Now that the Prohibitionist fervor has died down, authorities are asking more questions about Poplar Bluff’s city-wide liquor raids on Aug. 4, 1924. The state has launched an investigation into ringleader G.H. Foree, whose credentials as a private detective and a federal agent are crumbling — instead, he may be a hate group vigilante.
In much better news, Poplar Bluff families and businesses responded with monumental generosity to a tragic situation in 1949.
100 years ago
Aug. 16, 1924
• The federal government is investigating G.H. Foree, leader of the massive Aug. 4 liquor raids in Poplar Bluff, on the suspicion he’s a Ku Klux Klansman who masqueraded as a federal agent. In addition to white supremacist, anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic agendas, historical sources say the hate group enacted its own prohibitionist code with illegal, violent raids in the 1920s.
Local probate judge D.B. Deem claimed Foree was a fraud in a public letter earlier this week. Today, the Poplar Bluff Interstate American published a dispatch from US District Attorney Allen Curry, who believed Foree falsely represented himself as a federal agent while directing authorities and deputized citizens in a mass search of homes and businesses, targeting suspected liquor law violators. The press release also said only 34 people were arrested — far fewer than the 80-plus claimed in newspapers immediately after Aug. 4.
If the investigation proves Foree’s fraud, the matter will go before a federal grand jury in September.
75 years ago
Aug. 16, 1949
• Poplar Bluffians’ overwhelming generosity made the news today.
Yesterday a call went out for 18 sets of formal clothes. They were for children from two single-parent households who ranged in age from 16 years to two weeks. Both sets of siblings lost their mothers within a day of each other. Civic organizer Mrs. Carl C. Abington learned they all lacked anything to wear to the funerals and published a call for donations in the Daily American Republic. She volunteered her house as a drop-off point.
Abington said her phone started ringing “before the paper was on the streets an hour” yesterday morning, and donations arrived well into the evening. This morning, Boy Scouts were enlisted to pick up even more donations from residents who couldn’t deliver them. Abington enlisted neighbors to help her sort everything and found many items were new, and the mountain of donations included were rain boots, coats and school clothes mixed in. Local clothing merchants even called Abington and said if the children could be brought in, they’d outfit them with daily wear at no charge.
Multiple families have inquired about adoption.
50 years ago
Aug. 16, 1974
• Traffic is flowing smoothly at the Highway 67-Maud Street intersection. Signals were installed last week and the DAR noted thousands of drivers “quickly adjusted their driving habits at that busy corner.”
The lights did experience a few malfunctions, notably “sticking,” but were repaired by technicians.