The Back Roads of Missouri...

Last weekend we were fortunate enough to be invited to the wedding of the daughter of some of my oldest friends and it was a fun trip. They are dairy farmers like I used to be and she married a dairy farmer from Wisconsin. The newlyweds have purebred Guernseys and some good ones too. The bride's parents have a mostly purebred Holstein operation. 
I got to the Joplin area in the afternoon and took some old back roads to do some reminiscing before it was time to change clothes and get ready.
I wanted to go see the area just south of Joplin along the oldest version of 71 highway. There are currently 3 versions of this road in existence in some places if you know where to look. My late grandad helped build the oldest one. 

We soon arrived at Seligman which has a few homes and a small park. A small creek of clear water runs thru the middle of town. It is spring water coming out of the hearby hills.

At their park is this nice shelter which is an old fraternity lodge or secret society known as the "Anti-Thief Association".
I have tried to do some research into it and it appears to have been formed in the 1800's to help capture horse thieves which as everyone knows is one of the worst crimes possible back in those days. I found this building and it's builders interesting...
I do not know if they are still active but I would doubt it. I would guess this is now a public or community building used for holiday events and the like. 

Just down the road from the tiny village of Seligman and along the twisty curvy drive along the shores of Shoal Creek is the well preserved Lakehill Farm. 

Percy Smith was the original owner of this beautiful farm and had a very famous purebred Jersey cattle farm. He most likely would have sold bottled milk with the rich Jersey cream being very much in demand. His cattle won championships in the show ring and did well in the milk production area too and were in demand. He would hold "production sales" where other dairyman could buy new breeding stock with his bloodlines to improve their own herds. And of course he would have sold young bulls the year round to a customer base on a waiting list.
I am lucky enough to own one of the sale catalogs from his 1949 sale and it is in new condition. 

The farmstead and home sit near the curvy road and over look wonderful creek bottom fields of hay and crops. I never get tired of looking at this nice farm.

A set of railroad tracks run near the road on the other side and I stopped to take a photo of this nice old tunnel.

And I just loved this old ice cream sign still standing for the last 50-60 years or so along a farm.

We also saw an old church camp that would have built in the 30's most likely and was purchased by the current owner's in the 1960's.

and just beyond this neat old railroad underpass...

Was another nice old dairy farm with the old rock house on one side and the barn on the other. Sadly the round barn I have admired so many years has fallen into disrepair and rot...

and near the house was this very cool spring house with fresh cold water flowing from the rock formations in the hill and as damned up to form a pool for cooling household goods and of course milk cans from the dairy. There were rock steps to allow you to walk down into the water to place your cold items. While not the perfect 40 degrees we seek now for refrigeration, it was adequate for the times and served it's owners for many years.

This natural spring water would have been used for drinking purposes too and would have been jugged in bottles or carried in buckets to the farm house. I guess it would be fair to admit this was a natural habitat for snakes during hot summer weather too.  We talked to the current owners of the property and they gave me permission to look around. They had a nice pond with geese on it too.

Then we continued the pleasant drive soon to arrive at one of my all time favorite eating and drinking establishments known as the "Undercliff Bar and Grille" and is at the junction known as Tipton Ford. We did not have time to eat there this time but love the cave like interior of the place. When I was a kid I remember and old grocery store built at this same location that served fried chicken but it had burned down long ago.

The overflow crowd on this Saturday afternoon included alot of bikers who enjoy the back roads and character of this old area...

I went just around the corner from there and looked for the old dairy barn of my old friends the Schilling family who had a purebred Jersey dairy herd and were such nice folks. Their nice home is still in good shape although it looks empty but not much is left of their old rock barn...

The I turned around and went back towards Shoal Creek and the Undercliff Campgrounds. The manager told us to drive in and have a look around and take all the photos I wanted with no charge and I did.

It is one of those peaceful areas that rent canoes and hosts family campers as well as home to a biker rally with bands in the summer. I thought the water looked clean but the manager said it was cloudy due to recent rains.

A young family was setting up camp for a birthday party and their kids were playing with the dog and the parents let me take a photo of their party table.

Sadly it was time to head back to our hotel for the evening and I took one last photo of the Tipton Ford bridge. Not many of these long narrow bridges are left and it is a pretty one.

Thanks for riding along again and helping me relive some old memories of the places of my youth. We are back in Kansas now and having a good time as usual. Stay tuned next time for more travels with Poverty Flats...

"Murder Station"

I have been driving by this odd little building off to the side of the county road for a few years and always thought it looked out of place with it's steep roof and sits alone except for a  nearby farm.

Today was such a beauty of a nice April afternoon I decided to stop and have a look. Once I got on the other side of it (not visible from the blacktop) I could plainly see that it was an old gas station which is what I had suspected all along. And I could see where the old road used to go on the other side of it...

