Famous People with a Warrensburg, Missouri Connection

Notable residents

* John William 'Blind' Boone (1864–1927), African-American concert pianist, composer and principal for the Blind Boone Concert Company, Mr. Boone is considered by many to be a pioneer of modern music. 

The BBCC played over 8000 concerts in the U.S., Canada & Mexico. 

John Lange and Blind Boone. The Most astute, dignified and successful manager of the race, and the greatest living musical prodigy, who have journeyed together in the Blind Boone Concert Company thirty-five years, a record unsurpassed or equalled by any other company, white or colored in America.  Both philanthropic, generous and kind hearted to a degree, they are loved by their race throughout the length and breadth of America.. Kansas City Sun, Associated Press, December 5, 1914

He spent his youth in Warrensburg where a park and festival was subsequently named for him.  http://shs.umsystem.edu/historicmissourians/name/b/blindboone/index.html

Blind Boone Park and Information Link, Good Site

Blind Boone, Pianist, John Lange, Manager, Mis Marie Jackman, Soprano,
Miss Margeceri E. Boyd

Rachel Hendricks, Gravemarker, SE Corner of Sunset Hill Cemetery,
Warrensburg, Missouri
Mother of "Blind" Boone

Louis Menze, legendary Iowa State Basketball coach. Played basketball and baseball at UCM (State Normal). He played for Dr. Phog Allen, later the head coach at Kansas University. KU.

* Dale Carnegie (November 24, 1888–November 1, 1955), author of How to Win Friends and Influence People, and the developer of numerous highly influential courses in self-improvement, corporate communication, and related fields, studied communication at the Missouri State Teacher's College, now University of Central Missouri.

Mary Fallin (born December 9, 1954) is the 27th and current Governor of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. She was a U.S. Representative for Oklahoma's 5th congressional district from 2007 until 2011.^[3]

She is the second woman elected to the United States Congress from Oklahoma and the first since 1921 when Alice Mary Robertson was elected to Congress and served for one term from 1921 to 1923. She was the first Republican and first woman to serve as Lieutenant Governor of Oklahoma. She served in that post from 1995 to 2007. She is also the first woman to serve as Governor of Oklahoma.Fallin was born Mary Copeland in Warrensburg, Missouri, the daughter of Mary Jo (née Duggan) and Joseph Newton Copeland.

Her mother and father both served terms as mayor of Tecumseh, Oklahoma, where she was raised. Both of them were moderate Democrats, also known as Dixicrats. She too was a Democrat until she was 21, when she switched to the Republican Party of Oklahoma and became active with the Young Republicans. She graduated from Tecumseh High School and went on to attend Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee as well as the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond. Fallin holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Human and Environmental Sciences as well as Family Relations and Child Development from Oklahoma State University(1977).
After college, she worked for the Oklahoma Department of Tourism/Recreation, Oklahoma Employment Security Commission, and Oklahoma Office of Personnel Management. In 1983, she went to the private sector as a hotel manager for Lexington Hotel and Suites. She was also a commercial real estate broker.

*Errett Lobban Cord, U.S. automobile manufacturer & advocate of front-wheel-drive vehicles. He founded the Cord Corporation & established a holding company that produced the Cord Automobile (designed in 1935 by engineer Gordon Buehrig) along with the Auburn and Duesenberg Automobiles in Indiana. E.L. Cord was born and raised in Warrensburg. His father owned a general store in downtown Warrensburg and the building still stands bearing his name.

* Dean Hughes (born 1943), taught English at Central Missouri State University, now University of Central Missouri, for several years; the setting of his best-selling series of children's books starring Nutty Nutsell is based on the lab school run by the university's education program in the 1980s.

* Sidney Toler (April 28, 1874–February 12, 1947), actor, writer, and the second non-Asian to play the role of Charlie Chan in films, was born in Warrensburg. Sidney Sommers Toler was born in Warrensburg, MO, the son of a renowned horse-breeder, Col. H.G. Toler, in 1874; three weeks later, the family moved to a stock farm near Wichita, KS, where he grew up. 

Curtis Niles Cooper, mathematician, UCM

* Old Drum - The phrase "Man's Best Friend" originated in a speech given given by George Vest in a trial that concerned this dog.

* Bruce Achauer, MD,  1943-2002  Professor of Surgery, UC Irvine rose to the top of his profession, becoming renowned worldwide as a brilliant surgeon, lecturer and author of Plastic Surgery textbooks

IN MEMORIAM

 Bruce M. Achauer, M.D.

Professor of Surgery

Irvine

1943-2002

Born in the small town of Warrensburg, Missouri, Bruce Achauer rose to the top of his profession, becoming renowned worldwide as a brilliant surgeon, superb educator and exceptional researcher—all accomplished while continuing a full-time clinical practice in plastic and reconstructive surgery. No doubt influenced by working in his father’s pharmacy, at age 13 Dr. Achauer decided on a career in medicine. After undergraduate education at Stanford University, he obtained his medical degree at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston in 1967. He applied successfully for the highly competitive rotating internship at San Francisco General Hospital, and then came to the University of California Irvine to complete residencies in general and plastic surgery between 1970 and 1976. To round out his clinical training, he traveled to the Queen Victoria Hospital in Sussex, United Kingdom as a Marks Fellow in Plastic Surgery. During the tumultuous years of the Vietnam conflict, Dr. Achauer served as a captain and flight surgeon in the United States Air Force based at the School of Aerospace Medicine in San Antonio between 1968 and 1970. On return from England, he was certified by both the American Board of Surgery and the American Board of Plastic Surgery and was appointed assistant professor of surgery at UC Irvine in 1977. He was promoted to adjunct professor in 1994, a position he held until his untimely death.

