Continuation of Rich Hill Missouri's Prosperity

Continuation Blog of Rich Hill, Missouri's Prosperity. There will be another continuation blog on the prosperity of Rich Hill tomorrow night. Due to the length of this article the story will continue for several more blogs.

Four grocery stores carry an ample supply of food and other merchandise to meet the needs of the people of Rich Hll and the surrounding trade territory.
Red's Food Fair is a large supermarket between Sixth and Seventh Streets on Walnut and owned by Mr. and Mrs. Wayne McCune. Food Fair employs fifteen people including Francis Larce and Nellie Jamett in the meat market with Naomi Wilkerson, Anne Cope and Anabelle Arrasmith as checkers, and Flo Stewart who always helps customers to find items or gets depleted products from the warehouse. Food Fair offers all the advantages of a metropolitan supermarket.
Cash Savers Mart is a new grocery store located in a completely remodeled building on Sixth and Maple Street. The owners are Mr. and Mrs. Joe Boyles and Mr. and Mrs. Steve Williams. The store has well-stocked shelves and an excellent meat market with Joe as the meat cutter. Pat Boyles, Stephanie Perkey and Betty Humble work in the meat department. The two checkers are Betty Ryan and Jeanne Stevens.
In addition to Cash Savers Mart, Joe owns and operates the Boyles Processing Plant on South Sixth Street. He does custom slaughtering and processing. All meat is government inspected.
The Walnut Street Store is owned and operated by Mrs. Linda Hess and carries a large variety of items needed by the Sunday traveler or the neighborhood resident.
The Manchester Store is also a neighborhood grocery located on East Park Avenue. It carries a large selection of items for the neighborhood patrons as well as passers by.
Beautiful flower arrangements for weddings, funerals and special occasions can be obtained at Terry and Arleta Heuser's Flowers and Things. Potted plants, gifts and lawn ornaments are also available at the location on Fourteenth and Walnut Streets.
Potted plants, garden plants, fresh produce and fishing equipment including live bait are available at the Greenhouse of Mr. and Mrs. Charlie Ross on Third and Cherry Street.
Stuart's Flower Shop on Walnut Street offers fresh, artifical flowers and potted plants for all occasions.
Jim's Service Station between Fifth and Sixth on Walnut offers all kinds of mechanic work including electronic wheel balancing. Mr. and Mrs. Jim Smith own and operate this busy place.
Ernie Mitchell has been a mechanic for forty-six years and can be found at his garage every day working on cars, tractors, trucks or doing body work. The Mitchell Garage is located on Fifth and Walnut.
Recently Jim and Steve Poulter have opened the J and S Tire Shop on Fourteenth and Walnut. They sell and repair tires for trucks, tractors, cars and farm machines.
Red Star Fina owned and operated by Laning and Hess offers a full service station, self service pumps, a full time mechanic and motor vehicle inspection all at Fourteenth and Walnut.
Kerr-McGee, another full service station, is located at the intersection of Park Avenue and Old Highway 71.
Phillips 66 and Texaco on old Highway 71 are both self service stations with four pumps.
In recent years the age of an item has been a determining factor in its value. No longer do we sell our old furniture and other old items to the second hand store instead we seek the opinion of an antique dealer. These antique dealers usually know the history and value of any item that has moved into the anitque category. Antiques have become such good sale items that customers and dealers come from miles around to buy a precious treasure from Mrs. Sue Gordon at the Cedar Street Antique Shop, Mrs. Laura Colwell of Maplewood Antiques, Betty McCoun's Antique Shop on North McCombs Street, Mrs. Cecil Morrow's Antiques on South Fifth Street, Rosemary Black's Antiques on East Walnut or Mrs. Louella Nichols Antiques on Highway 71 North. .
Good places to eat are also found in Rich Hill. In-the downtown area Ruby's Mini Dine serves delicious pie, sand­wiches, french fries, coffee and cold drinks. Ruby Ellis is the owner and also the cook.
Linda's Cafe owned and operated by Linda Schapeler Snethen is located on Park Avenue and old Highway 71. This cafe is open six days a week serving breakfast and a different menu each day.
Cedar Inn is a new restaurant owned by Randy and Lisa Dixon and features the very latest in furnishings.
Swope's Drive Inn owned by Don and Linda Swope is a good place to get a quick hamburger, Susie Q's, cold drinks or ice cream.
The Stage Coach Inn at the east edge of town is owned by Mr. and Mrs. Jim Bain. Food is a speciality for people from neighboring towns as well as local patrons who enjoy the Sunday Smorgasbord in the dining room where groups or individuals are served.

