Times Past


This photo of Gainesville Livestock Auction is taken from an ad in a mid-1960s Bulldogger yearbook published by Gainesville High School. The advertisement said the sale barn, owned by T. D. Crawford, held sales every Wednesday. The building was located next to Lick Creek on the east side of Highway 160 in Gainesville, roughly across from what is now the MFA Oil building on Third Street. It closed in March 1971 after the state bought the land for right of way to build the current Highway 160. A Times article reported, as the building was being demolished, that its arena had seating for 250 buyers and its stock pens could hold 1,500 head of cattle or other livestock. The sale barn’s annual total sales averaged 30,000 head, the article reported.
Ozark County TimesMarch 1, 1905 Tecumseh – Ruben Dean passed by Monday with a new wagon which he purchased in Gainesville. March 15, 1918 Wm. Warren has rented the Central Hotel to S. F. Amyx, who took possession Monday. Mr. Warren moved back to his farm near Lawndale.  Sharp – Quite a few of our...

This photo of the view coming into Bakersfield in the 1960s was shared by Micheal Mahan on the Bakersfield Missouri Historical Society page on Facebook.
 Ozark County NewsMarch 8, 1900Ella, the 7-year old daughter of Amanda Patrick, living 6 miles east of town, met with a serious accident last Sunday. While swinging by a rope under a patent wagon bed lifter, she pulled the loop out of the rope and the wagon bed fell, striking her on the head,...

This photo, which originally accompanied a story about Ozarks theaters in the West Plains Gazette, showed the “Famous Talkie Tent Show” that Forrest and Oneta Glass took to a Bakersfield Fourth of July celebration in 1939. In the early 1940s, World War II created shortages of gasoline and tires, limiting the circuit the Glasses could travel with their “Talkie Tent.” As a result, they reportedly set up permanent theaters in both Bakersfield and Dora. The Bakersfield theatre, which they called the Glass Theatre, was sold when Forrest died in 1958. This photo was reprinted in the February 2008 edition of the Old Mill Run, accompanying a story by Kenneth Brown titled “History of Movie Theatres in Ozark County.”
Ozark County Times Feb. 22, 1918 Bakersfield school notes – The final 8th grade examination was given last week. The applicants were Defsey Baker, Anna Powell, Bettie Wheeler and Othie Davis.  The stars and stripes is now floating over our school building.  The Red Cross chapter gave a box supper...

This photo of team ropers – Joe Strong, the “header,” and Jim Henderson, the “heeler” – was taken during a 1982 rodeo at the Gainesville Saddle Club grounds. The team had a time of 7.9 seconds, which earned them second place. The photo was shared with the Times by Shawna Herd.
Ozark County Times Feb. 22, 1918  A movement was started a short time ago to organize a branch chapter of the Red Cross at this place as the Ozark County Chapter at Bakersfield has been organized for some time. Accordingly, people responded with their usual loyalty, patriotism and generosity so now...

We’ve learned some new information about this previously published photo of the Gainesville High School Glee Club, which is mentioned in a 1928 item shared in this week’s Times Past. We now know that the photo was taken to advertise the club’s upcoming performance of “Love Pirates of Hawaii.” The group posed beside Gainesville’s fourth school building, which was built in 1917 on the site near today’s Gainesville post office and was later demolish after being declared unsafe. Only three glee club members’ identities are known: Hattie Clark (Sandford) is on the far right, and her brother, Wolf Clark, is standing near the center of the group in the dark sweater. The student labeled “Virgil” is Virgil Robinson, father of Carla Robinson Lane and her brother, the late Russ Robinson. The photo was recently shared with us by Matt Lyons of Springfield, grandson of Hattie Clark Sandford.
Ozark County Times Feb. 20, 1914  Mrs. Newt Martin of Locust, who we reported last week as improving, died Thursday night of last week. Interment was made in the Pontiac Cemetery Saturday.    Feb. 22, 1918  Dora – Austin Hightower is putting a roof on the skylight blacksmith shop this week.  E. C....

Passengers chat as they cross the North Fork of the White River at Tecumseh on the Hodo Ferry in this 1930s photo from the Ozark County Historium’s collection. The late Dorothy Gardner had written on the back of the photo that the passengers included the Gradie Sanders family. The “neighborhood of Hodo Ferry” is mentioned in a Jan. 7, 1913, item in this week’s Times Past as having been hit by smallpox.
Ozark County Times Jan. 7, 1913 County court was in session here Monday and Tuesday making settlement with the Collector and, with the county physician, acted as a County Board of Health. They formulated quarantine regulations against smallpox, and the sheriff is instructed to rigidly enforce these...

When Micheal Mahan shared this 1960s photo of the Bakersfield Cafe on the Bakersfield Missouri Historical Society’s Facebook page, many viewers shared their memories of the landmark gathering place. Judy Eastman Ball identified the people in the photo from the names written on the back of the original photo owned by her cousin, Bonnie Carlile. From left:. Margie Williamson, Floyd Hathcock and Freda Sexton. Behind the counter: Ozella Vaughan, Maxine Vaughan, Violet Young, Flora Simpson Shrable and Patsy Williams.. Thanks to Mahan and Ball for permission to reprint the photo and names here.
Ozark County Times Feb. 1, 1918 Another big offensive move was started Sunday night against the Germans when John. C. Harlin, Chairman of Ozark County W. S. S. Committee fired the first gun by making a speech ... appealing to the citizens to put their money in the fight for liberty. ...  Before the...

A Jan. 25, 1918, item in this week’s Times Past reports that Bakersfield residents gathered to go coasting (sledding) on the “schoolhouse hill.” The sledding site was the former location of this stately Bakersfield school building, which is described in an unidentified newspaper clipping as “the pride of the community ... in the early 1900s.” The building, which housed the first high school classes to be held in Bakersfield in 1914, burned just after the new year began in 1915. According to Times publisher Ruby Robins’ history of the school published in the Aug. 31, 1983, edition of the Times, a few months after the wooden building burned, a concrete schoolhouse was constructed. That building, which opened in 1915, was destroyed by a tornado in June 1928 and was replaced by the school that was eventually demolished before the construction last year of Bakersfield’s current school building.
Ozark County Times Jan. 25, 1918 The sad intelligence was reported here a few days ago that Martin Alsup, son of H. F. Alsup of South Fork, had died suddenly of strangulation while at the hospital at Ft. Sill, Okla., where he and his father had been called to be present when an operation for an...

This photo of the store at Locust, from the collection of the late Stella Martin Luna, is believed to have been taken shortly after the Locust post office opened in the store in 1911. According to “A History of Ozark County, 1841-1991,” Benjamin Breeding, right, was the only postmaster at Locust until it “closed out to Gainesville” in 1940. Also pictured, from left: Raymond McGinnis, Lonnie McGinnis, Margaret Webster Breeding, Stella Upton Martin, Clifford Webb and Bertha Webb holding Clifford’s brother.
Ozark County Times Jan. 18, 1918 This region has been experiencing the past week the most severe winter weather it has had in more than 30 years. On Thursday of last week it commenced snowing, on Friday the ground was covered to a depth of 12 or 14 inches and since then 6 inches has been added,...

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Ozark County Times

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