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August 29, 1908

STATE OFFERS REWARD FOR

EARL HAMILTON.

Deserter Is Believed to Have Mur-

dered George Pickle, Whose Body

Was Found in River.

Governor Joseph W. Folk yesterday offered a reward of $200 for the arrest and conviction of Ira Earl Hamilton, the deserter from the United States army, who is believed to have killed George W. Pickle in a swampy place near the mouth of the Blue river on June 20. The reward stands good for one year from the date.

On June 20, Pickle, who was only 17 years old, left his home at 1429 Summit street with Hamilton, 28 years old, ostensibly in a search of work. Five days later a body was found in the underbrush near the mouth of the Blue. Hamilton, who at that time was not suspected, was sent a few days later to see if he could identify the body. He reported that it was the body of a negro, 35 years old.

At the point where the body lay had been several feet of backwater during the flood. Trees and brush grew thick and neither the body nor the clothing could have floated away. Near there detectives found a piece of gas pipe about one foot long. It had been cut with a machine which crushed the ends together. The pipe was yesterday identified by a woman who lives at the home of Hamilton's aunt. She said she had often seen it among his tools. He is a constructural iron worker.

Hamilton was arrested shortly after the boy disappeared, but at that time Pickle's body had not been found. Hamilton was turned over to the military prison at Fort Leavenworth to serve time as a deserter. He succeeded in making his escape from there in less than a month. Prosecutor I. B. Kimbrell says he has a strong case against Hamilton.

Labels: Blue river, flood, Governor Folk, Leavenworth, military, murder, Prosecutor Kimbrell, Summit street

August 20, 1908

MEAT IS A LITTLE CHEAPER.

Retail Prices Have Declined as Much

as 3 Cents a Pound.

Retail meat prices are being quoted from 1/2 to 3 cents lower per pound than was the case a month ago. the reason for the slight decrease in price as given by the local retail butchers is that the wholesale markets have reduced their prices on meat stuffs, and that it is more profitable for them to reduce their own prices in proportion, inasmuch as more people will buy meat at cheaper prices.

The wholesalers give no particular reason for the decline in prices, saying that general circumstances make it possible to reduce the price of meat to the retailer a few cents a pound. The flood during the early part of the summer had a great deal to do with the large advance in the price of meats, which was maintained up until the last few days.

Steaks which cost the butcher 14 1/2 cents to 18 1/2 cents a pound are being sold by the retailers at 22 1/2 cents a pound. This is a decrease of from 4 1/2 to 7 1/2 cents per pound since last month. Rib roasts are selling from 15 to 17 cents a pound and cost the retailer anywhere from 14 to 17 cents a pound. Sugar-cured ham which costs the retailer 12 1/2 cents a pound is being sold for 17 cents, and pork, which ranges from 8 to 12 cents a pound at wholesale prices can be bought for 15 cents at many of the downtown markets.

Labels: butchers, flood, food, grocers, retailers

July 13, 1908

PATIENTS SLEEPING IN TENTS.

General Hospital Is Crowded to Point

of Discomfort.

The new general hospital is certainly a badly needed thing," said an officer at the hospital yesterday. "Look at the crowded condition of the place we are in now. On one side, not more than ten feet away from the walls of the hospital, is the city smallpox pest house, which was put here because the floods drove it out of the East Bottoms The situation of the pest house so close to the main building of the hospital has been a danger which is hard to overestimate.

"In the inclosed space in the middle of the building is the tent in which several patients from the female ward sleep nightly. These are not cases in which open air treatment has been recommended, but they must sleep out there because there is not room enough for them to sleep in the hospital.

"There is another tent on the north side of the building where male patients sleep out of doors for the same reason. The capacity of the hospital exclusive of these outgrowths is 185 patients.

"We expect to move into the new building in two weeks. It will accommodate 540 patients, and will be superior in every way to the building we are now occupying. To say that we welcome the approaching change with gladness is to speak mildly."

