Police, deputies and patrolmen are busy on this date, chasing floating burglars, investigating an accident and seeking two unrelated missing persons in the wilderness.
100 years ago
June 27, 1924
• The St. Joseph Lead Company near Bonne Terre is fighting strikers, protesting the firing of two employees who reported unsafe working conditions.
Two mine labor organizers, E.T. Flood of Chicago and Ed Carbine of Springfield, gathered 100 miners in the strike. A near-riot broke out; miners on the job seized the strikers’ flag and trampled it, and two men were arrested for beating a shift manager. Carbine, Flood and other miners from out of town were evicted.
Company officials claimed the safety allegations were “investigated and found false.”
• Three people are in jail for burglary after a river cruise. Leonard York, his mistress Minnie Tibbs and friend Walter Bagwell are accused of breaking into a farmhouse yesterday near the Black River, stealing food and an alarm clock.
The trio were hauling a houseboat upstream when one of their engines died, forcing them ashore. Apparently hungry, they broke into the nearby home of John Jackson and raided his pantry. They also pilfered his alarm clock. They returned to the water and hailed another boat to tow them.
Jackson was out farming, but his neighbors told him of the break-in when he returned. He quickly drove to the Butler County Sheriff’s Office and authorities were waiting to arrest the culprits when they reached Poplar Bluff around 7:30 p.m. last night. York, Tibbs and Bagwell threw as much evidence as possible overboard — including several containers of whiskey — but forgot the clock, which Jackson identified immediately.
75 years ago
June 27, 1949
• A coroner’s inquest ruled “death due to carelessness of both parties” in a fatal auto accident.
The deceased is Ruby Eckert, 31, of Sparta, Illinois. She and her husband Walter Eckert were visiting relatives in Bernie on June 25 when they got in an argument. Walter, who had been drinking, got in his car and tried to drive off when Ruby jumped on the front fender, fell and fatally fractured her skull. The coroner found no alcohol in her system.
Walter Eckert was held for investigation by the Missouri State Highway Patrol and released yesterday. No charges will be filed per the inquest’s verdict.
Ruby Eckert is survived by her father, husband and two children.
50 years ago
June 27, 1974
• Authorities are searching for two unrelated missing persons today: a fisherman lost on Lake Wappapello, and a camper last seen near in Ripley County.
Boat Patrolman Jim McDaniel told reporters he found a 16-foot bass boat running in circles with no operator yesterday in the St. Francis River Channel just off Wappapello State Park. He believes the craft belongs to a St. Louis man in his 30s, whose name was withheld. Evidence indicated the man may have been working on the boat’s 65-horsepower motor when it unexpectedly started and threw him overboard. Two other fishermen told McDaniel they witnessed the accident from a distance. Divers, volunteers and deputies from Butler and Wayne counties are searching the lake.
In Ripley County, a Missouri State Highway Patrol plane is searching for Riley Hasting, 59, of Steele, and for “two long-haired youths” seen driving his truck.
Hasting was reported missing on June 24 when he failed to return home from a camping trip. His empty campsite was found on Buffalo Creek, 20 miles west of Doniphan, with several spent casings believed to have come from his 16-gauge shotgun. Two persons of interest are a pair of young men, possibly from St. Louis, who were camped next to Hasting and later seen driving his yellow pickup. Ripley County Deputy Bob Patrick said the pair “did not have much money” on their own, yet broke a hundred dollar bill at a store in Doniphan. Hasting was believed to have $200-$300 dollars on his person when he left home.
MSHP are searching by land and air for Hasting and the suspects. The Ripley and Pemiscot county sheriff’s departments are also on the case.