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The real-life mystery of a catastrophic blast in 1920s Missouri that killed dozens at a Friday night dance and shattered an Ozark town. One rainy night in 1928, a crowd, many of them the sons and daughters of prominent local citizens, gathered for a weekly dance held at Bond Hall. The explosion that occurred as midnight approached transformed Bond Hall into a raging inferno, left thirty-nine dead, and sparked feverish national media attention and decades of bitterness in the Missouri Ozark town. And while the story inspired a popular country song, the firestorm remains an unsolved mystery. In this first book on the notorious catastrophe, Lin Waterhouse presents a clear account of the event and its aftermath that judiciously weighs conflicting testimony and deeply respects the personal anguish experienced by parents forced to identify their children by their clothing and personal trinkets. Based on extensive research into archival records and illustrated with numerous photos, this is a fascinating account of a heartbreaking disaster and the town it tore apart.
The 1928 explosion that transformed a West Plains dance hall into a raging inferno sparked feverish national media attention and decades of bitterness in the Missouri town it tore apart. And while the story inspired a popular country song, the firestorm that claimed thirty-nine lives remains an unsolved mystery. In this first book on the notorious catastrophe, Lin Waterhouse presents a clear account of the event and its aftermath that judiciously weighs conflicting testimony and deeply respects the personal anguish experienced by parents forced to identify their children by their clothing and personal trinkets.
On the eve of the Civil War, West Plains was a sleepy county seat with a population of 150 and a wood-frame courthouse in its town square. During the war, this Southern Missouri town was burned, abandoned, and eventually reconstructed. With the arrival of the railroad in 1883, West Plains turned boomtown, and photographers were among the first entrepreneurs to arrive. This volume of vintage photographs documents the town as it grew, struggled, and prospered over the next 50 years. Pictured here are the washwomen and the bankers, the circuses and the fires, the schools and homes that helped build the West Plains of today.
In 1929, an explosion in a Missouri dance hall killed forty-two people. Who was to blame? Mobsters from St Louis? Embittered gypsies? The preacher who cursed the waltzing couples for their sins? Or could it just have been a colossal accident? Alma Dunahew, whose scandalous younger sister was among the dead, believes the answer lies in a dangerous love affair, but no one will listen to a maid from the wrong side of the tracks. It is only decades later that her grandson hears her version of events - and must decide if it is the right one.
From the new Fannie Flagg of the Ozarks, a richly-woven story of family, forgiveness, and reinvention for readers of Kristy Harvey Woodson, Donna Everhart, Sue Monk Kidd, Jeannette Walls, and Rita Mae Brown. “A vivid blend of sensorial writing, historical detail, and memorable characters await in this compelling, surprising, insightful story of the weight of long-held secrets and the resulting hunger for truth.” —Susan Meissner, USA Today bestselling author of Only the Beautiful Drawing on the little-known true story of one tragic night at an Ozarks dance hall in the author’s Missouri hometown, this beautifully written, endearingly nostalgic novel picks up 50 years later for a folksy, character-driven portrayal of small-town life, split second decisions, and the ways family secrets reverberate through generations. Daisy Flowers is fifteen in 1978 when her free-spirited mother dumps her in Possum Flats, Missouri. It’s a town that sounds like roadkill and, in Daisy’s eyes, is every bit as dead. Sentenced to spend the summer living with her grandmother, the wry and irreverent town mortician, Daisy draws the line at working for the family business, Flowers Funeral Home. Instead, she maneuvers her way into an internship at the local newspaper where, sorting through the basement archives, she learns of a mysterious tragedy from fifty years earlier… On a sweltering, terrible night in 1928, an explosion at the local dance hall left dozens of young people dead, shocking and scarring a town that still doesn’t know how or why it happened. Listed among the victims is a name that’s surprisingly familiar to Daisy, revealing an irresistible family connection to this long-ago accident. Obsessed with investigating the horrors and heroes of that night, Daisy soon discovers Possum Flats holds a multitude of secrets for a small town. And hardly anyone who remembers the tragedy is happy to have some teenaged hippie asking questions about it – not the fire-and-brimstone preacher who found his calling that tragic night; not the fed-up police chief; not the mayor’s widow or his mistress; not even Daisy’s own grandmother, a woman who’s never been afraid to raise eyebrows in the past, whether it’s for something she’s worn, sworn, or done for a living. Some secrets are guarded by the living, while others are kept by the dead, but as buried truths gradually come into the light, they’ll force a reckoning at last. Inspired by the true story of the Bond Dance Hall explosion, a tragedy that took place in the author’s hometown of West Plains, Missouri on April 13, 1928. The cause of the blast has never been determined.
A traveling salesman with little formal education, Max Hunter gravitated to song catching and ballad hunting while on business trips in the Ozarks. Hunter recorded nearly 1600 traditional songs by more than 200 singers from the mid-1950s through the mid-1970s, all the while focused on preserving the music in its unaltered form. Sarah Jane Nelson chronicles Hunter’s song collecting adventures alongside portraits of the singers and mentors he met along the way. The guitar-strumming Hunter picked up the recording habit to expand his repertoire but almost immediately embraced the role of song preservationist. Being a local allowed Hunter to merge his native Ozark earthiness with sharp observational skills to connect--often more than once--with his singers. Hunter’s own ability to be present added to that sense of connection. Despite his painstaking approach, ballad collecting was also a source of pleasure for Hunter. Ultimately, his dedication to capturing Ozarks song culture in its natural state brought Hunter into contact with people like Vance Randolph, Mary Parler, and non-academic folklorists who shared his values.
In this small-town mystery, a retired teacher moves to the Ozark mountains, where her eager manner ruffles some feathers—and unearths dark secrets. Retired schoolteacher Caroline Hudson has moved to Hickory Bend, Missouri, to embrace small-town life. But her eagerness to join the community only rouses the suspicions of longtime residents. Luckily, her friend Terry needs help fixing up the old Hunter’s Mill. Caroline is thrilled to learn about her new home through this historic building—especially when she discovers some fascinating documents hidden in the attic. These documents reveal family secrets of prejudice, pride, murder, and mayhem—just the kind of story that piques Caroline’s curiosity! But some residents would prefer to keep the unpleasantness buried in the past. When someone launches a cover-up as shocking and foolhardy as the original crime, it could bring a permanent end to Caroline’s new career in sleuthing . . .
Essays in Rough South, Rural South describe and discuss the work of southern writers who began their careers in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. They fall into two categories. Some, born into the working class, strove to become writers and learned without benefit of higher education, such writers as Larry Brown and William Gay. Others came from lower- or middle-class backgrounds and became writers through practice and education: Dorothy Allison, Tom Franklin, Tim Gautreaux, Clyde Edgerton, Kaye Gibbons, Silas House, Jill McCorkle, Chris Offutt, Ron Rash, Lee Smith, Brad Watson, Daniel Woodrell, and Steve Yarbrough. Their twenty-first-century colleagues are Wiley Cash, Peter Farris, Skip Horack, Michael Farris Smith, Barb Johnson, and Jesmyn Ward. In his seminal article, Erik Bledsoe distinguishes Rough South writers from such writers as William Faulkner and Erskine Caldwell. Younger writers who followed Harry Crews were born into and write about the Rough South. These writers undercut stereotypes, forcing readers to see the working poor differently. The next pieces begin with those on Crews and Cormac McCarthy, major influences on an entire generation. Later essays address members of both groups—the self-educated and the college-educated. Both groups share a clear understanding of the value of working-class southerners. Nearly all of the writers hold a reverence for the South's landscape and its inhabitants as well as an affinity for realistic depictions of setting and characters.