It was a good year here;
it was the worst year so far for the world since that megalomaniac
Napoleon was alive. In 1914 the megalomaniacs were
ruling the earth.
Kansas City got a new and
controversial new major league baseball team called the
"Kansas City Packers" of the newly-organized
Federal League. The other teams in the league were the
Indianapolis Hoosiers, the Chicago Whales, the Baltimore Terrapins,
Brooklyn Tip-Tops, Buffalo Buffeds, Pittsburgh Rebels and
the St. Louis Terriers. The league was only to last
two seasons, the Packers going broke. Some of the
teams made it into the National or American leagues in
1916. But not the Packers.
A week before Fairmount
Park officially opened, the bathing beach allowed 56 hearty
souls to take a dip. When it did open, on May 10, as
in years past, improvements were made. Like a canvas
cover over part of the beach to create some artificial
shade. The bathing beach was enlarged and re-sanded
again, and thousands of new bathing suits were
available. A pavilion was built adjacent to the
beach where ladies could get their hair dried and combed by
pros. Tubs of iced spring water and new picnic tables
dotted the picnic area. People with automobiles were
encouraged to park in the park, with names like
Auburn, Buick, Chandler, Chevrolet, Cole, Franklin, Humpmobile, Hudson, Maxwell, Moon, Oakland, Regal, REO,
White. Ford, and many more. And they all had
dealerships in Kansas City. A large stage was built in
the German cafe, and higher-class acts were promised.
First to try and fulfill
that promise of high-class entertainment was "Miss
Myrti Howard" and her international trio. Singers
of the latest hits and trotters, i. e., professional
dancers. The latest in trotting being the Hesitation
Waltz, Maxixe, Turkey Trot, Kansas Shiver, Texas Tommy, and
a dance called the Tango, banned in Europe because it was
considered too risqué by them, them being the idiots who
will be responsible for the killing fields of Europe in a
few weeks.
Electric Park opened with a
dog show. Mr. Hine, the owner of the park, was a dog
lover and the President of the Kansas City Kennel
Club. This was the first dog show in town to have a
national exposure, 400 dogs, mostly from back East, were
entered. The show was under the direction of the
American Kennel Club. The two judges were a doctor
from Chicago and another guy from Connecticut. One of
the contestants, Pe-chi-li, was insured for $1,500.
Who cares who won.
Opening day crowd at
Fairmount, 10,000. A special gate had been added to
the entrance so autos could now enter like at a drive-in
theater, at 10 cents a head. Miss Howard and her group
made a great impression. Before they left in four weeks,
they had changed the way people in Kansas City danced, all now doing the latest dances. The lake attracted
350 people all day, but as soon as the sun went down only
those fishing were left. After the crowds went home,
the ground around the rides were covered with buttered
popcorn.
On May 20, Earl Tuck of
Independence and a young lady were riding on the
Merry-Go-Round, and both fell off, he injuring his
leg. Since he was a professional balloonist who
sometimes would jump out of a balloon with a parachute, they
had probably been to the saloon. Decoration day drew
70,000 to the three main parks. Swope park drew the
biggest, 40,000 people. There were white picnic cloths spread
throughout. The zoo was popular, and autos littered the
grass. Children were everywhere. Fairmount and
Electric both had 15,000. There were no accidents at
any of the parks.
After the holiday, a change
of managers was made at Fairmount Park. The president
of the Fairmount Park Amusement Company, W. F. Smith, was in
poor health. So Everett Wilson, formerly of the Grand
Theatre took his place. His first act as manager was
to offer prizes every Wednesday in the dance pavilion.
Prizes to be given away were a diamond ring for the lady,
and a gold stick-pin for the gentleman who could most
gracefully interpret the many new dances brought to our Big
City by "Myrtie Howard and her International Trio in
Society and Novelty Dances", now in her third week.
Myrtie's last day was June
7, a Sunday. Attendance was 20,000, the largest crowd
so far this season. 2,500 people went swimming.
