Speaking of accidental, I remembered a book containing the following excerpt and yesterday (saving myself a trip downstairs) I pulled the "Burke Murry" collection off the shelf and found it had long ago been reprinted in a local paper. A renowned ornithologist had been invited to Warrensburg to create a collection of local birds (taxidermy, of course... with multiple specimens to share with other scientists ). In his "The Story of a Bird Lover" W.E.D. Scott writes of his first impressions... the year was 1874. High praise, indeed.
"There was little to attract an eastern visitor in the appearance of the place; all livestock ran at large; the pig, genuine razor-back variety, with its numerous progeny, possessed the land, the jimson weed ran riot. The streets when wet were deep in mud, when dry deep in dust; the board above the roadway with projecting nails at frequent intervals, afforded a precarious footpath. Half clad Negroes and poor whites lounged on the business corners, their only occupation chewing and spitting; the cuspidor adorned the houses of rich and poor alike. .. The Normal school was an oasis in this intellectual and material desert. There was a great division of the small village caused by differences of religious beliefs. There were at least twelve denominations, with splits in the church due to their southern or northern sympathies."
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