I looked down the long driveway and saw a man in his yard so I drove down to ask for permission to snoop around. He was friendly and told me quite a story...
I asked when the old station had closed and he said 
"it was August of 1962 and a day I will never forget"
It seems he lived in this very same house back then and had loaned his truck to some friends in the nearby town of Superior, NE (about 2 miles away) and when he was done with his chores for the day he walked down the drive to the station to ask the owner and operator  John Maxwell who was in his 80's for a ride to town when he closed his station for the evening to get his truck. "Sure no problem he replied" and "I'm getting ready to go pretty soon" and about that time some other buddies of his pulled in to get gas having just come in from the nearby lake fishing and he rode with them instead and bid Mr. Maxwell goodbye. 
It was only a few minutes later that a man drove up in a 1960 Chevy car and asked him to fill up his tank. And when he was done the guy in the car tried to leave without paying and an argument started and he shot Mr. Maxwell twice with a 22 Beretta and killed him, then took his wallet containing $105 cash.
A manhunt by the KBI ended with a capture and the man was tried and sentenced to life in prison at Leavenworth. 
So, to make a long story short my new friend would have possibly been killed that night too if he hadn't left just before that fateful event.
He paused after telling me the story and I could see it was etched in his mind forever. 
He said "I own the old Texaco station now and we sell fireworks there in July each year." It sits right by the state line.
He told me to help myself and look around and take whatever photos I wanted. So, I did....

The door was open on this day so I went inside for a look around...

Not much to see really, mostly just alot of shelves for fireworks and some tables in the other room...
But then I saw an old Coca Cola opener near the door and imagined an old Coke machine that would have sat near there...

and the old light switch was of the old twist style not seen anymore...

and I went back outside and looked at the full service gas pump island where the business was conducted for many years...

And then, it was time to move along and continue my journey. 
I pondered the whole story as I drove away....all I did was stop to look at an old building and learned some more history...and this time it was not happy memories.....

Old Barns and Jersey Cows---

It has been a beauty of a week here on the windy Plains of Kansas and I have traveled alot of miles and have had the chance to take some nice photos too. Not only do I like old cars, trucks, gas stations, and ghost towns...I also like old barns and farm livestock.

This week I passed by a big barn that sits on a nice old river bottom farm and stopped to take a photo. The owner of the place was just driving away and told me to help myself.
It is one of those combination style barns big stalls for draft horses on the near side of this photo and a long row of wooden stanchions for milk cows on the other side. You can see the milkhouse addition on the left. The hay mow or loft can be accessed by driving right in with your hay wagon and team of horses. That makes it very similar to my buddy Larry's barn in Illinois which is one of my all time favorite barns.

 The foundation is built of native limestone blocks that would have been quarried nearby...

And more than likely in this part of the world, the cows were housed loose and only brought into the stanchion barn to be milked twice a day...

The silo was for storing and feeding corn silage or ensilage and it is not really leaning to one side like it appears in my photo...
I tried to get an inside photo of the cow barn but it was just too dark for my small flash. Just picture in your mind a nice flat concrete floor with a gutter running the whole length for manure and the head locks or stanchions made of wood with a feedbunk for grain in front of them. These cows would have been milked by hand into a bucket and that milk would have been poured into 10 gallon cans and placed into a can cooler which had an "ice bank" that refrigerated the milk. Some of you may recall the best watermelons ever eaten in your life were cooled in these coolers.....
I did manage to get a couple of shots of the horse stalls.

 They were well built and in nice shape. I loved the worn look of the wood where huge horses were kept. They were the true work horse variety not some fancy show animal for pleasure. Still, they were loved and considered part of the family for most folks...
Before I left this nice farm I took a photos of the nostalgic rope swing hanging from a tall tree in the yard. Simple fun for kids then and now...

Later that same day I was driving down the highway and saw a herd of purebred Jersey dairy cows on pasture. They were enjoying the lush spring grass and I just had to have a photo of them...

Unlike modern dairy farmers, this particular man is of the old fashioned type. His life's work is to preserve the original type and beauty of the Jersey breed. He has resisted bringing in modern bloodlines and uses his own bulls in an intensely line bred and inbred manner in order to put an emphasis on the traits he is striving for. His cows are milked in a flat tie stall barn instead of a parlor. They stay indoors in bad weather. His cows are not as milky as a modern Jersey cow but they have the look and beauty of the original cows that were imported here from Jersey Island in the British Channels so long ago. Only his cows are much taller than those...

The collars are for tying them inside their stall in the barn. The horns with the chain and locket are for decorative purposes and were used on the Island to tether cows to a long rope and stake in the ground for daily grazing instead of a wire fence as we use here...
Jerseys can be of many colors and the ones that catch my eye are the spotted ones like this one...

Since I grew up on my grandparents small Jersey dairy in the Missouri Ozarks, and it is from this background that I learned so much in my formative years of youth. Some of the top breeders and handlers of the breed took my under their wing and taught me an education in showing cattle and were kind enough to haul me along with their own families to national shows and sales because I was interested and wanted to learn. I am very fond of these smaller and more gentle cows. They are easy to work with and very tame...Pleasant memories for sure.

It sure was fun to relive the past on this wonderful spring day of April and I hope you enjoyed it too. I will revisit this farm someday and show you the baby calves that are hand raised by humans and fed from bottles. You will love them. But there was not enough time for that this time. Stay tuned my friends....see you down the road.