Molly. Not Lizzy Borden, either.
This six-foot battle ax waged all-out war against liquor. She first married an alcoholic, and that bad marriage steeled her resolve to destroy the tools that supplied liquor to men. Later she married a preacher and editor of the neighboring Johnson County Democrat newspaper. His last name and a slight change to her first name—oh, and her propensity for violence—would propel her to the forefront of the temperance movement.
She crusaded as Carry Nation, and she smashed whiskey barrels with sledgehammers, threw pool balls at barroom mirrors, and later employed a hatchet to smash up barrooms, to “carry a nation for Prohibition.” Her intemperate temperance crusade lasted a decade, during which time she was beaten, bloodied, battered and arrested nearly three dozen times. Carry’s crusade preceded American Prohibition by several years, but her efforts wrung the booze out of Missouri’s public places in all but the most robust river towns.
She was sought by circus promoters and sideshows, but she traveled as a one-act revival, driving the demons out of married men, a few of whom came willingly to her crusades. While she did most of her damage in Kansas, a dry state at the time, with only a few establishments that served liquor “for medicinal purposes,” her influence spilled over to Missouri, too. In 1906, less than a third of Missouri counties were dry. Three years after her death, 80 percent of the state was dry. Imbibers could buy a drink in only 23 of 114 counties. Almost all of those 23 holdout counties clung to rivers, those arteries that delivered the sternwheeling swift boats, too quick for Carry’s hatchet. The boats delivered the demon rum and witches’ brew and kept the old river ports steeped in a lifestyle that put the wild in the west.
I left the headstones of Carry and Carnegie, polar opposites in their approach to public relations, and headed for the wide open spaces. The back roads delivered a succession of towns whose very names hold the promise of good stories: Cleveland, Freeman, West Line. Oh, and Peculiar, a place with the motto, “The odds are with you.” A sign downtown proudly proclaims the town’s Civil War history: “In 1861-1864 while bloody battles raged throughout the southern states, nothing happened here.” Nobody wanted to die for a Peculiar cause.
But a hundred years later, the town almost became famous. The owner of the Kansas City Athletics baseball team, an eccentric named Charley O. Finley, brought more innovation to stadium sports than any other person since Caligula: Colored jerseys. DayGlo orange baseballs. He installed a mechanical bunny rabbit under home plate that would pop up like a Jack in the Box to give the umpire fresh baseballs. And he threatened with regularity to move his team away from Kansas City. In one spat with the city, he vowed to move the team to Peculiar. The Peculiar A’s. The name might’ve become a synonym for arsehole, but the move never materialized. Eventually, Charley huffed off to Oakland with his team, whose players cultivated handlebar mustaches and won pennants.
***
Within spitting distance of the Kansas state line, I stumbled onto a real find. I almost passed by an unimpressive metal building, except for the modest sign at the gravel drive entrance: Frontier Military Museum. The building resembles a small aircraft hangar. Avoiding the urge to judge this tin book by its cover, I pulled into the parking lot. Inside that simple metal building sits perhaps the greatest collection of military saddles in America.
Since Mark and Virginia Alley retired more than a decade ago from the aircraft industry in Wichita, they’ve focused on presenting their collection to the world. It’s not where you think it would be. Not on the Smithsonian Mall. Not Texas or Tucson or anyplace known for riding tall in the saddle. It’s not in Kansas City—or any city. It sits on the eastern edge of tiny Drexel, Missouri. Mark admits that the museum is out of the way. “But we love the area,” he said. And after all, this was the frontier when many of his fifty saddles were enlisted.
Each saddle reflects the status of its rider, from the plebeian soldier’s ride to the elaborate officer’s saddle. I’d never thought about it much, really, that an officer sat on a leather Lexus, while a regular soldier perched on a stripped-down chassis. Rank be damned, the museum’s caretakers ensure that every saddle tells a story, thanks to its supporting cast of characters including tack, boots, headgear, canteens, uniforms and firearms. A replica of the Drexel Mercantile Company displays frontier-style dry goods. Relics add perspective from several local Native American tribes: The Osage, Sac and Fox. Mark relishes in showing the displays and talking about the collection. It’s nice to see somebody spend a big part of his retirement time and money showing people their past.
Thanking the Alleys for their pioneer spirit, I jumped back in my saddle, and spurred the horses under my hood ornament to take me down the trail. Minutes south of Merwin, I met up with a cowboy in a field. More precisely, Merwin Mike is a scarecrow-like dummy of a cowboy, riding up and down on the rocker arm of an oil well pump. Curious, I later Googled, “cowboy riding the rocker arm of an oil well pump,” and I can say with some confidence that this sculpture is one of a kind. The visual conjures memories of rodeos, or the Wyoming license plate. But a real cowboy would point out that this art more closely resembles a tin horn on a teeter totter than a bronco buster. Still, in the middle of the prairie, artist Jerry Johnston earns his spurs. Since my first trip, Merwin Mike has migrated from the open prairie to Jerry’s corral in downtown Merwin, population: 83... 84 if you count Merwin Mike.
***
The prairie? Today you see less of it. Most land has converted to cultivation. But the area remains rural, and remote. As Erifnus and I caromed between farms, fields and forest, locals kept talking about the mountains in southwest Cass County. Mountains? In the middle of the prairie? Amaroochie, they said. Turns out to be the Amarugia Highlands, sticking out like warts on the smooth landscape. Their altitude doesn’t rival the Rockies or even the Ozarks, but from a flat start, Erifnus got a workout on her gears. And she got a view at the top. The conservation area turns out to be a popular recreation spot. Who knew? This close to Kansas.
All this galloping flipped my switch to gourmet. I set my compass to take me from Amaroochie to Archie, home of a high school team called the Whirlwinds and the second most unique water tower in Missouri. Water towers generally are the first peek at a town’s personality, visible from miles away. These small-town skyscrapers assume an infinite number of shapes, with only two requirements: hold water and become a billboard for the town’s number one obsession. The Archie water tower is diamond-shaped, and the town’s name cascades down the stalk. Under the shadow of the tower, I passed BJ’s Rise ’N Shine Restaurant. The parking lot was packed. I glanced at my watch. It was 3 p.m. Curiosity propelled my car to the last available parking space, and I entered this roadside diner to find good food, like Piranha chili, and a counter covered with homemade pies. Ordering desserts here is a bittersweet process of elimination. The Pizookies® are fresh-baked cookies smothered in ice cream. The beignets are baked, not fried—the best beignets this side of Café du Monde.
I love small-town restaurants and their reasonable prices. Down the road in Adrian, Winfield’s Restaurant served up a special of stuffed peppers, mashed potatoes and gravy with green beans and cherry cobbler for less than six bucks. I ate again. Then I found shelter for the night and regrouped for the next day.
***
A statue stands on the courthouse grounds in Butler. That’s not unusual, since statues seem to prefer such places. But this bronze likeness of a solitary soldier honors a turning point in the Civil War, a turning point that goes largely unnoticed. The Battle of Island Mound wasn’t much more than a skirmish, although at least seven men were killed. This was the first Civil War battle involving African American soldiers. On the old Toothman Farm, where the 1st Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry had built Fort Africa, federal troops repelled a larger Confederate force. The battle gets overlooked by just about everybody, save the most astute Civil War historians. But now the state plans a historic site. It’s about time.
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