209 N. Holden

Here's an interesting picture from the Ben Pierce collection.  Instead of a close-up, the photographer moved back a little to show what a client would see when he came to Simmon's Studio in the 1940s to have his picture taken.  Since this negative wasn't labeled, I don't know if this is a self portrait or a picture of a client.

                                                     Ben was kind enough to provide me with a picture of the same space upstairs at 209 N. Holden as it looks today.  Quite a difference!

Simmons Studio was located on the top floor at 209 N. Holden during the 1940s.  For many years, citizens of Warrensburg hired the photographer to record the images or events that were important to them. When the business closed, he left negatives behind that documented life in Warrensburg during that era.  

Seventy years after they were abandoned, the building’s current owner, Ben Pierce, found the negatives and donated them to the Historical Society.  We have begun the process of turning these negatives into positives and publishing them online. New pictures will be added frequently.

Hopefully, people visiting this blog will find pictures of family members (or maybe themselves.)  Please leave comments if you know anything about the pictures you see.  Most of them are unlabeled so we could use any help we can get in identifying people or scenes.

This is the only color picture in the collection.  It shows just the corner of the building where Simmons Studio was located.  You can see the sign hanging above the car.  The next door business, Shively’s, is more prominently featured.  This building recently housed ‘The Flower Pedlar’ and is currently ‘The Game Place.”

Does anyone know who the boy is?  What about the make, model, and year of the car?

Captain Readic Comer

Hello Friends,

It has been a while... but we are still here and finding more out about our beautiful county all the time.  If you have ever been in our Heritage Library, you may have seen a painting on the wall of Captain Readic Comer, a Warrensburg resident who was once a Buffalo Soldier.  

We have also mentioned that Ben Pierce donated a huge collection of large format negatives from the Simmons Studio (also Burr and other photographers in the space).  Some are glass, some film.  We sorted them and recently found out from our friend Peggy Nuckles that we can simply photograph the negative with our phone, turn it into a positive and there you have it.  

Well, here is Captain Comer, in the time between his service in the WWI era and the distinguished portrait that hangs in the library.
 A very exciting find.  Thanks for your service, sir!

Our upcoming program at our annual meeting on September 29, 2013 features some of the strangest history in Johnson County, to some people.  It has been written about since the happening in state reports and in our Bulletin.  But as yet, as far as we know, no one has tried to replicate the event. 
Paul Landkamer, entomophagist, will guide us through the program. We still need cooks who want to show off their wild edibles and participants. This feast is inspired by the 1875 grasshopper feast which actually happened here in Warrensburg. It's also the plague featured in Laura Ingalls-Wilder's "On the Banks of Plum Creek". Since we couldn't schedule another plague, we opened the feast up to any wild edibles --of course, concentrating on the insects.  Please contact us if you are interested. 

Great Memory

It has been five years since Carol Berkland, who was looking through old  newspapers online, showed me a pile of printed out references to Johnson County that she had found.  Many interesting tales, lots of railroad news, and this one.    From the Kansas City Star 1919, it just happened to be a drawing of W.A. Tompkins, my great grandfather which we printed in the Bulletin at the time..  I had hoped that there would be room in the newsletter for the rest of the story, but alas there wasn't. 

So, now, the end of the tale.   I took the newspaper clipping to my brother Mark who lives on the Tompkins place.  It was a cold January day, much like today, but he said, "Do you want to see where that is?" and we took off across the field.  I have had bad luck with cameras and memory cards over the past few years, but  found that I hadn't lost all this morning when I stumbled across the file. 
Please consider this a tribute to the generations of farmers of Johnson County, MO, you know who you are, the unsung heroes, the careful stewards of our  precious resource, the fertile earth.

Answering the Donkey Trolley Question

Thanks to our fans!!!... (this time that's you, Bruce) we have answered a question posed on page 65 of our book, Warrensburg and Johnson County (Vintage Postcard Series) from Arcadia Publishing, 2004, by Carol Berkland, Herb Best and Lisa Irle.  The JCHS collection contained this postcard with notations in ballpoint ink on the back concerning the last trip of a horsedrawn trolley that once made the newspapers in New York city for its annual trip to prove it existed.  The back of the card was full of informations about the "other resort" in Warrensburg -- Electric Springs.  The building didn't look at all familiar, nor did the name of the photographer.  Now, thanks to Bruce and his searching on the internet, we can conclusively report that this postcard came from Winfield, Cowley County, Kansas and had nothing at all to do with Electric Springs here in MO.  Beware those handwritten notes of history, always double check.  That was the lesson.  Glad we hedged our bets on the caption written 8 years ago.

So Much To Do



Davis Store before removal of bricks on Northwest Corner



    Much work remains to protect our historic structures from the ravages of time and weather.  Mike Shaw, Pres. of the JCHS, is working to uncover the extent of repairs which the old buildings require. 

The "Davis Store" (above) has been donated to the JCHS in the past year.  Many have asked -- what will happen to the building?: over the past several years.  And now that the JCHS is in command, the first order of business (after all the legalities, assessments and what not have been completed) is to assess the needs of the structure and determine whether it will be cost effective to preserve.  Loose bricks had to be removed from an old repair before decisions could be made.  We still are not sure of the outcome, the one thing that is sure is that we will need financial help from our Members and Friends to get the work done correctly.

The "Old Courthouse", purchased in 1965 by the Historical Society and on the National Register of Historic Places has been a labor of love for the Society for the past 50 years.  The stones used in the initial restoration have deteriorated over the years and to better understand the requirements of replacing them, they had to be removed. 

Hard work for our President.   Please consider assisting the JCHS either with your own work as a volunteer or financially.  We would welcome your interest in our projects!

South Threshold of the Old Courthouse