Labels: East bottoms, flood, general hospital, smallpox

July 5, 1908

WEDDED 2 DAYS;

KILLS HIMSELF

FIRES BULLET INTO BRAIN IN

PRESENCE OF WIFE.

AFTER BIDDING HER GOODBYE.

NO REASON FOR JOS. P. THOMP-

SON'S ACT IS KNOWN.

Married Pearl A. O'Shea on July 2.

It Was a Mild Elopement, and

Her Parents Didn't Ap-

prove of Wedding.

One July 2 Joseph P. Thompson and Miss Pearl A. O'Shea took a trip to Leavenworth and were married by a justice of the peace.

Last night at 7 o'clock when the young wife entered her husband's room at 3102 East Twentieth street he said goodby to her and, pointing a pistol at his right temple, shot himself in the brain.

Thompson was a woodturner and worked for the American Sash and Door Company. He was 26 years old and had been in the city three years. A quiet young man, he never spoke much about himself to anyone, but there were rumors that he had once been married before.

For the last year, Thompson had boarded at the house of Mrs. Alma D'Avis, 3102 East Twentieth street, and it was there that he met the girl that afterward became his wife. Mrs. D'Avis has weak eyes, and requires the attention of a nurse. Her niece, Pearl O'Shea, was a nurse, so Mrs. D'Avis had her come and stay with her. That was two months ago. An attachment sprang up between the young people living in the same house, and the runaway marriage was the result.

After the marriage they told the girl's mother and he stepfather, John Reed, who lives at Twentieth an Harrison streets. The latter did not approve of the union at all. the girl was their only support, they said, and they had lost much of their property in the recent flood.

This is the only reason that the young man's friends can give for the suicide. Yesterday afternoon he came home, apparently in a normal frame of mind. He was not known as a drinking man, and was said to have no bad habits. He did not even own a revolver, so that he must have especially purchased the one he used.

Last night the young wife was hysterical with grief and had to have the care of physicians. The tragic ending of the short romance of her life affected her so seriously that the doctors fear for her mind.

Thompson came to this city three years ago from Hot Springs, Ark. He was a member of the lodge 73 of the West Side branch, W. O. W., and was well liked by all his associates. At no time did his actions give any trace of insanity.

Labels: boarding house, flood, Harrison street, Leavenworth, lodges, marriage, mental health, Suicide, Twentieth street

June 26, 1907

THEY SWAM TO PUT OUT A FIRE.

Firemen in East Bottoms Followed

Through Flood by Team.

When hose company No 20, Guinotte and Montgall avenues, responded to an alarm of fire from the Park grain elevator, East Lynne street and Nicholson avenue, at 8 o'clock last night, the firemen found the burning structure surrounded by at least five feet of water, surrounded by at least five feet of water. Near the elevator was a fire plug, just barely covered with water. The team followed them. The wagon floated and the horses seemed to pull it with ease while swimming. When the wagon reached a depth where the wheels touched the ground and the bed with the hose was above water the firemen reeled off a section and the hydrant man made the attachment. The line was crried into the elevator and the fire put out. When it was all over the men, horses and wagon went back the way they had come.

Labels: animals, Fire, flood, Guinotte avenue, Montgall avenue

June 17, 1908

MAKES TRIP BY ROAD

FASTER THAN TRAINS.

Captain Lawton's Journey to Topeka

in Studebaker a Hard Trip

Through Mud.

Back from to Topeka by motor car, Captain Frank H. Lawton, in charge of the army's purchasing department in Kansas City, says he didn't believe the automobile could come through such a journey as he completed Monday afternoon. Most of the distance the mud was up to the hubs, but even where the roads were most impassable, the motor car forced a way under its own power.

The flood made Captain Lawton's trip imperative. A message from the war department on Saturday afternoon told him to go at once to Topeka, where stores bound for Fort Riley had been stopped by the high water. There was no chance to get a train, so Captain Lawton, thinking of the trip of the army car last winter, called up the Studebaker company and asked for a motor car. W. L. Walls, of the motor car department, was ready within an hour and the plow to Topeka was begun.