Lines were long at some concessions, some people giving
up. 250 autos parked practically anywhere they
wanted. The new feature in the German Cafe was A Night
in Old Heidelberg, a musical with seven women and five
men. Altitude balloon racing, diving contests, and
free vaudeville on the open-air stage. Featured were
Hazel Walka, girl violinist, Elliot and Fassett, comics,
Harrison Jones, cartoonist and whistler, with McRay and
Simon, singer and hoofers, and Bennett's orchestra backing it all
up.
Montgomery Ward company
employees had such a good time at Fairmount Park last year
that they decided to do it again. 20,000 employees,
family of employees, friends, and moochers turned out.
Over 5,000 was spent on this years' picnic, more money than
last year. Next on the list is the annual Railway
Passenger Agents' and Proctor and Gamble.
On June 29, the idiots got
their chance. In a town called Seriavo, an idiot shot
and killed another idiot, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian
Empire, or what was left of it. Nobody around here
cared. The only friend he had in the whole world was
the Kaiser of Germany. Unfortunately, the Kaiser was a
bully. Because of that, over 60,000,000 people were
about to die. 50,000,000 would die from the virus
which was caused by the war.
Now, to take care of
Price-Waters. Soon after the year began, Missouri had
its first gas war. The Standard dropped its prices for
gasoline 6 cents a gallon by the Fourth of July to 10.9
cents. Heating oil and Naphtha (a cleaning solvent)
had also plunged in price per gallon. A barrel of oil
was $1.75 for Penn State crude, to 70 cents for the stuff
with a lot of sulfur.
The Fourth at Fairmount was
quiet this year. No loud fireworks of any kind were
allowed in the park. At night, the fireworks display
was entitled "The Earth on Fire". For the
first time this year all the boats were rented and all the
bathing suits. People were turned away at the Dance
Pavilion. In the German Cafe, the evening show
featured Bennett's Orchestra and a host of talent. A
balloon leak almost turned tragic when an aeronaut was
whisked away before he could jump in the safety of the
park. He rode the thing out as it traveled north with
the wind, landing safely in Cass County.
Time was running out for
the Wets. One Saturday night in June, three drifting
Mexicans were drinking in the Cement City saloon. An
argument broke out and after closing at 12 o'clock; four
shots were heard. The shooting was unusually brutal,
as he was first shot in both legs, then as he laid on the
ground he was shot in the shoulder and finally one to the
temple at close range. No one knew the victim or his
name, and the two perpetrators split. He was taken to
the Independence Sanitarium, where he died of a bullet to
the head at 4 o'clock Sunday afternoon. The Dries had
a martyr to the evils of alcohol.
The early Prohibitionists
weren't just preachers. Men had been taking a nip or
two at work, which was okay until you included a machine of
some sort. There were accidents where alcohol was
involved in the workplace, and the practice of drinking on
the job was discouraged. In 1890 the Anti-Saloon
league got started. They were the more moderate of the
two factions, the other being the mostly Protestant
churches. The Catholics were more tolerant. The
Prohibitionists wanted a total banning of alcohol, even 1%
beer. The Anti-Saloon League didn't care if a person
drank, just not in a place like Moe's on the Simpsons.
The local Dries mobilized, trying to shut down any saloon
not licensed by the county, which would include Sugar
Creek. Because of last year's decision to keep the
refinery, a new saloon had come to town, making the total
four. Independence had nine, all around the
Square. The Dries sent 200 women around and got 800 in
favor of a referendum to ban the sale of alcohol outside of
city limits. The Wet vs. Dry vote was set for August
24. What the Dries needed was another martyr, and they
got it. On Friday night, August 7, at Fairmount Park,
Harvey Gillespie, a very Dry Sunday school teacher at Mt.
Washington Christian Church, politically active
in the Dry cause, was assaulted with a knife by a pissed-off
drunk. The assailant took off but was recognized as a
member of the Wets, not just because he was smashed.
