On today’s date, newspaper headlines were dominated by crime and arrests. A welcome interlude came in 1949 when a taxi driver gave a Chaffee dog a ride home ... sort of.
100 years ago
May 10, 1924
• The former head of the Bank of Puxico was arrested today in Dexter after visiting family in Arkansas. D.F. Walser faces charges of embezzlement, grand larceny and accepting deposits while the institution was insolvent. The bank closed last December with a shortage of around $400,000.
Missouri authorities knew Walser’s location while he visited relatives, and law enforcement reportedly kept an eye on him while he was out of state. They ruled him unlikely to flee due to his poor health.
He and his son Carroll, a former cashier at the bank, will go on trial in September.
• Doniphan’s high school team forfeited to Poplar Bluff after three of its bats were stolen.
Poplar Bluff High School was in the lead 14 to 13 in the first half of the ninth inning when the visiting team’s bats went missing. Coach Emery Peters offered to replace the bats with three of PBHS’s, but Doniphan declined. This was the last game of the season, and Peters declared Doniphan the best team PBHS had faced.
75 years ago
May 10, 1949
• A Poplar Bluff taxi driver gave a memorable ride to a man and his dog this week.
An unidentified Chaffee resident hailed cabbie Cash Osgood for a ride back home. He’d arrived on a bus trip from Willow Springs earlier in the day and, to his astonishment, found his dog in Poplar Bluff.
“I don’t know how he got here, but he knew me, and came to me when I called his name,” he said.
Osgood drove man and canine — who seemed to enjoy the ride and the attention — back to Chaffee. The fare was $20, or around $260 in today’s money, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics. When he got home, the passenger and his dog were greeted by ... his dog, who came running off the porch to meet them.
“Was he flabbergasted,” Osgood told the Daily American Republic. “He was actually astounded, and realizing his mistake he asked if I would bring the dog he thought was his back to Poplar Bluff.”
Osgood agreed, and the canine was equally happy to ride back.
“It was all right until we got back home. By that time the dog liked riding in cabs and didn’t want to get out,” Osgood said.
50 years ago
May 10, 1974
• A large interstate prostitution ring has been broken up by federal authorities, and its suspected operators were indicted by a grand jury today in Memphis, Tennessee. The accused include a Joe Bradford of Poplar Bluff, his father Ed Bradford of Steele, four brothers living in Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana, plus several other conspirators from Missouri, Tennessee and Arkansas.
Two other conspirators have connections in Southeast Missouri. William R. Orton of Caruthersville is the son of former Pemiscot County Sheriff Clyde Orton, who was ousted after he was accused of a large-scale whiskey smuggling operation in the Bootheel, and James Ashcraft of Memphis, a trucker who formerly owned a body shop and salvage yard in Cape Girardeau.
Several suspects also face drug and perjury charges.