As nearly as possible, the route had been laid out on high ground, and but for this fact the journey would have been impossible. The motor car, leaving Kansas City at 4 o'clock Saturday afternoon, was run all night, with stops only for food, and reached Topeka at 1:30 Sunday afternoon. The distance by odometer was about 150 miles.

The car, returning, left Topeka Monday morning and got back in twelve hours, while it took a train fifteen hours to go the same distance, on account of the detours that had to be made. T. G. Sweeney drove on the return trip to Kansas City.

Labels: automobiles, flood, military, Topeka

June 17, 1908

CONVENTION HALL IS A CAMP.

Several Families Make It Their Abid-

ing Place During Flood.

Cots, blankets and even the bare cement floor are the beds of refugees from the flood who are using Convention hall as a temporary home. Monday night 240 persons, thirty of them women, slept in the hall, and as many were there last night. But little space in the hall was taken up for storage of goods. Most of the persons there have few goods to store, and they either carry their belongings in a bundle on their backs or store them in the second story of their homes.

Most of the women there Monday night were from the East Bottoms. Yesterday they found that the water was not in their homes and returned. Fifty Greeks who were out of work on account of the high water left Convention hall yesterday afternoon for Chicago.

Labels: Chicago, Convention Hall, East bottoms, flood, immigrants

June 17, 1908

MISSOURI RISING UPSTREAM.

Continued Rains Delay Expected Fall

in Flood Waters.

OMAHA, June 16. -- There was no fall in the Missouri river for the past twenty-four hours, but the fact that it remained almost stationary encouraged the weather bureau to believe that no higher stage would be reached It stood at 18.3 this morning, the same as Monday morning. It is again raining in the Missouri valley.

ST. JOSEPH, MO., June 16 (Special.) -- The Missouri river at this point at 10 o'clock tonight is receding at the rate of one inch an hour and promises to keep it up tomorrow. The Platte and 102 rivers have shown a more rapid decline and will soon e beyond the danger point. A slight rain is falling tonight, but it is not expected to affect the river conditions. All trains out of this city, north and eastbound, can make schedule time.

LEAVENWORTH, KAS., June 16 (Special.) -- The Missouri river continues to rise at this point. Great logs are coming down and quantities of fine drift indicating rains above. The river rose about an inch today and is now nearly six miles from bank to bank here. Great slate piles at the coal mines are exploding and resemble volcanoes, owing to the sulphur which burns.

ATCHISON, KAS., June 16 (Special.) -- The continued rising of the Missouri river at this point is just beginning to be serious. The water has reached the stage where it is spreading over the fine Missouri bottom land. The river has risen three inches here in the past 24 hours and is still rising slowly.

JEFFERSON CITY, June 16 (Special.) -- It is believed that the worst of the flood will be over in this stretch of the Missouri by this time tomorrow. While the river was stationary for a time last night it began rising again and fully six inches has been added. The rate it came up today was about half an inch per hour. This morning a big body of back water come over the bank of Turkey creek, west of North Jefferson, and inundated many hundred acres of the bottom that escaped.

Labels: flood, Jefferson City, Leavenworth, Missouri river, Omaha, St.Joseph

June 16, 1908

FLOOD VIEWS DAMAGE TRADE.

Justin A. Runyan Appeals to Post

Card and Film Dealers.

Souvenir post cards and moving pictures showing the damage wrought by the flood are likely to do Kansas City a great deal of harm, in the opinion of Justin A. Runyan, secretary to the Manufacturers and Merchants' Association. Speaking about people sending out post cards having some scene representing the flooded district, Mr. Runyan said the harm could not be estimated.

"Many of these cards," Mr. Runyan said, "reached the hands of business men of other cities, and those men are likely to form wrong impressions of the city. Many people will believe the high water did more damage than is really the case.

"Merchants or manufacturers preparing to secure new locations might see one of these post cards and get the impression from the view shown that Kansas City is submerged each year. The cards," according to Mr. Runyan, "at the best, only give a faint idea of the flood and in most cases leave a false impression. Not only will the post cards be harmful, but moving picture scenes that are being made for purpose of sending out broadcast to be shown in different cities will cause great loss of trade and damage to the city generally."

