Bad Boys at Byersville

A letter published in the Joplin News Herald offers a hint to some of the problems that arose in Southwest Joplin:

EDITORS-HERALD: – Will you please give a little space in your columns in the interest of the quiet and law-abiding of the district known as Byersville in southwest Joplin. The good people of this part of the city pay taxes to keep up a police force, and think that they are entitled to at least some little protection. It is a fact, although I am almost ashamed to acknowledge it, that we have some very bad boys. They have been warned many times, but it seems that the warning has no effect on them. They often disturb the peace by loud and unnecessary noises, throwing rocks, and have gone so far as to egg houses that are occupied by quiet families. We ask the city authorities to see that quiet is kept in this part of the town. The boys gather on the store porches at late hours and make such noises that break the rest of peaceful citizens. They even go so far as to make fun of and tantalize citizens on the streets or in their own enclosures. There are a half-dozen or more of them. While many of us would just like to see our neighbor’s boys in trouble, we must have the nuisances stopped: And it will be better for the boys, for if allowed to continued, some day they will receive sentence for a grave crime, then they will say: “If the better citizens had arrested me for some small offense it would have saved me from this everlasting disgrace.” Now, boys, take warning, be good boys and grow up to be good men and you will an honor to the community, and if you do not you will have to face the police court and take the consequences.

A Quiet Citizen.

Source: Joplin Morning Herald, 1892

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Brown, May 19th 2010 | Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in crime in Joplin

Children on a Debauch

In today’s society one often hears, “Well, when I was kid we never…”

In the spring of 1900, Joplin police officers Grant Buzzard and John Chester found four young teenagers, two boys and two girls, engaged in a “drunken debauch” on Joplin Creek.  The two experienced officers were shocked by the sight of what the Joplin Globe called, “the most horrible story of youthful depravity yet recorded in Joplin.”  The two girls, Vida McElroy and May Sherman, reportedly the “daughters of women of shame and reared possibly in a brothel” were passed out in the muddy creek bed.  McElroy was fifteen, Sherman thirteen.  McElroy’s mother reportedly kept a “bawdy house in the North End” and Sherman’s mother allegedly worked at the “Red Onion” brothel.

Upon investigation the officers discovered that the two boys, Sam Belstine and George Littler, purchased at least two and half pint bottles of whiskey as well as some bottles of blackberry wine from Nick Christman’s saloon.  They met up with the two girls and headed out to Joplin Creek just off of East Seventh Street.   There they proceeded to split the liquor between them and have a roaring good time until the officers arrived on the scene.

The girls were put in the officer’s buggy while the boys were forced to walk back into Joplin in front of the horses.  The Globe commented, “Nurtured in shame and their minds poisoned from infancy by reason of the influences about them…both girls are wild and young.”  The two boys, Sam Belstine and George Littler both about fourteen, were described as, “men of low character.”  Littler’s father, Tom, was “well known to the police.”  Belstine, who worked as a newspaper boy, was the son of the owner of the Southern Bar at the corner of Twelfth and Main Streets.

Interestingly, while the authorities vowed to send both girls to the State Industrial School for Girls in Chillicothe, Missouri, they did not express their intent to send the boys to the Missouri Reform School for Boys in Boonville, Missouri.  W.A. Root, the bartender who sold the liquor to the boys, was expected to face prosecution for selling liquor to minors.

Image of Missouri State Industrial Home for Girls

Image of Missouri State Industrial Home for Girls from Missouri Digital Heritage

Source: The Joplin Globe, Missouri Digital Heritage

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Brown, April 2nd 2010 | Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in crime in Joplin, People of Joplin