The milestones in his life, distinguished as they are, do not reveal the enormous impact Bruce Achauer had on the lives of his patients, fellow practitioners and family. His professional devotion was to reconstructive surgery and the Burn Unit at the UCI Medical Center. There he achieved well-deserved national acclaim for his treatment of a 6-year-old badly burned in a motel fire in 1983 and a teenage girl who had been burned severely with acid in 1984. He performed reconstructive surgery on countless numbers of burned patients at UCI Medical Center, and at the same time was widely considered a master of aesthetic plastic surgery. Dr. Achauer also had steady research support for 21 years with half a dozen active projects at the time of his death. He studied the use of cyclosporin in the prolongation of allografts, and developed non-invasive methods to accurately assess the depth of the burn wound. His curriculum vitae listed 151 peer-reviewed articles and 48 book chapters. Dr. Achauer edited and wrote four major textbooks in plastic surgery with the most recent five-volume text described as the “comprehensive bible of plastic surgery.” Dr. Achauer’s service to the University was unstinting, including work on most of the Hospital Committees. He was an administrative officer of the California Society of Plastic Surgeons and medical advisor to the Orange County Burn Association. Perhaps his most important service to the University was acting chief of the Plastic Surgery Division some four years ago during which time the Division began reorganization. International recognition came through many visiting professorships at universities in Ireland, Finland, Kuwait, Brazil and Mexico. At home, he had been a visiting professor at the University of Pittsburgh, Ohio State, the University of California, San Francisco, his alma mater Baylor College of Medicine, Indiana University and the University of Texas, Dallas. These many invitations and recognitions notwithstanding, Dr. Achauer made time to serve as a commencement speaker at Warrensburg High School. In his private life Dr. Achauer was an avid sailor who knew the marine charts of the coastal waters of Southern California as well as the anatomical charts for the structures of the face.

While serving as president of the board of directors of the Educational Foundation of the American Society of Plastic Surgery and a director of the American Board of Plastic Surgery, Dr. Achauer attended the National American Society of Plastic Surgeons Annual Congress in San Antonio late in 2002. Tragically, he developed a gastrointestinal bacterial infection and succumbed to bloodstream infection within 48 hours. Plastic surgeons from across the country attended the family memorial service and an honor guard of firefighters, who knew best Dr. Achauer’s challenges and triumphs, paid their respects at the Medical Center remembrance. Dr. Achauer is survived by his wife, Tamara, and two grown daughters, Allison and Hilary. He will be long remembered by the many patients he restored from disfigurement, by the faculty at University of California, Irvine and most of all by his family.

Samuel E. Wilson, M.D.

Gregory R.D. Evans, M.D.

Bruce Achauer, M.D., 1942 to 2002

Alpert, Bernard S. M.D.

Free Acces

The plastic surgery family and many of us personally have suffered a tragic, untimely, and irretrievable loss with the passing of Dr. Bruce Achauer. Bruce’s death was the result of a sudden and unrelenting septic episode sustained while attending the American Society of Plastic Surgeons Annual Scientific Meeting on November 4, 2002, in San Antonio, Texas.

Bruce was born November 11, 1942, in Warrensburg, Missouri, where his parents raised him and his younger sister, Anne. He was greatly influenced by his father, a pharmacist, and at an early age Bruce made the decision to become a physician. He was valedictorian of his high school class, football team captain and quarterback, and an Eagle Scout. Seeking and achieving excellence came early to Bruce and became a lifelong theme; he did it with grace, sensitivity, and a style that appeared effortless.

Bruce graduated from Stanford in 1963 and the Baylor College of Medicine in 1967. After a rotating internship at San Francisco General Hospital, the military called and he spent 2 years as a flight surgeon in the U.S. Air Force. Before induction, he married his sweetheart and from then on lifelong companion, Tamara, creating a match that all who knew them would agree seemed naturally destined. They were married in a small church in Larkspur, California, about a mile from our home. They were married 34 years.

After general and plastic surgery residencies at University of California at Irvine, Bruce entered practice in Orange County, California. He became a professor of plastic surgery at University of California at Irvine and director of its highly acclaimed burn unit, as well as the director of plastic surgery at the Beckman Laser Institute in Irvine. He made seminal contributions in both burn and laser care, and published more than 150 scientific articles. He edited a monumental work,Plastic Surgery: Indications, Operations, and Outcomes, a five-volume textbook of plastic surgery, utilized extensively worldwide.

Bruce rose to the pinnacle of our profession, and he did so without ever taking advantage of any situation or individual. If you heard of his achievements, it was always from others, not him; and perhaps most unusual for such professions, the magnitude of his achievements far exceeded the magnitude of his ego. This measured strength, possessed by few, was a signature. Such treasured qualities evoked the trust and confidence of peers, and Bruce became president of the Plastic Surgery Educational Foundation (1999 to 2000) and Chair of the American Board of Plastic Surgery (2001 to 2002).

Bruce had a thirst for adventure that wove a consistent thread through his life. As a young surgeon, he desired to see the hallowed halls of the beginnings of twentieth century plastic surgery, and so he and Tamara took their two young daughters and journeyed to Sweden and Scotland, where they would stay in tents in campgrounds with Bruce emerging from the tent each morning in a suit and tie to visit such places in Stockholm and Glasgow. Summer weekend routines for the family in Long Beach were sails from their home to Catalina Island and back. Time was spent in the high mountains, both Alpine and cross-country skiing in the winter and high-altitude hut trekking in the summers. The couple climbed to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro in a blinding snowstorm. Bruce was stoic. I once saw him cross-country ski all day with bleeding heel blisters and never say a word about it.

Bruce Achauer was a person we wanted to represent us. He was a giver. He did it so well. He did it around the world as an emissary for American plastic surgery, in places like Sri Lanka, teaching and using his skills to help others. He did it at home, the embodiment of compassion in caring for the most complicated, tragic, and sometimes highly publicized cases, such as that of David Rothenberg, a terribly burned child. Bruce and Tamara established and endowed a lectureship in biology at Stanford, giving back to his undergraduate university. When asked on one occasion if he’d received any compensation for being a consultant to a television medical drama, he replied, “Yes, two baseball caps. One of them is going to one of my nurses.” Bruce always did us proud.

Bruce had an impact on all who came to know him. He won our regard and was highly esteemed for his ability, integrity, determination, and kindness. At a memorial service for him in Long Beach, California, on November 17, 2002, Stanford classmates around the world waved a hand in respect and recognition for Bruce’s friendship and contributions at the exact moment of the beginning of the service, Pacific standard time. Bruce is survived by his wife Tamara, his two daughters, Allison and Hilary, his sister, Anne Maidment, and his mother, Maureen Achauer.