One dealer located at Twelfth street and Grand avenue, who is having films for moving pictures made will be induced by Mr. Runyan, if possible, to give up the plan. Whether the dealers in moving picture films and the sellers of post cards can be made to see the harm their goods may accomplish is the question that is troubling the secretary of the association.

Labels: flood, organizations

June 15, 1908

WALKS A WIRE ON ONE LEG.

Novel Attraction Coming to Forest

Park Next Week.

The aerial act scheduled for Forest park did not go on yesterday, as the artists engaged for this act were unable to get to Kansas City on account of the flood. The management replaced this act with one equally as good, namely, the Long Brothers, premier acrobats and tumblers, La Wanda and Garrick pleased all who saw them in their ring contortion stunt and the Luken's bears game ther last performance in the evening. They leave today for St. Louis, where they will play a return engagement at Forest Park Highlands. The bears will be replaced by Roy Fortune, the world's premier one-legged wire walker. The couples' skating contest is popular. There are now entered over forty couples. A large crowd visited the park yesterday despite the threatening weather and the flood.

Labels: daredevils, flood, forest park, theater

June 14, 1908

ROBBER SHOOTS FLOOD VICTIM.

Fred Liggett Meets Double Disaster.

Condition is Serious.

Compelled to leave home on account of the flood, Fred Liggett, 3412 Guinotte avenue, and his brother-in-law, P. Donohue, have been sleeping in the Kemper elevator in the East bottoms. Last night at 11 o'clock the two men were on their way to the elevator when two strangers confronted them with drawn revolvers. Donahue ran when ordered to hold up his hands.

Fred Liggett fought the robbers and was shot in the groin. After the shooting the robbers went through Liggett's pockets, but did not get anything. The holdup occurred on the Chicago & Alton tracks one-half mile east of Heim's brewery. Liggett was taken to St. Joseph's hospital for medical aid. His condition is considered serious.

Labels: crime, flood, Guinotte avenue, railroad, violence

June 14, 1908

WEST BOTTOMS FLOODED.

Wholesale Dealers Moving to Third

Floors -- Are Taking No Chances.

Every man in the West bottoms who had a place to take his goods was moving them yesterday, whether he transported them up town or just to the second floor. No one was taking chances. The Harbison & Modica Implement Co., near the Union depot, carried heavy plows and other farm tools up to the third floor of their building, moving their offices to the second floor.

"We're taking no chances this time," said R. A. Niccolls, a sales manager. "We'll be able to do our office business if the employes have to be carried to the building in boats."

Many implement houses were pumping the water out of their basements in the morning, but most of them gave up at noon and let the water run in. One house had a gasoline engine pumping for eight hours, and still the water didn't seem to go down. Investigation revealed the fact that as fast as the water was pumped out it ran around the corner and through a crack in the pavement back to the cellar. In front of one place was tied a large boat for the transportation of the employes to dry land at the end of the day's work.

At the Union depot all preparations have been made for high water. The baggage can be carried to the second floor in a very short time.

E. J. Sanford, president of the depot company, is not frightened. "I don't see how the water can reach us," he said yesterday. "The weather men tell us that we'll be wet tomorrow, and we're all ready to receive the water when it comes, but I really do not expect any water to reach the floor of the depot."

The water was rising rapidly in the bottoms and at the corner of Ninth and Mulberry streets late yesterday afternoon a close observer could see it creeping slowly up the sidewalks.

The Armour plant is preparing for more high water by building dikes two feet high around the buildings. The doors in the walls have been cemented and it will take a rise of from four to six feet to put the plant out of business.

Labels: flood, Mulberry street, Ninth street, Union depot, weather, West bottoms

June 14, 1908

CROPS AND GARDENS DAMAGED.

Missouri River Towns in This Vicin-

ity Will Suffer Greatly.

