Saloons were not the only places that jealous lovers sought revenge.
On a sunny afternoon in 1899, a dozen miners sat at the entrance to the Boston mine just east of Joplin. After spending their morning below ground, the sunshine must have provided a welcome relief, but their boisterous talk was soon interrupted when a well dressed woman stormed up to them. She demanded to know if her husband, Ralph Market, was at the mine. The miners replied that he was not and that they did not know him.
Mrs. Market, however, was no fool. She insisted her husband worked at the mine and demanded to see him. Once again the miners replied they had never heard of Ralph Market. Mrs. Market, frustrated, demanded to be hoisted down into the mine because she knew he must be hiding somewhere in the mine shaft. The miners tried to tell her that it would be awhile before they descended back into the mine, but Mrs. Market replied she, “did not care for company on the way down,” assured the men she was not afraid of mine, and wanted to be the first one down so her husband could not escape.
The interior of a Joplin mine, which might have looked like the mine where Mrs. Market unsuccessfully searched for her husband.
The hoisterman finished his lunch and told Mrs. Market to step into the tub. It was probably best that he did. When she gathered her skirts about her as she prepared to enter the tub, the miners spotted a loaded six-shooter strapped to her waist. It was then that the “boys then believed that she meant business and they respected her wishes.” Mrs. Market went down into the shaft without a light, but one was sent down when requested. She searched the mine but failed to find her husband. She asked to be returned to the surface and asked for the superintendent’s office to find out if her husband was employed at the mine. The miners speculated the woman’s actions were the result of jealousy. Ralph certainly must have had a heck of a welcome when and if he returned home to his wife.
Source: Joplin Globe
