“No room at the inn” and a stable figure into the narrative of the first birth at St. Francis Hospital on March 10, 1903. In that era, births were usually handled at home, often with a practical nurse. Francis May Baldwin, the daughter of the Christian Church minister at Skidmore, was the firstborn at the hospital but did not attend the 1922 event.
Here’s a list of 10 Nodaway County Trailer Courts in 1972 — all of them in Maryville (based on a report on county assessments).
Colorized 1969 image: Mic-O-Say Leaders Attend Pow-Wow Leaders in promoting the Mic-O-Say Tribe of Dancers in the Otoe District Boy Scouts are shown attending the Pow- Wow held at Camp Robinson, Maryville, Saturday. The men and their Indian names from left to right, Richard Wiles, Golden Coin, Maryville; Roger Thom, Swimming Rock, Kansas City; Lloyd Schmidt, Tree Hunter, Savannah; Bud Gossett, Antelope Skinner, St. Joseph; Galen Russell, Singing Wire, Maryville; Wayne McDonald, Flaming Iron, Maryville; Charles McComb, Magic Sound, Oregon; Herman Boswell, Roaring Thunder, Maryville, and Jim Mercer, White Patch, Albany
A lot of strange events occurred during Eleanor Roosevelt’s February 13, 1959, lecture at Northwest Missouri, and Eleanor herself clarified items in her daily “My Day” column that reporters covering the event missed. And the Maryville High School newspaper “Hi Lights” scooped everybody with the only published photo of her (in her mink!) in Maryville.
Spoiler alert: The most amazing part centers on her being driven from the St. Joseph Union Train Depot to the event by Bob Owens, a senior from Grant City and the Northwest student president. Owens is better known as B.D. Owens was president of the college from 1977-1984 (the first and, I believe, only college president at the school to graduate from Northwest). Owens tenure is marked by the 1979 fire that destroyed the north theatre wing of the Administration Building where Mrs. Roosevelt spoke. Owens wife was a music teacher at Maryville High School (and hence the Hi-Lights exclusive).
Northwest’s “Vet Village” north of the Administration on Maryville’s highest point, which they called “College Heights,” started with the six barracks from the Camp Clarinda World War II POW camp. The Vet Village was dismantled with the 1968 construction of the Garrett-Strong Science Building
Above colorized image of the Vet Village shows the 6 barracks and 10 Quonset huts in 1958 to the north of the Administration Building (the north theatre wing of the building was destroyed in 1979 fire and was never replaced).
Initial plans in 1921 for a golf course in Maryville called for a partnership with the college, with the course to be designed by James W. Watson, who designed the Mission Hills Golf Course. The initial course plan called for it to extend nearly a mile from the old Methodist Seminary at First and Memory Street to the Chatauqua Park (between today’s Houston Performing Arts Center and the Hughes Field House) and come back to Maryville’s highest point, the 1,181-foot-high College Heights summit (today’s Garrett-Strong Science) to the north of the Administration Building.
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Incredibly, the 1921 proposed J.W. Watson-designed golf course for the Maryville Golf Club is still on the latest published USGS topo map. It was supposed to extend from the original Methodist Seminary on 1st and Memory Lane, around the west end of the campus through the Chautauqua grounds, and curve around to the north side of the Northwest Administration Building, summiting Maryville’s highest point (1,181 feet at what today is the Garrett-Strong Science Building). This quirk has been discussed in the Ville Facebook group, and everybody assumed it was unexplained. But there was a real attempt to establish this.
On September 5, 1945 — three days after the Japanese surrender aboard the USS Missouri — 20 Japanese soldiers and 2 American guards were injured on US 71 by Clearmont when a POW transport truck from the Camp Clarinda POW Camp was transporting the prisoners to do farm work in Missouri overturned — making them among the last casualties of World War II.
In March/April 1962, B-58 Hustler nuclear bombers from the Strategic Air Command cris crossed the skies over Maryville at Mach 2, which produced sonic bombs as they did mock nuclear strikes on New York, Los Angeles, Omaha, Lincoln, St. Louis, and Rapid City.