Plastic surgery has suffered a profound loss. I (and I know I am not alone) have lost someone I could call day or night for assistance, knowing that I would receive trusted counsel and aid without being judged. His loss is painfully unfair; his mark, everlasting. We should all strive to follow his examples, and do him proud.

To Bruce Achauer: With Respect, Admiration, and Love

You spoke—

And the world listened

You lectured—

And the world learned

You wrote—

And the world understood

…….

You smiled—

And the world warmed

You joked—

And the world laughed

You loved—

And the world loved

…….

You made the incision—

And the scars fell away

You placed the sutures—

And the smile returned

…….

You led—

And the world followed

You served—

And the world benefited

You were humble—

And the world was respectful

…….

You lived—

And the world was better

You died—

And the world cried

Robert L. Ruberg, M.D.

N325 Means Hall

1654 Upham Drive

Columbus, Ohio 43210

ruberg-1@medctr.osu.edu

©2003American Society of Plastic Surgeons

Passage: Dr. Bruce Achauer, 59

11.07.02

Achauer, who died Monday after suddenly falling ill while attending a conference, was the plastic surgeon who helped save David Rothenburg, a 6-year-old boy set on fire by his father during a bitter custody battle in 1983. Achauer performed dozens of surgeries and skin grafts on the boy, who had burns over 90 percent of his body. In private practice, Achauer, who recently completed a five-volume work on plastic surgery, worked on children with facial deformities, birthmarks and cleft lips and palates.

* Germaine Race - Former running back for the San Diego Chargers

Hyman G. Neill, aka: Hoodoo Brown

* Kimberly Wyatt - member of female pop group The Pussycat Dolls

Thomas Benton Hollyman, (December 7, 1919 – November 14, 2009) photographer. After moving to Warrensburg, Missouri, in 1919, where his father became pastor or the Presbyterian Church, Hollyman began publishing a school paper in the sixth grade. Hollyman who said that he “always wanted to be journalist ,” learned to set type as a printer’s devil at the Standard Herald in exchange for lessons in news-writing. He also was the Bandmaster and an original member of Don Essig’s Novelty Music Show an experience he wrote about in an article for May 31, 1958, New Yorker titled” How Culture Came to Sand Springs, Oklahoma.” In high school as a senior, he worked his way to Europe on a German steamship, playing in a five-piece jazz band, the Varsity Club Orchestra. Upon arriving in Europe he bicycled 1400 miles from London to Edinburgh and back.

