Missouri Trivia & Tidbits - Page 16

Looking for Missouri trivia? Try our list Missouri little know facts, tidbits and trivia.

Marlin Perkins, host of the television program Wild Kingdom from 1963 to 1985, was born in Carthage (pop. 11,846) on March 28, 1905. As a child he created his own zoos, containing mice, toads, snakes, and worms.

first appeared: 6/10/2001

After the steamboat Arabia sank in the Missouri River in 1856, the river shifted course so much that when the paddlewheeler was found in 1987, it lay under a farm field north of Kansas City. The boat’s recovered cargo is displayed at the Arabia Steamboat Museum in Kansas City.

first appeared: 6/3/2001

John C. Webb, who became a millionaire after discovering zinc and lead on his farm while plowing in 1873, founded nearby Webb City (pop. 8,886) two years later. His occupation was listed as “capitalist” on the town’s 1880 census.

first appeared: 5/27/2001

Built in 1888, the Neosho National Fish Hatchery, south of Neosho, (pop. 10,616), is the nation’s oldest national hatchery. It can raise 225,000 rainbow trout, 8,800 paddlefish, 20,000 striped bass, and 2,500 lake sturgeon annually.

first appeared: 5/20/2001

The first Sunday school west of the Mississippi was started by Sarah Barton for a Methodist church in Farmington (pop. 14,429).

first appeared: 5/13/2001

Actor, writer, and director John Huston was born in Nevada (pop. 8,286) in 1906. He won Oscars for best writing and directing The Treasure of Sierra Madre. His other films included The African Queen, Prizzi’s Honor, and Chinatown.

first appeared: 5/6/2001

Dale Carnegie, who wrote the 1936 best seller How to Win Friends and Influence People, was born in Maryville (pop. 9,877) in 1888. Our thanks to Maryville’s former Mayor Vilas Young and Thomas Carneal at Northwest Missouri State University for pointing out that Carnegie’s birthplace was not Marysville, Kan., (pop. 2,892).

first appeared: 4/29/2001

Born in Maryville (pop. 9,877) in 1902, Navy Lt. Albert David was awarded the Medal of Honor for leading eight sailors who boarded a disabled German U-boat in June 1944 and kept it from sinking off the coast of French West Africa. The U-505 was the first enemy ship captured by U.S. forces since the 19th century.

first appeared: 4/22/2001

The world’s heaviest recorded rainfall—12 inches in one hour—occurred in Holt (pop. 398) on June 22, 1947.

first appeared: 4/15/2001

Singer and musician Sheryl Crow was born Feb. 11, 1962, in Kennett (pop. 10,526), where her mother was a piano teacher and her father an amateur trumpet player.

first appeared: 4/8/2001

Martha Jane Canary, better known in Western lore as Army scout Calamity Jane, was born in Princeton (pop. 962) in 1848.

first appeared: 4/1/2001

After traveling with a circus in the late 1800s, 44-inch-tall William “Major” Ray opened a general store in Hornersville (pop. 652) and sold Buster Brown Shoes. Convinced that he looked better than the boyish cartoon strip character adopted by the shoe company as its corporate image, Ray, 40, talked the company into modeling Buster Brown after him. His bulldog modeled for the ads, too.

first appeared: 3/25/2001

A writer from St. Louis named Winston Churchill was one of Missouri’s best-known authors a century ago. His 1901 novel, The Crisis, was about the Civil War era and the views of German immigrants, southerners, and New Englanders who lived there at the time.

first appeared: 3/18/2001

The first bridge across the Mississippi River opened in 1874 in St. Louis. Self-taught engineer James Eads, who grew up in St. Louis, designed the bridge.

first appeared: 3/11/2001

Knob Noster (pop. 2,517) is the home of Whiteman Air Force Base, the only military installation where the U.S. Air Force’s B-2 “Stealth” bombers are stationed.

first appeared: 3/4/2001

The state’s name comes from an Algonquian Indian term meaning “river of the big canoes.”

first appeared: 2/25/2001

James Cash Penny, born near Hamilton (pop. 1,535) in 1875, worked at a mercantile store before moving to Wyoming to open his own store in 1902. When he retired in 1946, more than 1,600 J.C. Penny stores were in business.

first appeared: 2/18/2001

Sedalia (pop. 20,441) was the home of Texas-born Scott Joplin in the 1890s when he composed his famous Maple Leaf Rag and other popular ragtime tunes, including The Entertainer.

first appeared: 2/11/2001

—Gen. Omar Bradley was born in a log cabin near Clark (pop. 267) on Feb. 12, 1893.

first appeared: 2/4/2001

—David Rice Atchison, born in Plattsburg (pop. 2,414), served the shortest presidential term in U.S. history—24 hours—when he was President Pro Tem of the U.S. Senate in 1849.

first appeared: 1/28/2001

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