Much damage is being done to the crops which are planted in the vicinity of the smaller towns along the course of the Missouri. The gardens along the Blue river are mostly safe as yet, but there is great anxiety felt for their safety during the next two or three days.

At Harlem and Coburg, many garden and berry fields have been planted in the bottoms and these have been a total loss. All along the course of the Missouri, from Kansas City to Liberty, the lowlands are under water to the depth of from two to six feet. Some corn fields and much wheat and smaller gardens are completely washed out by the flood.

At Northern Junction and Randolph, the chief loss is of small gardens. Randolph is higher than most of the other smaller towns along the river and but few houses have been flooded by the high water. The residents are making preparations for any emergency and will be able to meet the flood when it comes. Their experience in the flood of 1903 was a good lesson to them. The people in Randolph are quite hopeful, thinking that the river will not rise high enough this year to severely injure them.

Labels: Blue river, flood, Missouri river

June 13, 1908

KINDNESS TO ANIMALS.

Chief Bowden Floats the "Humane Boat."

Chief of Police D. E. Bowden showed his kindness toward dumb animals by assigning one boat and its crew to rescue cats and dogs which were left behind by their ownders during the high water. Twenty-one dogs and thirty-seven cats in all were rescued by the "humane boat." They were found in all conceivable places, some on the tops of outhouses, others floating on drift wood, while several cats were taken from the branches of small trees in Shawnee park.

Labels: animals, boats, flood, Police Chief Bowden

June 13, 1908

WATER LEAVING STOCK YARDS.

If No Further Rise Comes They'll Be

Open Again Monday.

Flood water moved out of the stock yards all day yesterday, and the yard management and the commission men felt cheerful. The flood, as far as could be seen yesterday, did but little damage to the stock yards on the east side. While most of the pens were under water Thursday, by last night most of the water had receded and left but little sediment behind.

About three feet of water ran out of the yards during the day. There was some water in the basement offices in the Exchange building at the close of the day. If there is no further rise in the Kaw, the yards expect to be able to handle stock on the east, or main, side Monday. In the Texas division, in Armourdale, the situation is not so good, though everything there, too, it is hoped, will be straightened out inside of a week.

Labels: Armourdale, flood, Kaw river, stock yards

June 12, 1908

POLICE WILL PATROL

RIVER IN LAUNCHES.

Mounted Men Guard Flooded Whole-

sale District -- Peril of the

East Bottoms.

Chief of Police Daniel Ahern and Captain Walter Whitsett yesterday afternoon drove through the flooded East and West bottoms. Complaint had been made that sightseers and others had been breaking into unprotected houses and stealing.

Last night mounted men were stationed all over the West bottoms with orders to patrol the flooded district carefully. If the water goes any higher police will be placed in launches to patrol. Now an officer on horseback can reach the most important part of the wholesale district.

It was also reported to the police that in the trees near Harlem many dead cattle, horses and hogs have become lodged. The citizens in that vicinity fear the result if the animals are left there after the flood goes down. Today police in motor boats will be sent over the river to dislodge any dead stock and see that it gets into the current.

Near the Kelly mills in the East bottoms twenty-five or thirty men are at work night and day watching to see that the water does not break through the dike formed by the embankment of the Kansas City Southern railway.

"That is really the key to the East bottoms," Captain Whitsett said. "If the water once gets through there it means lots more trouble, especially for truck gardens, Currents would be quickly formed and all of that loose rich soil would go down the river as it did in 1903."

Wednesday night and last night fifteen or twenty families, by special permission, slept on the hillsides below North Terrace park. In the day the people go down and watch their property.

William Mensing, 10 East Fourth street, called at police headquarters last night and offered five or six furnished rooms for the benefit of the flood sufferers. In 1903 Mensing had a rooming house at Fourth and Main streets. While his rooms could have been rented at good prices, Mensing gave up a dozen or more to poor families and even took two families into his home.

"These rooms I have are not for men who can hustle for themselves," he said last night. "As before, I prefer to let women and children occupy them."

Mayor Thomas T. Crittenden, Jr., chairman of the police board, informed the department yesterday that tents could be secured at the Third regiment. They are to be used for poor and needy families if the worst comes.