Thomas Benton Hollyman (December 7, 1919 – November 14, 2009) was an American photographer.  Graydon Carter, managing editor of Vanity Fair, included Hollyman in his round-up of “ photographic greats” in his magazine’s Editor’s Letter, January 2005, titled “ The Shots Seen Around the World.” These were photographers he wrote, whose “ travels help form the patina of their characters and the grist for their tales.” Although Hollyman worked primarily as a photographer for most of his career, his quest for new challenges also took him to cinema. In 1963, working with the film-maker and British stage director Peter Brook, he served as director of photography for the big-screen version of Lord of the Flies, learning to operate a movie camera a short while before the film began production in Puerto Rico. Brook selected him as a total unknown. Dr. Harley Benz, Scientist-in-Charge at the  USGS National Earthquake Information Center Howard A. Fitch was born in Warrensburg, MO. The Kansas City Structural Steel Company was founded in 1907, by Howard Fitch and Olaf Smith. The main plant was on the site of an old smelting works at 21st Street and Metropolitan Avenue, on the Kaw River. During WWI they supplied structural steel and rudders to the Hog Island shipyard in Philadelphia. During WWII, they built 407 landing craft for the Navy. John Graves, http://www.thegravesite.com/edu.html After ten gratifying years as an associate professor in the Communication Department at Central Missouri State University(UCM), he retired to Pagosa Springs, Colorado Of the myriad of famous people Graves has met and/or worked with, he recalls associations with three that particularly stand out in his memory: a morning with Lord Bertrand Russell at his home in Wales, an afternoon tea with Katharine Hepburn at her home in Beverly Hills, and the delight of having Eric Sevareid as a house guest for three days in Warrensburg, Missouri. Jimmy Kemper, syndicated show called Beautiful Thoughts on NBC Blue Radio. He performed in Kansas City and in Chicago as well, this young man ended up in New York. Throughout this varied career,  he has always played several nights a week as a single pianist, side man, or band leader at private parties, including affairs for Judy Garland, Groucho Marx, Danny Thomas, and John Wayne. He has recorded, been a staff pianist at KLAC-TV and on the first Betty White show, was musical director for the Gloria Hart Show on KLAC-TV, and has accompanied such artists as George Burns, June Christy, Rosemary Clooney, Rudy Vallee, Redd Foxx, and Jimmy Durante. Shawn Pelton (born June 1, 1963, in Warrensburg is a New York City-based studio and session drummer. Collaborated with Backstreet Boys, Sheryl Crow, Shawn Colvin, Bruce Springsteen, Celine Dion and Billy Joel. He also is the longtime drummer in the house band for the NBC TV network's sketch comedy and music program Saturday Night Live. Grant Curtis- Producer of the Spiderman movies grew up in Warrensburg and attended UCMDavid Cook - Contestant on American Idol Season 7 grew up in Blue Springs, Missouri and attended UCM, graduated in 2006. David Steward - For all his multi-million dollar business success, David Steward smiles For all his multi-million dollar business success, David Steward smiles most often about the small things in life, such as the Little League football team his company sponsors, his strong faith and his belief in putting others first. The 1973 Central Missouri business graduate is founder, chairman, majority owner and CEO of St. Louis-based World Wide Technology. Voted by Ebony in 2002 among “the 100 Most Influential Black Americans” and hailed in 2004 by Black Enterprise magazine as having the largest black-owned business in the U.S., Steward is a homegrown success story. Born in Chicago, he grew up in Clinton, MO, in a three-bedroom home with three brothers and four sisters. Steward was taught by his mother to believe, “you can do anything you want to if you put your mind to it.” From his father, Harold — who fixed cars, hauled trash, worked security, tended bar and cleaned offices — Steward learned to work hard Steward leveraged his CMSU degree into jobs for Missouri Pacific Railroad, Federal Express and Wagner Electric. Determined to own a business, he bought a company from a man nearing retirement. Steward survived lean years when he borrowed against his home, bought groceries on credit and watched his car get repossessed. But he was determined to succeed. In 1990, he started World Wide Technology as a software developer and hardware reseller. With an early introduction to business-to-business e-commerce, World Wide developed other Internet-based applications, including online stores, customer service systems and resource planning systems. Today, World Wide Technology and its affiliate company, Telcobuy.com, employ 600 people and have more than $1 billion annually in sales. For all his company’s national prominence, Stewart continues to volunteer time to his community and alma mater. There’s his church, United Way, Boy Scouts, Girls Inc., and the Mathews-Dickey Herbert Hoover Boys Club, home to his Little League football players. Then, there’s his alma mater. Recently, Steward volunteered proceeds from his book, Doing Business by the Good Book, to help fund UCM's Summer Bridge Program. He also leveraged a book signing party to get other Kansas City organizations and people to help. “Charitable activities are not a burden,”Steward said, quoting a favorite Bible verse, “Seek me first in my righteousness and everything else will be added unto thee.”ost often about the small things in life, such as the Little League football team his company sponsors, his strong faith and his belief in putting others first. The 1973 Central Missouri business graduate is founder, chairman, majority owner and CEO of St. Louis-based World Wide Technology. Voted by Ebony in 2002 among“the 100 Most Influential Black Americans" and hailed in 2004 by Black Enterprise magazine as having the largest black-owned business in the U.S., Steward is a homegrown success story. Born in Chicago, he grew up in Clinton, MO, in a three-bedroom home with three brothers and four sisters. Steward was taught by his mother to believe, “you can do anything you want to if you put your mind to it.” From his father, Harold — who fixed cars, hauled trash, worked security, tended bar and cleaned offices — Steward learned to work hard. Steward leveraged his CMSU degree into jobs for Missouri Pacific Railroad, Federal Express and Wagner Electric. Determined to own a business, he bought a company from a man nearing retirement. Steward survived lean years when he borrowed against his home, bought groceries on credit and watched his car get repossessed. But he was determined to succeed. In 1990, he started World Wide Technology as a software developer and hardware reseller. With an early introduction to business-to-business e-commerce, World Wide developed other Internet-based applications, including online stores, customer service systems and resource planning systems. Today, World Wide Technology and its affiliate company, Telcobuy.com, employ 600 people and have more than $1 billion annually in sales. For all his company’s national prominence, Stewart continues to volunteer time to his community and alma mater. There’s his church, United Way, Boy Scouts, Girls Inc., and the Mathews-Dickey Herbert Hoover Boys Club, home to his Little League football players. Then, there’s his alma mater. Recently, Steward volunteered proceeds from his book, Doing Business by the Good Book, to help fund CMSU’s Summer Bridge Program. He also leveraged a book signing party to get other Kansas City organizations and people to help. “Charitable activities are not a burden,” Steward said, quoting a favorite Bible verse, “Seek me first in my righteousness and everything else will be added unto thee." Achauer House Will Become Home to Alumni, UCM Events Contact: Jeff MurphyWARRENSBURG, MO (Aug. 29, 2012) – A Warrensburg historic home donated to the University of Central Missouri Foundation by its owner, the late Maurine Achauer, will be utilized for the university’s alumni and events offices. Built in the 1800s, the three-story Victorian home is located at 314 Holden St. Work begins this fall with a completion date tentative for January 2013. An open house is planned to show the remodeled The Achauer Home - Warrensburg, Missouri home to the campus and community.“Maurine truly had an exceptional gift for bringing people together. We’ll never know just how many lives were touched, how many special memories were created, and positive lasting impressions of the Warrensburg community were formed just because she generously opened her front door to others,” said UCM President Charles Ambrose. “We hope that the example she set for all of us and her kind, giving spirit will live on through those who now welcome others into the Achauer House.” “The Achauer House has the tradition of hosting campus and community gatherings, and we plan to honor and continue that tradition,” said Jason Drummond, vice president for development and executive director of the UCM Foundation. “Not only will the home provide alumni and events offices, but it also will be available to community and university groups as a place for special gatherings.” The UCM Foundation is funding the majority of the renovation. The home’s first floor will be remodeled for meetings, receptions and other small events while the second floor will be reconfigured for three offices, storage and a small conference area. The renovation also will update electrical and mechanical systems and address accessibility issues. Many of the home’s historic features, such as the staircase and slate fireplaces, will be retained.

Achauer gifted her home to the UCM Foundation through her estate. The longtime Warrensburg civic leader, resident and businesswoman died in 2009. The only child of Dr. Rubin and Ada Carver Poage, she was born in 1915. She completed high school as valedictorian and was piano accompanist at her own graduation. Achauer received academic degrees from Truman State University, the University of Missouri and University of Nebraska. She married Reynolds Achauer in 1942, and together they operated Vernaz Drug Store and the Annex Restaurant in Warrensburg for more than 30 years. They had two children, Bruce, who died in 2002, and Ann Achauer Maidment, who lives in Toledo, Ohio.

During her 50 years of living in the house, Achauer brought together thousands of people from all walks of life. Every homecoming, her home was the place to be, as students, faculty, staff, alumni, friends and their families packed bleachers set up on her front lawn just for the occasion.

Achauer received the UCM Distinguished Service Award in 1994, was an early participant in the launch of Johnson County’s community health program and a member of KMOS-TV’s first advisory council. She was one of the first members of the UCM Foundation Presidents Society and spearheaded fundraising for the suites at Walton Stadium. She also contributed the funds to build the White Rose Pavilion at the National Sigma Tau Gamma Headquarters in Warrensburg and the fraternity named the 1987 National Conclave in her honor.

1870s circa Jesse James gets his haircut in Warrensburg at Holden and Culton Barber Shop

 https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-star-journal-warrensburg-visited-by/164405163/

1875 Grasshoppers Swarm Warrensburg, Knob Noster & Johnson County Missouri 3 inches Deep at the MoPac Depot

"It was so bad that they started eating Grasshoppers..." Warrensburg, MO 1875

"A nightmare unimaginable, rarely mentioned in history books, that caused such damage that huge areas in several states were to be abandoned, often with the aid of troops. A sudden unexplained migration of frontier population to the coastline. The year was 1875 and it soon was to be called the “Year of the Grasshopper“. 

