Guest Blogs


Thana Breeding Mahan
Gainesville’s PTO is raising money to install new playground equipment at the elementary school. (See related story, page 3.) It’s badly needed. The current play-piece, 20-plus years old, is a wooden boat-shaped thing bristling with splinters and infested with bugs and wasps in warm weather. The...

Thana Breeding Mahan
Gainesville’s PTO is raising money to install new playground equipment at the elementary school. (See related story, page 3.) It’s badly needed. The current play-piece, 20-plus years old, is a wooden boat-shaped thing bristling with splinters and infested with bugs and wasps in warm weather. The...

Wayne and Doris Sayles stand by the jail door they bought several years ago at a local garage sale. It is the original door from the stone jail and was used for a while in the next jail that was included on the top floor of the Ozark County Courthouse that was completed in 1939. A local resident bought the door from the county in an auction on the courthouse steps when the jail was moved into the “new” Ozark County Sheriff’s Office. It was restored to its original position in the jail. The bars to either side of the door are not original.
In part 1 of this journey back in time, we discussed some of the background and motivation for building a new county jail at Gainesville in the early days of the 20th century. The construction details are vague, but we do know that the land was acquired and an “improved” stone building was erected...

By 1908, Ozark County's "new" stone jail was housing prisoners on what is now Harlin Drive, just off what is now Third Street. The stone was quarried at a spot along Lick Creek south of Gainesville, and the original iron door and window bars were apparently manufactured by a local blacksmith whose shop was next door, where the old City Hall, now the 416th Bomb Wing Archive, now stands.
The Ozark County Jail made news statewide on Feb. 28, 1890, when an unidentified Kansas City Journal reporter wrote a scathing indictment of Ozark County and particularly of the County Jail. The article was picked up by several southwest Missouri newspapers, and local Gainesville residents took it...

By 1908, Ozark County's "new" stone jail was housing prisoners on what is now Harlin Drive, just off what is now Third Street. The stone was quarried at a spot along Lick Creek south of Gainesville, and the original iron door and window bars were apparently manufactured by a local blacksmith whose shop was next door, where the old City Hall, now the 416th Bomb Wing Archive, now stands.
The Ozark County Jail made news statewide on Feb. 28, 1890, when an unidentified Kansas City Journal reporter wrote a scathing indictment of Ozark County and particularly of the County Jail. The article was picked up by several southwest Missouri newspapers, and local Gainesville residents took it...

Sayles
In our earlier discussion of the Billy Buster phenomenon, we focused on William Randolph Hearst’s Billy Buster nickname and how it became a household word in America during the early 20th century. Hearst was born in 1863, and the name Billy Buster was already by then a verbal symbol of the...

Sayles
In our earlier discussion of the Billy Buster phenomenon, we focused on William Randolph Hearst’s Billy Buster nickname and how it became a household word in America during the early 20th century. Hearst was born in 1863, and the name Billy Buster was already by then a verbal symbol of the American...

William Randolph Hearst, who inherited his father’s newspaper, the San Francisco Examiner in 1887, was nicknamed “Billy Buster” by his parents George and Phoebe Hearst. The name inspired Hearst’s co-worker Richard Outcaul to create a comic strip featuring Billy Buster, a boy with similar traits to Hearst. After Outcault sold an advertising license for the character to George Warren Brown of Brown Shoe Company in St. Louis, Brown’s portrayal of the Buster Brown character took hold, and Buster Brown became a household name in the early 1900s. The success of Buster Brown in the shoe industry and other marketing avenues was long lived, and families coast to coast recognized the name for nearly a century. It’s thought that the term’s widespread popularity may be linked to the name given to a site near Howards Ridge where today’s J Highway crosses Lick Creek.
The spot on J Highway where the bridge now crosses Lick Creek is indicated on older topographical maps of Ozark County as an historical spot. On some maps it is referred to as “Billy Buster Ford” and on others as “Billy Buster Crossing.”  Unfortunately, the background for designating this crossing...

William Randolph Hearst, who inherited his father’s newspaper, the San Francisco Examiner in 1887, was nicknamed “Billy Buster” by his parents George and Phoebe Hearst. The name inspired Hearst’s co-worker Richard Outcaul to create a comic strip featuring Billy Buster, a boy with similar traits to Hearst. After Outcault sold an advertising license for the character to George Warren Brown of Brown Shoe Company in St. Louis, Brown’s portrayal of the Buster Brown character took hold, and Buster Brown became a household name in the early 1900s. The success of Buster Brown in the shoe industry and other marketing avenues was long lived, and families coast to coast recognized the name for nearly a century. It’s thought that the term’s widespread popularity may be linked to the name given to a site near Howards Ridge where today’s J Highway crosses Lick Creek.
  The spot on J Highway where the bridge now crosses Lick Creek is indicated on older topographical maps of Ozark County as an historical spot. On some maps it is referred to as “Billy Buster Ford” and on others as “Billy Buster Crossing.”  Unfortunately, the background for designating this...

Times reporter Jessi Dreckman and her husband, Drew, had an especially fun Christmas this year with their 1-year-old daughter, Delilah.
There is nothing like the excitement of Christmas Eve and the joy of Christmas morning when you’re a child. My parents were especially enthusiastic during the holiday season, going to great lengths to make the holiday magical for me and my two siblings. I remember sitting in the living room with...

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Ozark County Times

504 Third Steet
PO Box 188
Gainesville, MO 65655

Phone: (417) 679-4641
Fax: (417) 679-3423