Today two gasoline launches will be placed in commission for use of the police. They will be expected to patrol the river below the Hannibal bridge and render aid to people on both sides of the river if the emergency calls for it.

The crowd on the Intercity viaduct last night -- most of the people were sightseers -- was so great that Captain Whitsett stationed four men under Sergeant Robert Greely at the entrance. Their business was to be on the lookout for crooks and to keep the people moving. Three patrolmen were placed at the Mulberry street pay station to keep order and see that no one used the "center rush" method to get through the crowd without paying.

Last night several police were patrolling the river bank from the foot of Grand avenue east. It had been reported that thieves had been breaking into wholesale houses through windows, loading their boats and landing further down the river

The police were asked last night to be on the lookout for Antonio Travesse, 6 years old, an Italian boy living at 410 Holmes street. His father, Carlos, greatly excited, reported the missing boy. He said that when last seen his baby was going toward the river.

Harlem could not be reached by telephone last night. In the afternoon it was said that the water there had flooded the only remaining stores. Last night's report from there was that the river was getting lower, and that most of the wise citizens over there, who had passed through the terrible 1903 flood, will save all of their household goods and stocks of merchandise. Some were moved to this city and some of the stocks are still there, very high up with the counters and shelves nailed down.

Labels: boats, Captain Whitsett, children, East bottoms, flood, Grand avenue, Hannibal bridge, Harlem, Holmes street, immigrants, Mayor Crittenden, military, Mulberry street, Police Chief Ahern, West bottoms

June 11, 1908

LOSES HIS LIFE IN THE FLOOD.

James Fradora Falls From Front

Porch and Drowns.

James Fradora, aged aout 38 years, fell off his front porch into his front yard at 309 Kansas avenue yesterday evening about 6 o'clock and was drowned before help could reach him. He was sitting in a chair watching the flood, which surounded his house, when he tipped over backwards. It was thought he struck his head in falling and was rendered unconscious by the fall, for the water was not very deep and he could easily have waded out.

Labels: death, flood, Kansas avenue

June 11, 1908

HE'S A TEMPORARY ORPHAN.

Lee Rogers, 6 Years Old, Separated

From His Parents in the Flood.

Lee Rogers, 6 years old, is the first boy to lose both his parents in the present flood, and he is being cared for at the detention home until such time as his father and mother can be found. The Rogers lived in Armourdale until Monday. On that day when the flood threatened their home, Mrs. Rogers came to Kansas City, Mo., to find a new home, and the father went away to help buil dikes. The boy was left in the care of Mrs. Mary Dunbar, 567 North Fourth street, Armourdale, and she, too, had to make a hasty retreat to the Missouri side of the river as the waters began to rise. She brought the Rogers boy with her, and being unable to find his mother turned him over to the superintendent of the detention home last evening.

Labels: Armourdale, children, detention home, flood

June 10, 1908

SMALLPOX PATIENTS REMOVED.

St. George Hospital Now Stans in

Five Feet of Water.

High water invaded the grounds shrouding St. George's hospital, the city's pest house, located on the banks of the Missouri river near the bridge of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railroad, yesterday afternoon. When the outbuildings began to float Dr. George P. Pipkin,in charge of the hospital, became concerned for the thirteen patients in his charge, and telephoned to the city for ambulances. The sufferers were loaded into these and transferred to the ward for the insane at the general hospital, Insane patients were distributed in other parts of the building.

At a late our last night St. George's hospital, which is a frame structure, was still intact in about five feet of water.

Labels: doctors, flood, general hospital, mental health, railroad, smallpox

June 10, 1908

HARLEM PEOPLE HAVE

ABANDONED THEIR HOMES.

Missouri River Backed Into the Vil-

lage Through Breach in

Bank Below.

