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But Callaway Wants No More of Ruinous War-Time Markets BY HOWARD FLIEGER FULTON, Mo., June 15—(AP) The sad-eyed, hard-headed Missouri mule may be rolling the caissons across the mud of European battlefields. But the thought stirred nothing gave bitter memories tonight in “the kingdom of Callaway’’—an aloof patch of Dixie in the heart of Missouri where the mule reigned supreme in the World War. The French have bought 250 mules in Missouri since Christmas. Fabulous fortune came to the Callaway county mule feeders from the war markets of 1914 to 1918. Farmers found foreign and domestic buyers clamoring for their comical-eared giants. Big red mule barns were thicker than hay stacks on the Grand Prairie. There was quick cash money to be made—cash in quantities the like of which ‘‘the kingdom'’ had never seen. Then, swift as it came, it was gone. Stockmen, made paupers over night, roamed the barns, patting the sleek thighs of the animals that literally were eating them out of house and home. Wrecked by Last War Mule feeding — developing adult stock and fattening it for market—still is a good, steady business in Callaway county, but old-timers say it never will re turn to its hey-day. Most of them want no part of another ‘war market. e last one almost ruined things. It might have wrecked anything without the stamina of ‘‘the kingdom of Cal laway.” The “kingdom” came by its name in the Civil War. Its proud southern families stuck to the Confederacy when all Missouri about it had gone to the North Callaway county stood apart—a rebel state in the realm of the Union. In 1861, when loyal Missouri forces were about to invade the county to “bring its citizens un der subjection to the Union,’’ Callaway county mobilized a home guard to meet the attack. Gen. John B. Henderson, com manding the northern forces, agreed that the loyal militia would abandon the invasion if Callaway would disband its home guard. Thus, in effect, the soveriegnty of the county was conceded. At the close of the Civil War, when Missouri legislators were required to announce their loyal ty to the Union, up jumped Rep. John Sampson, of Callaway county, to ‘shout: “I’m 6 feet 4 inches high. I come from ‘the kingdom of Cal errree I am disloyal, by Expelled For Words Sampson was expelled from the legislature and ‘‘the’ king dom of Callaway”’ was born. You can still get a Civil War argu ment at the drop of a hat on Fulton’s courthouse square. But long before the war years Callaway county was sending prize mules from its rolling hills and high grassy plains to the plantations of the south. Before the railroad came in 1872 ‘‘king dom mules’’ were being driven overland or shipped down river to the markets of the world. Mule feeding was a comfortable, dependable business. Still even the canny mule trad ers of ‘‘the kingdom” weren't ready for the prosperity that hit them ‘with the first World War. Buyers rushed the mule barns with cash in their pockets, has ti me to out-bid one another. rices went to the skies, Ful ton newspapers of the period are black with advertisements of mule sales. In one sale alone these prices were paid: ‘‘Pair 4- year-old mare mules, $600. One mare mule $265.’ *It was a shod dy mule that brought less than $200. It was a high riding, wartime market. * Money was free,’’ said Ovid Bell, a newspaper publisher in the boom years. *“ The feeders came to town and bought tailored clothes, things they’d never had before. It was nothing for a man to go to the bank and get financial peer to buy mules. The n he could feed them $000 and turn a substantial lots of Callaway county families had more than $100,000 turning over in the mule busi ness, and that was a lot more Money than it would be today.” 1918 came Armistice Day, it found the mule barns of Cal laway county jammed with sleek, fat mules, carried to a vel vet sheen—and with no place to go but back to the farm. One Man Saved Money By late January, 1919, the market was gone. Prices drop ped half in two. Callaway feed ers found themselves with for tunes tied up in mules they couldn’t peddle at any price. Much of the quick war profits vanished in costly, feed while they kept their mules fat, wait ing for the break that never . ey tell a story in Fulton Societe. One male man escaped
Newspaper Details
Jefferson City News and Tribune
Jefferson City, Missouri, US
Sun, Jun 16, 1940
Page 8
Full Page
Clipped by
Cori D.
USA 26 Jun 2026
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