“It was the year 1875 that will long be remembered by the people of at least four states, as the grasshopper year. The scourge struck Western Missouri April 1875, and commenced devastating some of the fairest portions of our noble commonwealth." It was reported that the Missouri Pacific Railroad Depot in Warrensburg had 3 inches of grasshoppers on the ground......

It would have looked much worse than this in Warrensburg, Mo 

In the summer of 1875, an infestation of Rocky Mountain locusts measuring 198,000 square miles—a square 450 miles on each side, containing an estimated 3.5 trillion locusts—descended upon the midwestern United States, the largest locust swarm ever recorded. (By comparison, the second-largest swarm, in Kenya in 1954, covered fewer than one hundred square miles.) Although an unprecedented convergence of specific climatic, agricultural, and ecological conditions was responsible for creating the 1875 outbreak, many communities interpreted the locust swarm as an objective sign of pending apocalypse and confirmation that the modern world could not escape the wrath of an angry God. By the early years of the twentieth century, however, the Rocky Mountain locust, with its turbo-charged capacity for devastation and destruction, had vanished, leaving scientists, theologians, and historians to ponder the cause of its mysterious disappearance.

In his book Locust: The Devastating Rise and Mysterious Disappearance of the Insect that Shaped the American Frontier (Basic Books, 2004), Jeffrey Lockwood, professor of natural sciences and humanities at the University of Wyoming, encounters the legacy of the Rocky Mountain locust in a variety of settings, from nineteenth-century frontier diaries and newspaper accounts to Wyoming’s Knife Point Glacier, where the cadavers of the Rocky Mountain locust remain preserved in the ice. For Lockwood, the rise and fall of the Rocky Mountain locust, from terrestrial terror to frozen artifact, raises a host of questions about the dynamic relationship between human and insect worlds that we have yet to fully reconcile.

Keowee Journal
November 08, 1911

MISSOURI GRASSHOPPER YEAR

How the Pest Interfered With Travel and Ruined Business, (Kansas City Star.)

Kansas has sometimes wished that some of the other rightful heirs to unpleasant legacies would come forward and claim their share of the inheritance. Grasshoppers, for instance, do not belong solely to Kansas. I.W. Wood recalls the year that grasshoppers were distinctly a Missouri pest. It was in 1875, the year following the blight Kansas suffered from the all-devouring hordes. Mr. Wood went to Warrensburg that year. The track laid on the surface, as the early engineering placed it, met many grades. Grasshoppers had taken the land. Every time a train came to a slight grade it was necessary for the passengers and train crew to get out of the train and shovel the insects from the right of way; crushed on the rails the track became too slick for the locomotive's progress. There was a cut through which the train passed near Warrensburg, and there, Mr. Wood recalls, was stationed a section gang with shovels scooping out the wind rifts of insects. There was more or less bravado in the offer a bank in Warrensburg made of $1 for every bushel of grasshoppers brought to the bank. Next day the bounty was reduced to 50 cents and the day after the bank announced that it was out of the market for grasshoppers.

The woolen goods house for which Mr. Wood traveled at the time was dissatisfied with the business he was doing in the West and was prone to discredit, his account of the adverse conditions in Missouri and Kansas. Mr. Wood mailed a large packing box with dead grasshoppers and expressed to his firm In the East, His house said nothing more about the lack of trade in the West.

Just 2 miles East of Warrensburg, MO grasshoppers were so thick on the tracks that shovels and crews were employed to help clear the tracks, otherwise the rails were too slick for the trains.

Map of the Locust-Grasshoppers plague that struck Warrensburg, Missouri 1875

"Sightings often placed their swarms in numbers far larger than any other species of locust, with one swarm as recorded at 198,000 square miles (513,000 km²) in size (greater than the area of California), weighing 27.5 million tons, and consisting of some 12.5 trillion insects – the greatest concentration of animals ever recorded.

The grasshoppers traveled in a “perfect swarm.” From July 20 to July 30, 1875, this perfect swarm, again larger than the size of California, flew between Minnesota and the Rio Grande and feasted on the crops of unsuspecting farmers.

The Rocky Mountain Locust or Melanoplus Spretus that Struck Johnson County Missouri 1875

The insects arrived in swarms so large they blocked out the sun and sounded like a rainstorm! In the hardest hit areas, the red-legged creatures devoured entire fields of wheat, corn, potatoes, turnips, tobacco, and fruit. The hoppers also gnawed curtains and clothing hung up to dry or still being worn by farmers, who frantically tried to bat the hungry swarms away from their crops."

"Attracted to the salt from perspiration, the over-sized insects chewed on the wooden handles of rakes, hoes, and pitchforks, and on the leather of saddles and harness, and wool from live sheep. Tree bark would be stripped off of the trees, leaving tree trunks barren.  There would be so many locusts that the locomotives would be stopped cold, not being able to get traction because the insects made the rails too slippery.

“According to the first-hand account of A. L. Child transcribed by Riley et al. (1880), a swarm of Rocky Mountain locusts passed over Plattsmouth, Nebraska, in 1875. By timing the rate of movement as the insects streamed overhead for 5 days and by telegraphing to surrounding towns, he was able to estimate that the swarm was 1,800 miles long and at least 110 miles wide. Based on his information, this swarm covered a swath equal to the combined areas of Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont.”

A swarm of locusts that is 1800 miles long and 110 miles wide !!

The state journal., June 25, 1875(Jefferson City, Mo.) 

Los Angeles Herald, Volume 4, Number 57, 1 June 1875

Grasshopper Crop in Missouri.

Lexington, Mo., May 28.— "There are millions of them," is the report from most all parts of this county. The grass and dog-fennel will not last much longer, and as soon as they are gone the grasshoppers will make an onslaught on the crops. Their wings are developing very fast, and it will not be many days till the largest proportion of them will be able to emigrate. 

Richmond, Mo., May 28th —Since the heavy rain of Wednesday the hoppers are travelling in a - southerly direction, eating everything as they go. There is no garden in this locality that they have not eaten up.