Rich Hill's Prosperity part II

Todays blog is part II there are still several more parts to this blog to be added in the next several days.



Osage Valley Pecan cracking is another family business owned and operated by Fred, Mildred, Ronnie and Marcelle Marquardt. It is a very busy place from mid October to Christmas.
The pecans are picked up by a pecan picker at the Osage Valley Pecan Orchard near Papinville and brought to Rich Hill.
The pecans have all sorts of leaves, sticks, rocks and faulty pecans when they are brought in and placed on an elevator. Four women stand at the belt and each has a job of cleaning the trash from the pecans. Air is also used to blow out the trash. The pecans are then put on another elevator and graded into four sizes. Next they are poured into a tub and washed and put onto a roller that takes them to bins with wire bottoms where they dry for a day or more as needed. Then the pecans are sent on to eleven machines where they are cracked and dropped to a belt where the sackers put them up in five-pound bags ready for shipment.
Big trucks come in from as near as Iowa and as far as New York and take truck loads of the sacks to be sold from the East Coast to the West Coast.
Business is done by people who Come from far and near, by telephone, and by mail order. Clubs and organizations buy large amounts of pecans. The output can be as much as a thousand pounds a day. This enterprise is state inspected every year. ,
Fred and Mildred have been in this business since 1956 and employ eight people in addition to themselves.
At the southeast edge of town, I found the Rich Hill and Truck and Equipment Company, Inc. doing a thriving business. Ten years ago Lester and Jim Breckenridge started this enterprise and have continually expanded until today they have 65'Xl'02' building, a 40'X60' sand blast building, and have recently acquired an electric compressor.
The Breckenridges represent the Henderson Manufactur­ing Company and sell feed delivery trucks (used by elevators and feed companies) truck bodies, fertilizer spreaders and blenders, grain bodies, truck hoists and new and used Chevrolet trucks. They buy these trucks on a fleet purchase.Their sale territory covers Eastern Kansas, Western Missouri and Northeast Oklahoma. Jim told me that if they had the personal they could expand into Northeast Oklahoma. The equipment sells than they can get from the factory and orders taken in October will be ready for delivery in December.

Jim attributes the success of this enterprose to the service given to their, customers. They sell parts and repair all equipment they have sold. An example is that of a customer in Wichita, who needed immediate repairs. Jim flew there and in two hours the repairs had been made. They use their plane as a service tool and sometimes fly as far as Florida to look over equipment before a sale. When equipment is purchased it is driven back to Rich Hill and put on the lot for sale. .
Twelve people (all from Rich Hill) are employed including Bonnie Reed, the secretary who handles-only parts calls, Shirley Tourtillott, the secretary who handles all the other phone calls and does other secretarial work including the compiling and mailing of a weekly newsletter that lists all the used equipment they have for sale. Peggy Breckenridge is the overall bookkeeper.
One week's payroll will run from $3,000 to $3500 and the gross annual sales will run approximately $2,000,000.
The Sohigro Service Company, a division of Vistron Corporation sells liquid and dry fertilizer, chemicals, seed, and feed to the local farmers. Gary Headley has been the manager since 1975 and recently won, "The Manager of the Year" award for the Western District. Mrs. Darlene Nation is the secretary and bookkeeper.
McElroy Feed and Grain is another big business operating on old Highway 71 South. Mr. McElroy and his son Jerry told me that all their bins were full and the grain continued to come in. They buy, store and sell grain, custom grind feed, mix grain, dry grain, and do seed cleaning.
Mr. McElroy has four tractor trailer trucks, and Jerry has one that are used to haul the grain to Iowa and Arkansas. Nine people are employed with an $80,000 to $90,000 pay roll annually.
In addition to the elevator Mr. McElroy owns a garage where the trucks and cars are repaired. Kenny Kassner and Greg Skocy are the two fulltime mechanics employed here.
The Rich Hill Grain Company is another elevator owned by Frank Bartley and located in the old Frisco Depot on Seventh and Maple. Mr. Bartley has three tractor trailer trucks, a straight bed feed bag truck, and a bulk truck. He employs one man to help with the elevator, three truck drivers and Nancy Swarnes Fillpot and Allene Duzan as secretaries. His trucks haul grain to Missouri, Arkansas and Iowa.
The Rich Hill Grain Company handles agricultural chemical, insecticides, feed, seed, and bag and bulk fertilizer

