The Butler County Centennial Jubilee wrapped up with a 206-member stage production of local history in 1949.
The show featured music, elaborate stage design and a live bear. Other headlines included a Navy seaman’s new posting and two near-misses with a tornado.
100 years ago
Sept. 3, 1924
• A sailor from Southeast Missouri is en route to Shanghai, China aboard a U.S. destroyer.
The ship Prible (reported on modern Navy lists as the Preble IV) was summoned to Shanghai as internecine conflict approached. Forces from Jiangsu and the former Chekiang province reportedly engaged each other 40 miles from the city. One serviceman aboard the Preble was George Lucas, who grew up in Poplar Bluff and was stationed in Asiatic waters all summer.
The Preble joined other American, British, Japanese and French ships on patrol near Shanghai to protect nationals living in the city, if necessary.
75 years ago
Sept. 3, 1949
• “Today closes the greatest celebration and festival ever attempted in this county,” the Daily American Republic said in a front-page editorial. The paper praised Butler County residents for contributing their time, money and convenience to bring the massive Centennial Jubilee to fruition, including parades, contests, historical exhibits and, for the closing act, “The Butler County Story.”
This gargantuan stage production was written and organized by Mrs. Carl Abington and presented on the Poplar Bluff High School athletic field. The 260-member presented a theatrical and musical interpretation of Butler County’s history, from colonization to modernity, in front of a massive painted backdrop of Poplar Bluff’s titular bluff and the Black River.
Besides human actors, the show featured a cow and a juvenile black bear. The latter was brought to Poplar Bluff by a hunter of highly questionable judgment after a hunting trip in Minnesota.
A final parade today will bring the celebration to a close. County schools will reopen Sept. 6 after closing for the festivities.
50 years ago
Sept. 3, 1974
• Butler County residents survived a precise tornado strike on Aug. 31.
The DAR reported today that Mr. and Mrs. Glen Chronister, with their daughter Shannon McGavck and 2-year-old granddaughter Shannon Bond, escaped without injury when the tail of a twister touched down. Three large trees were blown down near their mobile home.
The Chronisters lived 1.5 miles north of Poplar Bluff on Highway W. Their neighbor Geno Ward also had a close call. He was working under a car in his driveway when the wind snapped a nearby tree; its forked tree top fell 40 feet and straddled the car instead of crushing it.
Tornado sightings with some wind and lightning damage were also reported east of Lake Wappapello.
In an odd twist, after the tornado Glen Chronister discovered his business, Pop’s Pit Bar-B-Q, had been broken into.