This item in the Bates County Record, Butler, Mo., of June 19, 1875 copied from the Warrensburg, (Mo.) Daily News, afforded in its wit or wisdom interesting reading to the grasshopper food faddists of the day: 

LOCUSTS AS FOOD 

Practical Test of the Matter Yesterday afternoon Messrs. Riley and Straight determined to test the cooked locust question, in regard to its adaptability as food for the human stomach. Getting wind of the affair and being always in haste to indulge in free feeding, we made bold to intrude ourselves on our scientific friends. We found a bounteous table spread, surrounded by the gentlemen named, accompanied by Mrs. Straight, and Mrs. Maltby. Without much waste of ceremony there were five persons seated, and we were helped to 'soup which plainly showed its locust origin and tasted like chicken soup—and it was good; after seasoning was added we could distinguish a delicate mushroom flavor—and it was better. Then came battercakes, through which locusts were well mixed. The soup banished silly prejudice and sharpened our appetite for this next lesson, and battercakes disappeared also. Baked locusts were then tried (plain hoppers, without grease or condiment), and either with or without accompaniments, it was pronounced an excellent dish. The meal was closed with desert a la "John the Baptist"—baked locusts and honey—and, if we know anything we can testify that that distinguished Scripture character must have thrived on this rude diet in the wilderness of Judea. We believe this is the first attempt at putting this insect to his best use, and the result is not only highly satisfactory to those brave enough to make the attempt, but should this insect make his visit oftener and cause greater destruction future generations will hail its presence with joy. It will be a jubilee year—like manna in the wilderness, or quails in the desert—food without money and without price.

Frank Behm, a prominent farmer and stockman of Chilhowee township, is the owner of one of the beautiful country places in this section of Missouri. He is a native of Illinois, born in Chicago in 1858, a son of Henry and Lena Behm. Henry Behm was a skilled cabinetmaker and for twenty-one years followed his trade in the city of Chicago. In 1870, he moved with his family to Nebraska, where he homesteaded one hundred sixty acres. Here the Behm family endured countless hardships and misfortunes. During the grasshopper visitation, 1874 and 1875, their entire crops were destroyed and the Behms were left in destitute circumstances. They wore sow sacks for clothing and the father made wooden shoes for each member of the family. Supplies could be obtained at a place thirty-six miles distant from their dugout, provided, of course, that one had the money, for no one sold on credit. The family, in consequence, really suffered from lack of food many, many times in the new Western home. The father and mother died there and later, their son, Frank, left Nebraska and moved to Iowa, where he engaged in farming for twenty-eight years. The first teacher of W. T. Gibson was Joe Goodwin. Another instructor, whom he had in his boyhood days, was Palmer Smith. Among his schoolmates he recalls the Goodwin. Patrick. McDonald, and Cooper children. He completed his education at McKendree College at Lebanon. Illinois and after leaving college, returned to his father's farm and engaged in the pursuits of agriculture. He vividly recalls the period of the destructive grasshoppers in 1874 and 1875 and the too frequent prairie fires, which he helped fight until ready to drop from exhaustion. 

“In his eighth annual report Mr. Riley (then state entomologist of Missouri) thus estimates the loss in the various counties of Missouri in 1875: Atchison, $700,000; Andrew, $500,000; Bates, $200,000; Barton, $5,000; Benton, $5,000; Buchanan, $2,000,000; Caldwell, $10,000; Cass, $2,000,000; Clay, $800,000; Clinton, $600,000; De Kalb, $200,000; Gentry, $400,000; Harrison, $10,000; Henry, $800,000; Holt, $300,000; Jackson, $2,500,000; Jasper, $5,000; Johnson, $1,000,000; Lafayette, $2,000,000; Newton, $5,000; Pettis, $50,000; Platte, $800,000; Ray, $75,000; Saint Clair, $850,000; Vernon, $75,000; Worth, $10,000. Amounting in the aggregate to something over $15,000,000.”

Who Recalls Locust Feast?

From "The Bulletin" Johnson County Historical Society, Inc., Sep, 1979 (Vol. XV, No. 2)
If you think this year's onslaught of grasshoppers has been bad, think back to what it was like in 1875 when young boys were gathering buckets of locusts for a very unusual –but true—banquet.
The subject of Warrensburg's "grasshopper feast" came up again earlier this year with a reprint of a 1909 reminiscence by "The Country Cousin" in the Warrensburg Star Journal, January 31.
The unnamed writer was a member of the city council, and he told of a dinner at the normal school that had him feel as though the 'hoppers were yet stalking through his stomach.
The fall of 1875 [sic] brought swarms of Rocky Mountain or "Indian" grasshoppers (so named because of their copper color and bright red legs) to Western Missouri. The locusts laid eggs in the sandy, loose soil, and the following year, then hatched out in plague proportions
"Country Cousin" reported that they moved forward "like an avalanche," up from the bottoms [sic] around Post Oak. There were so many of the 'hoppers that trains were being stalled because of wheels slipping on the rails. A Warrensburg banker, A.W. Ridings, offered a reward and paid fifty cents for every bushel of grasshoppers brought to his bank at Holden and East Pine Streets. So many were brought in, however, he was forced to retract the offer.

A lithograph depicting a locust swarm, made from a sketch by Howard Purcell, 1874.

The feast? That was the idea of Charles V. Riley, the first state entomologist in Missouri and later an entomologist with the U.S. Department of agriculture. Riley claimed that the grasshoppers could be safely eaten. Accounts differ, but "Country Cousin" said that all of the teachers in the normal school attended the banquet, with the cooking being supervised by a German clerk named Weidermeyer, who was also an excellent chef.
"First came grasshopper soup, then grasshopper pancakes served with butter and syrup; the scrambled eggs well mixed with grasshoppers; then followed pudding, spiked with the festive hopper, and finally came a pie around the edge of which the red legged grasshoppers were set around in a circle looking outward, very artistically arranged," he recalled.
Riley's account of the banquet was included in a report to the governor. In addition, details were in a paper he read before the American Association of the Advancement of Science.
Louses & Locusts In just nine years as Missouri's state entomologist, Charles Valentine Riley taught the world to value bugs by Anne McEowen

It was a swarm of bugs so large, even Moses would have shuddered. In 1874, billions of locusts munched their way across America’s plains, devouring nearly every stand of vegetation in their path. The moving horde of insects, collectively the size of California, reached the western edge of Missouri. To a nation still recovering from the destruction of the Civil War, all hope seemed lost. One man stood resolute, however, determined to stem the ravenous tide.