Rich Hill Missouri and its Prosperity

Todays blog is about Rich Hill Missouri and its once prosperous growing industry and surrounding communities. The blog was written by Miss Mary Griffin in the December 6,1979 Wagon Wheels edition of the Rich Hill Mining Review. This is part 1


EDITOR'S NOTE: We have a three-fold purpose in running the following story by Miss Mary Griffin.
First this story will give our readers a peek at our Centennial Book "The Town That Coal Built". Most of this book, due to be out in June, deals with Rich Hill's past but we thought it fitting that it should also give an account of Rich Hill today for future readers.
Second by running it now it gives us a chance to catch any omissions. If your business isn't mentioned phone, come by or yell real loud to let us know. Once the book is printed it's too late to make changes so let us know now.Third we think it fitting to take a look at our town at the close of a year, a decade and our first hundred years.

Even if Rich Hill didn't turn out to be the industrial giant the pioneers had predicted, perhaps it is time to give some thought to what we do have today. In this article we want to look at Rich Hill as it is one hundred years after its establish­ment.
Having been a teacher for forty-six years, I find myself thinking of the school as being absolutely essential to the establishment of a community. When we view our school system over the years, we will have to say that certainly the school has contributed much to the community. Our students have been able to live up to the slogan, "Education for Service" as they have taken their place in society as successful parents and career men and women. The town can be proud of the school of the past as well as the present.
The churches of the town have also played a major role in the building of the town.
Next we shall take a look at Rich Hill industry and business.The McKinley Furniture Manufacturing Company is a family industry owned by Chester and Fannie McKinley with Larry and Janelle McKinley as managers. Linda Jennings is the secretary for this company that makes twenty-nine items in unfinished knotty pine. Chests, drawers, desks, night stands and corner cabinets are among the items manufac­tured in various sizes. These items are sold in thirteen states, from Florida to Colorado and Nebraska to Texas. Everything is delivered in McKinley trucks. These products can also be purchased directly from the factory or Phil's Furniture or Color Craft in Nevada.
Ray Tillery, the foreman, supervises the work in the shop. He told me about some of the saws they have. Among those discussed were a pannel saw, that cuts ten sheets of 1/4 inch plywood at one time. A straight line rip saw that is chain driven, an automatic shop saw that has a button on the floor that is foot pressed and does its own feeding and sawing and an automatic sander where the man starts the board and the machine does the rest.
Every man has a specific job to do. One man puts runners on, another runs the saw, and one man glues the parts together.
The factory employs from six to fourteen people with an annual payroll of $66,800.

The Woodstock Manufacturing Corporation makes finished kitchen cabinets and counter tops. These products are used for housing projects, nursing homes, and apartment complexes. These products are sold mostly in Missouri, Kansas and Iowa and are delivered in the company trucks.
Larry Miller has been the foreman for nine years. The company employs fifteen people both men and women and provides year around employment with no layoffs.
Oscar Toppass has a small factory known as Surface Care. Lacquer sticks are made, and the hot knife is assembled here. The hot knife is used to melt in the lacquer to cover scarred furniture. The lacquer sticks are sold only to repair stores and not to households.
Oscar also makes a Pratt and Lambert Furniture polish that is sold to households mostly in the East and South.
These two companies have salesmen all over the country who say they could sell much more than Oscar has time to make.
There is a plan for expansion by moving into larger quarters where there will be more room to work.
The Midcontinent Optical Case and Supply Company is owned and operated by Joe Thomas and Ed Bennett. Thomas has charge of sales and Bennett is in charge of production.
The company manufacturers thirty-five styles of eye glass cases, coin purses, and cigarette cases. Various materials and colors are used. First, the material is cut into strips. Then a die cutter stamps out the pattern for the style. A clip is then sealed to the material by high frequency radio beams. The case is then sewed and the name of the purchasing company is stamped on the case.
The glass cases are sold in forty-four states and Canada to eye doctors. There are just twenty-five manufacturers of these products and most of them are located in the East.
Sixteen people are employed with ten of them as production workers, one bookkeeper, one foreman, the two owners and two salesmen. All employees are Rich Hill people and each has a chance to acquire all the skills through a system of rotation from one operation to another.
The company has an annual payroll of over $240,000.

1965 Rich Hill Phone Book

Tonights blog is a sample of what the telephone books used to look like for Rich Hill, Metz and Richards Missouri. I found this old 1965 Rich Hill Phone Book interesting as it depicts a good view of the country area tht surrounds Rich Hill. I also posted some of the ads

The 150th Post

Tonights blog is the 150th post for this blog site. I wanted this blog to be special about Rich Hill, Missouri. I decided that the one thing that many people notice about the city of Rich Hill is its beautiful parks. The picture below is of the west park. I think this picture was taken in front of the Methodist Church looking back towards the east.