Yesterday was the first exhibition day for the Missouri. The Big Muddy had been out of its banks north of the city for two days, working its way into Clay county in the form of a creek, that swelled at times to lakes. Yesterday morning found the river more than a mile wide near Parkville, with Parkville high and dry, but the incursion made on the Kansas side. Towards this city, however an due east of Kansas City, Kas., the Missouri had eaten its way till it was three times its normal width. Right north of the city Harlem stood safe till about noon yesterday, when back water began going into it. The Harlem shore is fairly high and it held back the Missouri even as late as dark last night, but east of the little town about three-quarters of a mile the shore line drops. The river got over this by 10 o'clock and began pouring into a swamp to the north. As this filled the water made its way back west, so that the Missouri was simultaneously traveling east and west within a few yards of both currents Harlem lay at the extreme western end of this swamp. The back water got to it by noon. Field glasses showed that the people were all moving out of the hamlet before the first water got to them. By 4 o'clock the water was entering the Harlem church. The church is on a little rise on the ground. East of Harlem half a mile was to be seen at dusk a white houseboat, apparently standing the in the middle of the Missouri. Its location marked the north bank of the Missouri river.

To the far east stands St. George's hospital, the "pest house." It was abandoned by all but Dr. J. H. Ashton and a cook four days ago. Four smallpox patients were spirited to some secluded spot and are being taken care of. Meantime there is a mile of water between the hospital and the mainland, although between the hospital and the river there is a high bank. The Missouri had gone over the south bank between Kansas City and the isolation hospital, cutting the hospital off. The two men in the plant say they are in no danger, as they have a boat and the current between the m and the mainland is not swift. They said last night that nothing in the way of bodies nor carcasses of cattle has been observed going down stream, though it has been constantly watched. No farm products have gone past, either, showing that the flood has not done much permanent damage so far.

Labels: churches, flood, Harlem, hospitals, Missouri river, Parkville

June 10, 1908

WOMEN WORK TO SAVE HOMES.

Side by Side With Men They Labor

at the Dikes.

A crumbling dike and the crest of the Kaw river rise only two hours distant was the condition at the Fifth street bridge, one mile west of the S. & S. Packing house, Armourdale, at 12 o'clock last night. Women as well as men joined in the unequal combat, wives holding burlap sacks while their husbands filled them with dirt for the levee. At 2 o'clock this morning the narrow bank, which was all that was between a city of 10,000 people and a repetition of the flood of 1904, was eighteen inches higher than the river level. It looked as though victory leaned toward the laborers.

Ever since the news of the unusual rise of the Kaw tributaries reached the drainage board, eight teams and about twenty men have been working without cessation on the dike at the Fifth street bridge. This is the weakest point in the river bank in Kansas City, Kas., and the place where it leaped through and inundated Armourdale and the West bottoms in 1903. The teams have done good work, according to the engineers, but the swift current burdened with timbers and debris of all descriptions, had eaten well into the new embankment yesterday, so extraordinary efforts had to be made t check it in advance of the volume of water expected to finish the rise last night.

At 8 o'clock the Kaw was washing above the flood line at the Fifth street dikes, and the drainage board especially interested in this point as the key to the situation, passed word around to the effect that the last few hours of the rise might bring in a close race with the river.

In a few minutes after the condition of the dikes became known, hundreds of people, men and women, were on their way to Fifth street, armed with shovels. At the Cudahy and Schwarzschild & Sulzberger plants they obtained a large quantity of gunny sacks and at 9 o'clock the threatened dikes swarmed with toilers.

Women stood in the moist and holding the sacks open while the men, digging rapidly, filled them and carried them to lay on the dike.

It was a busy scene. Lanterns held by boys glimmered in and out among the workers like so many fire-flies ans whips cracked as the teams of horses were trotted with the wheel scrapers.

"It's coming up! Look out for that low place near the bridge; it needs tending to right away!"

"Come on here, with another bag!"

"All right now, fill in boys, it's coming our way. We're eighteen inches ahead of high water!"

The above were some of the shouts heard as the work progressed, and showed the anxiety of the people to save their homes. So well was the dike builded that as the torrent rose until the elbow of the river bend punched into its sides, it stood the test and not a leak came through.

