“All Joplinites who remember the palmy days of ’90, ’91, and ’92 will call to mind the exciting scenes and incidents of those times, and the prominent actors then upon the stage, which made this city the talk of the country,” the Globe recalled in 1897, upon learning that Mrs. M.C. Allen was to be committed to the state insane asylum in Nevada, Missouri.
Mrs. M.C. Allen, Joplin’s “Mining Queen,” was a conspicuous figure in local society. In 1889, after divorcing her husband, she arrived in Joplin from Indiana. As part of her alimony agreement she received a one hundred acre tract of land near Blendville. In a short time, she leased the land to Frank, Harry, and John Snyder. Together, the Snyder brothers developed the land into a profitable mining operation. It was reported that in 1890, 1891, and 1892 the Snyders paid Mrs. Allen $42,000 in royalties.
Allen, however, was ambitious. In 1893, she earned the sobriquet “Mining Queen” when she “took possession of the tract herself and operated it successfully for a period of fifteen months, during which time her income from her operations was from $500 to $600 per month.” Allen bore her new nickname with “such regal extravagance as to excite both natives and visitors alike.”
Mrs. Allen began to indulge in the purchase of “blooded horses” and “imported dogs.” She paid for $50 photographic portraits of her dogs, reserved the finest lodgings at local hotels, and began dabbling in wheat speculation with Frank Snyder. But the good times came to an end when the bottom fell out of the wheat market and both Allen and Snyder were financially ruined. Her one hundred acre tract of land was mortgaged in Kansas City for $5,500 and mortgaged a second time in Crawfordsville, Indiana, for an additional $1,800. The mining land was gobbled by investors from Minnesota for a mere pittance. When the dust cleared, Mrs. Allen was left with $1,000.
Dissolute, Allen moved first to Kansas City, then later to St. Louis where she opened a boarding house. But she could not forget her glory days in Joplin and returned, determined to rebuild her fortune. “Sickness and mental troubles” took their toll on Allen, however, brought upon by “the constant brooding over her losses.” Her despair caused her to hallucinate and lash out violently, despite being cared for with “a kindness and sympathy which her unfortunate situation fully justifies.”
It was determined that she should be sent to the state insane asylum at Nevada. When she arrived in Nevada, the Nevada Mail reported the following story:
“A pathetic incident occurred when Mrs. Allen of Joplin was brought to the asylum to be confided. She had been a woman of wealth, which had been dissipated with a lavish hand. Among her acquisitions was an imported dog which had been procured and trained at great expense…When the unfortunate was brought by her friends and an officer to this house of refuge for the mentally afflicted, her faithful dog accompanied the party.
She did not want to depart from her canine companion, and the mute appeal of the dumb animal to be permitted to stay with her was touching. [Asylum] Superintendent Robinson’s kind heart was moved…he permitted the little fellow to become an inmate and it occupies the room with its mistress, as faithful in companionship, loyal in love, and devoted to his friend as in the days of her luxury and social prominence…”
Thus was the end of Joplin’s first “Mining Queen.”
Check Out Views of the Asylum here.