Rich Hill City Park taken at 9:30 P.M. 1/15/1924

Aries Assurance Ad

This is from November 17, 1977 - Wagon Wheels insert of the Rich Hill Mining Review.

Floods ----- a part of Rich Hill History

The blog tonight was taken from the January 29, 1987 Wagon Wheels insert of the Rich Hill Mining Review.

Two topics of recent discussion have been the flood of '86 and the Rich Hill water. Neither of these are new subjects as both presented problems to the early settlers of Rich Hill.
In 1882 Rich Hill was a new town, but there had been settlers in old Rich Hill and the surrounding area for several years. These settlers had seen the MaraisDes Cygnes overflow its banks and flood the lowlands but nothing to equal the flood of 1882. Most of the land was covered with prairie grasses; and as the waters subsided, there had been little evidence of damage.
In the winter of 1882 the heavy rains came and the Marais Des Cygnes River and all the creeks and branches overflowed their banks and flooded the lowlands, and the waters rose higher than any previous records indicated. The water came within three miles southwest of Rich Hill where mine No. 14 was located. Miners who lived in Rich Hill and worked in the mines were unable to get to work. Families living in the mining camp were unable to get to town to buy food. The Gulf Railroad did have a commissary that could supply food until the supply became exhausted. The water northeast of town was also raging with such force that it caused a suspended cable bridge (five miles northeast of town) to be entirely submerged. All kinds of debris was carried downstream by the rushing water. Rich Hill was completely surrounded by water. The only method of transportation was riding horseback in the zero weather.
After three weeks the waters began to recede, and the only remaining evidence of the flood was the mile after mile of shimmering ice. The twenty below zero weather had frozen the water to a depth of twenty-four inches. As the water below began to fall, a vacuum resulted between the frozen top water and the water soaked ground. Skating was a favorite past time, also a method of transportation. This unique situation created a different kind of experience as the sound of the metal skates glided across the ice-covered vacuum.
This information came from a newspaper clipping that appeared in the Rich Hill Review in January, 1882. Flooding has been a part of the history of this area since before men kept records, but the lowlands have been productive for farmers to the extent that many believe the risk is worth taking. Man's attempt to control flood waters has been effective to a large extent; but when the volume of water is as great as the flood of 1986, levys and dams have been inadequate.
During the first two years of Rich Hill history the only water supply came from nearby springs. Water was hauled in barrels and sold to the inhabitants. During this two-year period Mr. Charles Woolsey began to drill wells using a span of miles to power his drill rig. He was kept busy drilling these wells. He had found an ample water supply at sixty feet, but the water was so hard that housewives found it difficult to use for washing or cooking.
Until about thirty years ago there was one of these drilled wells on the Clovis Sivils property. These wells had a small casing perhaps eight or ten inches in diameter. A small bucket that looked like a stove pipe had a flexible bottom. When the bucket was lowered into the well, it filled with water; and as it was pulled up, the weight of the water held the bottom of the bucket down and prevented the water from running out. Sometimes these wells had a small wooden frame and a pulley used to draw the water up.
Water for the ever increasing popula­tion was a major problem. In the spring of 1883 the City of Rich Hill granted a franchise to the Garrison Brothers who represented a St. Louis syndicate. The franchise gave them the right to start construction of a water works system. First a pumping station was built on the bank of the Marais Des Cygnes River about 2'/2 miles northeast of Rich Hill. Next large cast iron pipes or mains were laid throughout the original town and fifty-five hydrants were placed at regular intervals. This was adequate for the time. As additions were added to the town, supplemental water lines were laid. Sometimes they were private waterlines hooked on to a main a few blocks away. . .
Water that was pumped from the Marais Des Cygne was of poor quality especially during times of high water. Frequently the water was muddy; and when used to extinguish a fire, mud damage was worse than water damage. Other kinds of debris also came through the water lines, but the inhabitants had no alternative but to use it.
The St. Louis syndicate spent more than $90,000 on the water system.
Several years later the City of Rich Hill voted bonds and bought the property, dismantled the pumping station and took up the main from the pumping station to the east corporate limit of the town. A site was selected for a power plant on Maple Street just east of the railroad tracks. Drilling was started and a sub­terranean water vein was found at 800 feet.