Long ago on independence square (Kansas City, Lexington: professionals, earnings, rated)

[WCHS'59]

The first newspaper in Independence was the Evening and Morning Star, which began publication in June 1832. Despite the name it was a monthly publication that ceased publication with the expulsion of the Mormon publishers from Independence a couple years later.

The Jackson Examiner, a weekly, started up in 1898 and cost fifty cents for an annual subscription. The newspaper published until 1928.

The Independence Examiner, a daily, started up in 1905 publishing simultaneously with its weekly counterpart.

A subscription to the Examiner, today, will set you back $132 for home delivery Tuesday through Saturday and that includes a Sunday Kansas City Star. If you live out of state the cost is $234 for mail delivery of those five days less the Kansas City Star Sunday edition.

I recall Sue Gentry being an Examiner staffer for many years.

Other Independence newspapers:
Independence Sentinel, weekly, 1876-1958 according to the Missouri State Historical Society.

Inter-City News, 1929-1976.

Independence Daily News, 1950-1963.

Pictorial News, weekly, 1963-1969.

The Observer, weekly, 1969-1970.

A curious name for an Independence newspaper: School-Girls Casket, published in 1856.

[WCHS'59]

Originally Posted by Hazel W

I watched a street crew fill a hole in Noland Road in front of the high school a few years ago. One cleaned out the hole. Another poured tar into it. A third on a machine rolled over it. And a fourth did a finish job.

No, I am not kidding. Four men to fill a hole the size of a dinner plate. Union rules, perhaps?

Division of duties with each having a separate job specialty, perhaps? The only thing lacking would be a foreman.

[Hazel W]

Originally Posted by WCHS'59

Division of duties with each having a separate job specialty, perhaps? The only thing lacking would be a foreman.

The foreman was probably sitting in the cab, leaning back, cap over eyes, resting.

[MRG Dallas]

Originally Posted by Hazel W

The foreman was probably sitting in the cab, leaning back, cap over eyes, resting.

LOL, indeed sounds like my first summer job with the County Parks Dept.

[WCHS'59]

Jim Bridger lived the last twenty-five years of his life out in or near Independence and is buried in Mount Washington cemetery.

Younger folks may not be able to place his name but he was one of the more famous mountain men. He also ran Fort Bridger on the Oregon Trail.

The motion picture “Man in the Wilderness” featured the star player, Richard Harrison, being viciously mauled by a bear. One of the two men selected to stay with him until he died and then bury him was in real life Jim Bridger. The main party then moved on. The two left before he died, however, and he subsequently lived much to the embarrassment of Jim Bridger and the other man as they had told the main hunting party that he had died.

The movie story was fiction, including the mules pulling a boat across the prairie, but in real life a man named Hugh Glass was actually viciously mauled while scouting for a hunting party. And Jim Bridger, at 17, was one of the two that voluntarily stayed with him. Knowing he would die, they began digging a grave but with Indians getting too close, they both prematurely left him lying where he was. They eventually caught up with the main party telling them Glass had died.

Hugh Glass, however, was able to nurse himself back to a resemblance of health and made it 300 miles to a fort—all without confronting any Indians. Jim Bridger always maintained that he was young and let the other older man make the decision to leave for him. He said that he learned from that mistake and never again let someone else make a decision for him.


This event happened about four years before the founding of Independence in 1827. Glass swore he would kill the older man. He dismissed Bridger because he was so young. In the end, he did not get his revenge. He died in an Indian ambush a few years later.

[WCHS'59]

Teaser:

How many Independence old timers on this thread remember the notorious Robert Bolivar Depugh, a 1941 graduate of William Chrisman High School?

[MRG Dallas]

Originally Posted by WCHS'59

Teaser:

How many Independence old timers on this thread remember the notorious Robert Bolivar Depugh, a 1941 graduate of William Chrisman High School?

The Minuteman? Captured near Truth or Consequences NM?

[MRG Dallas]

Originally Posted by MRG Dallas

I saw that and don't remember him. I do think the best bowler in KC back then was Bob Chase and he was the team captain.

I found an article in the Kansas paper archives on the KC Stars bowling team. Several of the bowlers I did not recognize, but here's the list of the 8 or so team members:

Capt. Joe Joseph
Bob Chase
Glen Blakesley
Bill Pace

Mike Totsky
Loy Countryman ?
Bob Kelley?

[WCHS'59]

Originally Posted by MRG Dallas

The Minuteman? Captured near Truth or Consequences NM?

I never heard of him--Robert Bolivar Depugh--until 1961 when President Kennedy took to the television waves concerned about a film being shown on television news of an extremist right wing militia organization performing tactical maneuvers in rural Illinois. It was determined this militia called themselves the Minutemen. What viewers at the time did not realize was that Depugh had founded the Minutemen in Independence.

The Minutemen were fearful of a Communist takeover of the federal government and were formed to prevent that from happening.

Shortly after Kennedy went on TV, Independence Police raided a house at 23rd Street and Hocker that was loaded with automatic weapons and ammunition owned by the Minutemen. I looked for that house the last time I was in Independence but it has been torn down.

Another item that was in the book was that the then chief of Police in Independence was a Minuteman.

Harry Jones of the Kansas City Star wrote a comprehensive book about Depugh in 1968, something like 450 pages printed by Doubleday. It was a major undertaking. I read it back then and I think it is in a box in the basement.

He did serve penitentiary time on federal charges. I saw a news article on the web that he died in Richmond, Mo, in 2009.

[MRG Dallas]

Originally Posted by MRG Dallas

I found an article in the Kansas paper archives on the KC Stars bowling team. Several of the bowlers I did not recognize, but here's the list of the 8 or so team members:

Capt. Joe Joseph
Bob Chase
Glen Blakesley
Bill Pace

Mike Totsky
Loy Countryman ?
Bob Kelley?

Edit: Loy Countryman
Carl Richard
Bob Kelley

I located the article. League play began Oct. 13 1961, and continue for 26 weeks. There was a 135 game schedule and tickets were $1 to $3 (in KC). A photo shows the Loew's Midland Theatre (renamed Midland Stadium) as remodeled with 4 lanes in the center and seats situated around in "U" shape, so spectators could be semi-facing the approaching bowler. Too bad the League failed to succeed as bowling was pretty popular back then.