Among the workers at the bridge whose part was to systematize the work so as to make it effective, were members of the drainage board.

These men with coats off and sleeves rolled up, occasionally seized a shovel and worked with the rest.

Labels: Armourdale, flood, Kaw river

June 9, 1908

NO ALARM IN THE "PATCH."

But Squatters May Yet Have to Be

Rescued.

The Missouri river is over its banks east of the Armour packing house and many homes of Croatian laborers at the plat were half under water at midnight. Despite the sinister tidings of "more water from Manhattan," which was occasionally heralded about in the babel of nine different languages employed by the people of the "Patch," there seemed to be no serious intention among the squatters there to move last night, at least, and they viewed the water about their doorsteps apparently without alarm. In the flood of 1903 the "Patch" was entirely washed away with considerable loss of life. Since then it has built up to about 250 houses, many of which contain more than thirty peopl. Castle Garden, a brick flat nearby, rooms 400 Croatians. It is seventy-five feet long and fifty feet wide.

If the Kaw and Missouri rivers continue to rise this morning some of the squatters near the river banks may have to be rescued by boat.

Labels: flood, immigrants, Kaw river, Missouri river

April 21, 1908

SAYS PAT M'GUIRE

WAS TWICE KILLED.

DROWNED AND THEN BURNED,

BUT LEFT AN ESTATE.

His Widow, Who Married Another

Between Pat's First and

Second Death, Wants the

Property Settled.

Two tragedies are recalled by the petition filed in the probate court yesterday by C. W Prince, attorney for Mrs. Mary F. McGuire, calling upon William Moore, administrator of the estate of Patrick McGuire, to make a partial division of the estate.

On March 29, 1903, McGuire, then living under the name of Oscar W. Ramsey, was married to Mrs. Mary Cochran, a widow, the present petitioner. When the flood of May, 1903, came, McGuire, then known as Ramsey, went out to engage in rescue work. He never returned. The wife advertised for him in the daily papers, when such advertisements were printed free after the flood subsided, but could get no reply or trace of him. On June 30, 1904, she married John W. Ballard, a point tucker.

The Ballards lived happily for over two years, when, in October, 1906, the Chamber of Commerce building in Kansas City, Kas., burned. Mrs. Ramsey-Ballard read that Patrick McGuire was among the missing tenants of the building, and that Mrs. Donald Logan, a friend of his, had escaped. Mrs. Logan's description of McGuire, printed in the papers, tallied to the dot with the missing Ramsey's appearance. Mrs. Ballard also recalled that the husband, known to her as Ramsey, had roomed at Mrs. Logan's house before she met him, and that friends who came to visit, after her marriage, called for Pat McGuire. Putting two and two together, Mrs. Ballard decided that the McGuire who was burned in the fire was none other than her husband. She talked to Mrs. Logan, and saw among the effects of McGuire, saved from the fire, a handkerchief which she had given Ramsey, and into which she had embroidered the initials, "O. W. R."

She was then positive that her husband had not been drowned in the flood, but was burned to death. She went into mourning again. Her marriage to Ballard was, by effect of her discovery, annulled.

McGuire left an estate in Wyandotte worth something over $20,000. The probate court of Jackson county, at Mrs. Ramsey-Ballard-McGuire's request, took charge of it, and William Moore was appointed administrator in December, 1906.

A few weeks ago a Mrs. Patrick O'Neal of Chicago sent a representative to Kansas City to secure a share in the estate, claiming that she was a sister of McGuire. This claim she has proven to the satisfaction of the probate court.

McGuire's wife's petition of yesterday is to have the administrator divide the estate between herself and Mrs. O'Neal. Mrs. McGuire's attorney hopes to secure practically all of the property for her under a Missouri statute which provides that estates lying outside the state shall be administered according to the law of the state which they be, and a Kansas statute, which gives all of an estate to the widow, if there are no children.

Mrs. McGuire lives at 2812 Spruce avenue.

Labels: Chicago, death, Fire, flood, Kansas City Kas, probate, Spruce avenue