Charles Valentine Riley lived in Missouri just nine years, but his work as Missouri’s first state entomologist had international impact and forever changed how man would think about bugs. His compassion for farmers and detailed observations of insects made him a timely prophet with the intent to profit all who toiled in the soil.

Riley’s arrival on Missouri’s agricultural scene could not have come at a better time. From 1868 to 1877, when he served as Missouri’s official bug expert, Riley formulated a new vision for agriculture, one in which man enlisted the aid of beneficial insects and bested enemy bugs through knowledge and understanding. He not only identified the natural weaknesses of America’s locust foe, but also found in Missouri relief for French vintners threatened by a tiny aphid. Wherever locust or louse threatened, Riley applied his knowledge, skill and personality to address the plague and rose to the forefront of the burgeoning field of entomology in the process.

With a passionate nature and striking physical features — complete with handlebar mustache and wavy brown hair — Charles Valentine Riley fit his romantic name. Born outside of London, England, he immigrated to the United States as a teen. After a brief stint in the Union Army during the Civil War, he found his niche writing and drawing insects for local farming publications. His skill noted, he was promoted to editor of The Prairie Farmer, an agricultural publication of wide distribution based in Chicago.

In his 2005 book, “The Botanist and the Vintner: How Wine was Saved for the World,” Christy Campbell recalls efforts to convince the Missouri legislature to appoint a state entomologist. “New York had such a scientific ornament, so did Illinois,” representatives of the State Horticultural Society of Missouri pleaded. “Why should the great agricultural powerhouse of the Mississippi valley not have the same?”

In 1868, Gov. Thomas Fletcher appointed Riley to be Missouri’s first state entomologist, the third such state official in the nation. Only 25 years old at the time, Riley had no formal training as an entomologist. What he had was a keen sense of observation, an avid interest in insects, a talent for drawing, a proven flair for writing and the recommendation of his friend, Benjamin Dann Walsh, the Illinois state entomologist.

It was his forceful and persuasive insistence in the right of his new way of thinking — coupled with an ability to describe in words and illustrations the natural proofs he observed — that gained Riley the title “Father of Economic Entomology.” He passionately believed scientists and farmers working together could manage insects to the profit of all. It was a revolutionary idea in a time that was ripe for a change in man’s views of the natural world. Charles Darwin, with whom Riley corresponded, published his breakthrough book, “On the Origins of Species,” in 1859, just nine years prior to Riley’s appointment.

Riley traversed Missouri by train, horse and buggy, studying insects and their effects on crops. In the introduction to his first annual report as Missouri’s entomologist, Riley wrote, “Wherever I have been, from one end of the state to the other, the cordial hand has been extended, and I have found our farmers and fruit-growers thoroughly alive to the importance of the work, for they know full well that they must fight intelligently, their tiny but mighty insect foes, if they wish reward for their labors.”

Indeed, Missouri’s farmers intending for their crops to be a profitable and useful for human and animal consumption were instead being out-eaten by the indigenous insects. In his first report, Riley quotes the president of the state horticultural society, who estimated the annual loss to the state from insect depredations at $60 million. While Riley believed the amount was inflated, he conceded that if even half of the estimate was accurate, it was still an enormous loss and reasonable to expect a large portion of it could be avoided.

Jeffrey Lockwood, in his 2004 New York Times best-seller, “Locust,” summarized the first report of the Missouri state entomologist by stating that Riley “laid out his philosophy of the importance of insects, explained the need for converting losses into dollars and made the argument that farmers could never master the complexity of insect life on their own.”

Riley believed his annual reports to be of critical and timely interest to the state’s farmers, gardeners and horticulturists. He was frustrated that his writings would be buried within the often-delayed annual report of the Department of Agriculture. Perhaps affronted by the government’s lack of adequate recognition and funding for his work, Riley separately published his nine annual reports at his own expense.

Lockwood described Riley’s reports as “far superior in their scientific depth and presentation quality to anything else of the day — and, for that matter, to a great deal of modern technical publications . . .

“The reports combined the terse professionalism of technical writing with the lyrical elegance of Victorian prose, all illustrated with the finest artwork ever to grace such practical pages,” Lockwood wrote. “Indeed, these reports were the birth announcements of modern economic entomology.”

Riley set up his office on, ironically enough, Locust Street in St. Louis, not far from the residence of famed botanist Henry Shaw. Riley would later collaborate with Shaw to save California’s citrus crops from decimation by the cottony-cushion scale. As typical of Riley, his solution for the citrus growers was uniquely accurate, although previously untried. He tracked the offending pest to Australia, identified its natural enemy there and, after careful testing, imported and released into the citrus groves thousands of ladybird beetles.

Lockwood’s “Locust” describes the import of Riley’s solution: “Within months of releasing these voracious predators, Riley knew he had achieved what has been called ‘the greatest entomological success of all time.’ This was the world’s first case of classical biological control (the suppression of an exotic pest by introducing a natural enemy from its homeland), and the method has become one of the most effective and widely used pest management strategies in modern agriculture.”

Riley’s office was the destination for much mail and packages, many of which contained bugs. Missourians and others sought Riley’s expertise to identify bugs and determine if they were harmful. Perhaps in response to the condition of the bugs he received, and truly a reflection of Riley’s practical sense of humor, his letterhead included a paragraph titled: “Directions for Sending Insects,” which included the statement “Botanists like their specimens pressed as flat as a pancake, but entomologists do not. "The French botanist Jules-Emile Planchon visited Riley in 1871 and discovered the Missouri scientist maintained a collection of living insects to observe. His description of Riley’s office is contained in Campbell’s book. “The state entomologist’s office, housed in an immense building in St. Louis, was equipped with all the latest apparatus . . . The laboratory was lined with glass cages confining a miniature menagerie which allowed [Riley] to observe hour by hour the phases of evolution of the entire insect world.”

In 1866, two years before coming to Missouri, Riley published a notice in The Prairie Farmer of a “grape-leaf gall louse.” He noted a similarity to this louse and the insects reportedly plaguing French vineyards. Although the small insect did not kill Missouri vines, it was deadly to the French vines and threatened the existence of the famous French wines and the entire economy of rural France.

During the next several years, Riley worked with his French counterpart Planchon, exchanging specimens and data on the grape-leaf gall louse, an aphid also known as “phylloxera.” Riley warned of the possible spread of the insect by transplanting infected root stocks from one vineyard to another.

