bed, but she still kept an incubator next to her bed so that she could check on her hatching baby chickens even when she was sick.
Spencer Gant, a fifteen-year-old Skidmore boy, was dragged to death by a wild colt. He had been trying to break the colt to ride when it threw him. His foot caught in the stirrup.
O.P. Wade advertised in the newspaper that there was a horse that was turned out in McJimsey Park without permission. The horse could be claimed at his house in Southeast Maryville, but would be sold soon if it was not claimed.
75 Years Ago: 1951
Maryville had a newly formed baseball team called the Maryville Nine. In their opening match against St. Joe Knights of Columbus squad, they won 8-7. They were down in the first couple of innings but in the beginning of the ninth they started to pick back up. This then caused them to go on a scoring run of 4 in which they took the lead. They then were able to win 8-7 and got to brag about winning their first ever game. Bob Buhler and Ted Baldwin pitched for the local team.
A group of second and third grade students from Horace Mann got more than they bargained for when they travelled to St. Joseph in a Vista Dome railroad car as guests of the Burlington railroad. Water from heavy rains south of Amazonia and Rosendale held up the return of the train for two hours, and the group did not arrive back in Maryville until 10:30pm at night.
Patsy Thompson of Hopkins was awarded the St. Joseph Stockyards Journal trophy for having the best fitted animal at the seventh annual St. Joseph Interstate Junior Dairy Show.
Eighty-seven Maryville children left for the Lake of Three Fires to take their first swimming lesson in the annual Red Cross sponsored program. The group traveled to the lake in two of the college’s buses.
The Consumers Oil Company of Maryville filed a $27,000 damage suit in circuit court against the St. Joseph Light and Power company in connection with the explosion of a natural gas storage tanked owned by the St. Joseph company. The April blast damaged the Women’s Residence Hall at Northwest Missouri State College and injured many students.
50 Years Ago: 1976
In Maryville a water bond election was called by city council. The $1 million water and sewer revenue bond would affect the city of Maryville whether it passed or not. If passed, the bond would be paid for by revenues derived from the city’s combined waterworks and sewer systems.
There would be no property tax increase if the bond did get passed by the city council. A four-sevenths majority would be needed to pass the bond.
The Jefferson School District turned down a proposed $1.35 levy increase. The final vote tally was 192 in favor of the increase and 115 opposed. The 62.5 per cent approval fell short of the two thirds majority needed for it to pass. School district officials said it was likely that the proposal would be put out for a vote again in the future.
Awards were presented to Maryville women for their participation in the Mothers’ March of Dimes. They were Pickie Pierce, Sue Poor, Kathy Clark, Sue Byrd, Bev Martin, and Ann Pfeiffer. All the money that was donated would be spent in the immediate area of Maryville. March of Dimes usually received 60 percent of all the money collected, but smaller towns like Maryville were allowed to get all the donations. The local group decides where the money is spent, and it was thought most of it would go to the hospital as it needed better equipment.
Students in the industrial arts program at Northwest Missouri State University were trying to make cars more fuel efficient to help with the high cost of gasoline. The Bearcat High Performance Team had succeeded in increasing the fuel efficiency of the department’s car from 20 to more than 30 miles per gallon.