Back then, politics and politicians revolved around the
question, "Is he a Wet or a Dry?". At the
polling places, women with cameras took pictures as they
voted. Vote Early and Vote Often was a way to make
some money. Police were at every location. 40
women Dries were sent to Sugar Creek. The Dries won by
105 votes, but there were problems, and the Wets accused the
Dries of irregularities in the voting. The Dries
accused Nich Phelps, a county marshal with headquarters in
Sugar Creek, of harassing the Dry workers. The
election was over, the Dries won. There were seven
arrests, and many other problems. Some men didn't like
having their picture taken. One woman with a camera
had acid poured down her back. Doctor Tryman treated
her and took her home in his automobile.
George Rodman, one of the
saloon owners in Sugar Creek and representing the three
others, hired an attorney and went to court. The vote
in Sugar Creek was 165 to 90 for the Wets. Mt.
Washington was 367 Dry, 102 Wet. On the day of the
election, 500 ladies in the Independence area signed a
petition claiming to love their Wet men more if they would
give up drink. The Wet men then passed around a flyer
"We love you dearly, we love our home, we love our
children. We cannot as men regulate fashion, but if
you will give up the tango, the silk skirt, the shadow
gowns, the tight skirt, and other degrees of fashion, we
will vote to cut out the saloon. If not, we will all
go to Hell." The leader of the Dries in Sugar
Creek was the Reverand L. K. Kubus, the minister of the
Sugar Creek Methodist Church. Roy Mallison was a Blue
Township judge for the Dries. In Sugar Creek, the Dry
judges were R. L. Bennett, F. A. Lee, Henry Lee, and the
clerk was Frank Burkhart.
In July the clocks ticked
down to Armageddon. Fairmount never had it so
good. Record crowds filled the park. It was like
a free auto show every day. The Kansas City Fireman's
picnic was a little unusual, since someone had to be on
duty. It was a two-day affair. Both days,
hundreds of firemen, their family and guests, invited or
not, took the day off.
Gasoline continued to fall
in price. Oklahoma oil was now being pumped to the
Sugar Creek refinery, so an oil glut existed. On July
11, Jesse Jackson, 17, from Mt. Washington, drowned while
swimming in the deep part of Crisp Lake. Dr. Gillmore
was called from nearby Fairmount Park, where he is the park
Doc. It only took him 15 minutes, but it was too
late. Jackson was swimming with about 70 other mostly boys
when the tragedy occurred. At that time, Crisp lake
didn't have any cabins around it, but there were a lot of
tents set up around the lake in the summertime.
While the Austro-Hungarian
Empire was declaring war on Serbia in late July, the Jones
Store employees, all 15,000 of them, closed up shop at noon
and given squawkers and horns to blast their way to
Fairmount Park for their annual company picnic.
Everything was free. A truckload of food was stationed
on the picnic grounds, including 100 watermelons.
Baseball games, swimming and foot races were held.
Cash prizes were given. It had been a good year for
the Jones Store, and many new employees created the largest
and most successful Jones Store picnic yet.
A historian writing about
the first World War said, "To understand it was like
trying to put together a picture puzzle with some of the
pieces missing and some that don't fit." At this
time there were 20 kings, emperors, and a couple of czars,
and some were related. Edward (England), William
(Germany), and Nickie (Russia) were cousins, all related
somehow to Queen Victoria, and they looked a great deal
alike. So the war was a kind of family feud.
America just wanted to stay out of it. Besides,
everyone got along pretty well here no matter where you came
from. America at the time had the 17th largest army in
the world, but thanks to Teddy Roosevelt a pretty good
navy. At Fairmount, the last thing anyone cared about
was a war. Balloon races and parachute leaps from
2,000 feet were again attracting large crowds.
The parachute of a local
lady aeronaut, Maggie Myers, was caught by a gust of wind,
and instead of landing in the lake landed in a tree just
outside the park, by the Independence Avenue entrance.
Caught on a limb which broke, sending her 50 feet to the
ground. Doc Gillmore patched her up. A few weeks
before, she was injured at Swope Park, same deal,
tree.
The hot, wet, humid summer
helped bring out the lushness of the park in the woods, yet
also allowed the crowds to grow, as this was the most
financially successful year in park history.
Merry Christmas to all the
Wets employed with the county. They were fired and
replaced by Dries.