The French government recognized the need to stop the bug from destroying all the vines in France and offered a 30,000-franc prize for a practical remedy. In doing so, the government unwittingly encouraged overnight “experts” with highly touted, but ineffective, liquid and gaseous remedies. Desperate in their fight against the bug, French vintners spent all on these useless concoctions. Campbell notes the directness of Riley’s response to the effectiveness of the potions available, “Charles Riley got straight to the point: ‘All insecticides are useless.’”

In 1872, Riley published a list of American vines resistant to phylloxera. Isidor Bush, owner of introduction by Planchon, and Missouri roots were shipped to France by the boxcar load.

That same year, Gov. Silas Woodson proposed the abolition of Missouri’s Office of Entomology. While the salvation of Riley’s job may be attributed to an outcry from the State Horticultural Society, or the many letters written to the governor or the columns that appeared in newspapers, it may be more to the credit of the invasion of the Rocky Mountain locust into the western counties of Missouri.For his role in addressing the phylloxera infestation, the French government awarded Riley a medal in 1874. Ironically, the resulting flood of Missouri vines into the French vineyards, while a boon to the state’s agricultural economy, initiated a new disaster for French vintners as the Missouri vine roots carried more phylloxera. By 1875, the louse had invaded nearly all of France’s wine region. Vintners there had begun widespread grafting of their vines onto Missouri root stock, whereby it has been said that Missouri’s vines saved the wine of the world.

Although an individual locust was little more than an inch in length, swarms of locusts caused devastation of biblical proportion. The adult locusts traveled from the northwest, eating everything green in their path and laying their eggs by the millions in fields. The hatchlings would eat through any new growth before molting and swarming eastward causing further destruction.

Following the ravages of the Civil War, the federal government made land grants to farmers and homesteaders in Missouri and other states. Just nine years after the war, these neophyte farmers found themselves battling an enemy more powerful and invasive than any that had marched during the war.

Farmers who braved the attacking locust swarms in defense of their fields wound up not only losing their crops but also having their shirts literally eaten off their backs. Hundreds were completely impoverished, and they and their livestock faced starvation. The land in the affected counties was left so barren that it was reported that except for the warmth of the weather, one might have assumed they were observing Missouri in winter.

Riley set to work studying the locust. He collected specimens of locusts from five states, the Indian Territory and Canada, concluding that the swarm was the same migratory species. His seventh annual report to the state legislature, published early in 1875, mapped the extent of the locust swarms from southern Canada to Texas, from the Colorado Rockies to Missouri.

“The calamity was national in its character, and the suffering in the ravaged districts would have been great, and death and famine the consequence, had it not been for the sympathy of the whole country and the energetic measures taken to relieve the afflicted people,” he wrote, describing “a sympathy begetting a generosity which proved equal to the occasion, as it did in the case of the great Chicago fire, and which will ever redound to the glory of our free Republic and of our Union.”Praising the outpouring of support that allowed beleaguered farmers to survive the locust infestation, Riley wrote with characteristic Victorian flourish.

Riley’s report contains in almost reverent detail, by description and drawing, each phase of the locust’s life and reproductive stages. He also provided useful information such as the fact that the locusts would not lay their eggs in newly plowed land, nor in wet ground. Riley advised farmers to dig wide trenches around their fields as the locusts did not like to cross streams they could not jump.

Riley’s report included a review of biblical and historical locust plagues of Egypt, Africa, Asia and southern Europe as well as prior locust swarms reported in North America. He observed that on this continent, the swarms were typically contained in the West and only spread east with greater numbers and resulting damage during dry or drought seasons, as they experienced in 1874. Riley predicted in a report delivered to the governor and the Department of Agriculture that the locusts would leave Missouri and take flight back westward in early June.

In May 1875, perhaps in response to the public’s cry for government assistance or perhaps in a keen political move, Gov. Charles Hardin turned to a higher power for relief.

“Whereas, owing to the failure and losses of our crops much suffering has been endured by many . . . and if not abated will eventuate in sore distress and famine; Wherefore be it known that the 3rd day of June proximo is hereby appointed and set apart as a day of fasting and prayer that Almighty God may be invoked to remove from our midst those impending calamities . . . ” the governor proclaimed.

Riley’s prompt response to the governor’s declaration, published in the St. Louis Globe on May 19, voiced his frustration at the government’s lack of action. “Without discussing the question as to the efficacy of prayer in affecting the physical world, no one will for a moment doubt that the supplications of the people will more surely be granted if accompanied by well-directed, energetic work,” he wrote. Riley proposed a statewide monetary collection to aid people in the affected area, and further that a premium be paid for each bushel of young locusts destroyed.

Recognizing that horses and chickens ate the dead locusts and came to no harm, and having read that American Indians collected the locusts to roast and eat them, Riley proposed “entomophagy” — or, simply put, eating the bugs — as a way to reduce the number of locusts while simultaneously feeding the starving populace.

“At the Eads House in Warrensburg, Riley made his point by serving a memorable four-course meal,” recalls “Forgotten Missourians Who Made History,” a 1996 anthology of short biographies by Pebble Publishing. “The menu, which consisted of locust soup, baked locusts, locust cakes, locusts with honey and just plain locusts, apparently pleased his guests.”

Whether in response to divine intervention or just natural forces, shortly after June 3, 1875, in fulfillment of Riley’s prophecy, the locust swarms left Missouri, never to return.

In late 1876, Riley was appointed head of the newly formed U.S. Entomological Commission, which was charged with reporting ways to prevent and guard against recurring locust invasions. In 1878, the swarms of Rocky Mountain locust — a species now extinct — receded and Riley accepted the position as head entomologist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Riley resigned from his work with the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1894 and became the insect curator of the U.S. National Museum. He died in September 1895 from head injuries sustained during a bicycle ride.

Collections from Charles Valentine Riley’s life, including his drawings and prolific writings, can be found in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Special Collections, in the Smithsonian Institution and at the University of Missouri-Columbia where Riley lectured for several years. His nine annual reports to the Missouri legislature are available for review in the reference library of the State Historical Society in Columbia.

McEowen is a freelance writer from Jefferson City and the wife of Rural Missouri Managing Editor Bob McEowen.