100 years ago Oct. 5, 1923
• Two Piedmont buildings are bombed just after midnight, literally shaking the community.
Police say dynamite bombs with timed fuses were likely placed in the eaves of the J. C. Berryman and O. C. Lucy buildings, which housed four businesses between them.
“Every window in the block was shattered by the blast, which also blew out a transformer and darkened the immediate district,” reported the Interstate American.
The fronts were “blown out” of both buildings. Damage to structures and merchandise was estimated at $5,000 in the Berryman building and $2,000 in the Lucy building.
No suspects or motives are known at this time. The Interstate American speculated the culprits might be “disgruntled law breakers” targeting the businesses’ owners.
No casualties are reported.
• A sawmill worker is recovering at home after a terrifying workplace accident, thanks to the pocket watch that saved his life.
On Oct. 4 in Poplar Bluff, 20-year-old John Smith was operating a heavy circular saw at the Hargrove-Ruth mill when the disk rebounded off a piece of wood and swung into his abdomen. Dr. H. M. Henrickson said Smith was saved from disembowlment by the “little cheap brass watch” in his trouser pocket. The saw ground the watch into “unrecognizeable fragments,” but the timepiece stopped almost all of the blade. With a half-inch deep cut on his stomach, Smith was “painfully but not seriously hurt” and resting at home.
75 years ago Oct. 5, 1948
• Rumors abound after an anonymous source claims a Piedmont man found over $100,000 in an abandoned outlaw hideout.
Harry Wilcox purportedly discovered a hideout used by the Jesse James gang in a cave around Gads Hill, a few miles north of Piedmont, in September. He presented an old musket, coins and pieces of paper that could have been money as evidence, but remained coy about the cave’s location. On Oct. 4, witnesses saw two U. S. Treasury agents with an armored car conversing with Wilcox for much of the afternoon.
A source who is “considered reliable, but who asked not to be quoted by name” told the Interstate American he had seen more than $10,000 worth of gold coins in Wilcox’s possession and currency equaling more than $100,000. Wilcox refused to give a statement, but confirmed speaking to the agents.
• The Poplar Bluff City Council OKs plans for a new fire station at the intersection of highways 60 and 67, and votes to contact the State Health Department about a “septic tank nuisance” on Maud Street which is causing significant complaint from residents.
50 years ago Oct. 5, 1973
• A physicist is examining the burnt eyeglasses of a trucker after a supposed UFO encounter.
On Oct. 3, Eddie D. Webb of Greenville was driving his semi truck on I-55 when he saw “a light on a large aluminum object in the air,” he said.
“I could see half of it in the rear-view mirror. It was shaped like a turnip and covered both lanes. The center section was steady, but top and bottom was spinning around with red and yellow lights,” Webb said.
He woke his wife Velma Mae, who was sleeping in the passenger seat, but she saw nothing. Webb stuck his head out the window to look back and was struck by a “large ball of fire.”
Webb stopped the truck and his wife drove him to Southeast Missouri Hospital, where he was released Oct. 4 with no apparent vision impairment. Dr. Charles Cozean Jr. said Webb suffered no apparent burns or eye damage. Webb himself claimed his vision was still impaired and said he would seek a specialist in St. Louis.
Webb didn’t want to call the UFO a flying saucer, saying “I always thought people that saw those things were crazy. Now everybody thinks I’m cracking up, but by God I saw something and it blinded me.”
Dr. Harley Rutledge of Southeast Missouri State University found the plastic frames of Webb’s glasses were burned, and had apparently been “heated internally.”
“I was quite surprised. It doesn’t look like a hoax at this point,” he said.