Hey Lisa. This is Ronnie Goodwin. I am a den leader for Centerviews Cub Scout Pack. I am trying to put together a lesson on history for them and kinda hitting a wall on a few questions. So I thought of you. If you have any info I would be thankful. I hate giving incorrect info to kids. After all they will carry that knowledge for years.  There is only a few questions...

Where was the first school?

Where was the first fire station?

Where were the first places to worship?

The first school was a private one built by Mr. Peak and Samuel Graham in 1866.  in 1868 the town bought that school.  They built a school just east of the Methodist church after that.

Sluder Cemetery 1/2 mile south of Centerview is one of the Oldest in the Co.

In 1867 the German Baptist (Dunkard) Church was organized (now called the Church of the Brethren there is still one in Warrensburg)  The cemetery on the north side of town was next to the church.   Methodists in 1871 including a separate Black congregation..., Cumberland Presbyterians in 1833--but no church built until 1872.  Presbyterians, 1873, Baptist 1874,

According to Donna Holt, there was no early "fire department" , but I am sure there would have been some system in place where neighbors helped neighbors...

Here's a story... Mrs. H.J. Scheer remembers vividly the fire fighting in the community, which meant that at the word "FIRE!" everybody grabbed a bucket and ran.  Across the street from where they lived was the Porter Elevator which had a lot of wheat there at that time.  When it caught fire people came from everywhere with their buckets to the pump in their yard.  She was just a child and was busy shoving buckets under the pump as a man pumped.  Everybody was there with a bucket.  men, women, and children.  Burning shingles from the elevator were falling everywhere about them, blown about by the wind.  Suddenly her mother appeared and took the pump off the cistern so they couldn't get any more water.  "The way the burning shingles are falling", she commented, "we might need that water ourselves."

Thursday 8:34pm

Thank you Lisa. This will work great!

Friday 9:23am

Ronnie, one more thing... did you see yesterday's Daily Star Journal article about Centerview's water rates going up... note in the story it was a cistern.  Centerview residents have been responsible for their own water until the PWSD#2 was created... interesting... That's why Donna Holt kept saying there had NEVER been even a public well...

Richard Dean Adams was born on April 12, 1922, in Wichita, Kan., the son of Fred Adams and Elta Adams Mason.  He was raised by his step-father, Charley Mason in a household that included one half-brother, Lee Mason.

On April 22, 1949, he married Berniece Rose Pryor in Warrensburg and they were married 56 years. The marriage produced two children, Richard L. Adams and Barbara Adams Bolton both of Springfield.

Mr. Adams was a World War II veteran, serving in the U.S. Army from Nov. 17 1942 to Oct. 22, 1945.  He was in South France and in the Normandy operation.  He recived seven Bronze Stars.

Mr. Adams worked as a machinist in heavy equipment at Whiteman Air Force Base for 42 years and also was a farmer, living at the Adams farm at Bristle Ridge in Johnson County, MO.  He was a member of the American Legion Post 131 of Warrensburg.

He died at the age of 84 on July 18, 2006 at the Western Missouri Medical Center and is buried in the Warrensburg Memorial Gardens Cemetery.

This photograph was developed from a negative found in the Simmon's Studio collection donated by Ben Pierce of 209 Enterprises, LLC.

John Baile was born in 1901, the fifth of ten children.  His mother, Minnie Hope Christopher Baile, and his father, Clifton Augustus Baile were also from ten-children families.  John was named after his paternal grandfather.  

He spent his entire life in and around Johnson County working as a farmer. He married Beulah Mae Hampton in 1933 and they had two children, Elizabeth Mae and Martha Louise Baile.

This portrait is from the Simmon’s Studio collection of negatives that was donated to the JCHS by Ben Pierce.