Fulton, Missouri 1920 - 1960

Book excerpt: History of Fulton, Missouri 1920 -1960, using transcribed newspaper articles, contemporary records, and vintage photographs from the collection of the Kingdom of Callaway Historical Society. Includes chapters on Helen Stephens, the "Fulton Flash" who broke world records at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, chapters on Winston Churchill's visit to Fulton in 1946 and complete text of his "Iron Curtain" Sinews of Peace address, thought by historians to be the beginning of the cold war. Includes a chapter on the Metz brothers coal mine disaster in 1936 that killed four brothers, three who went down the shaft to save the first. Another chapter details the 1936 beating and torture of elderly black farm laborer, Bill Howe, by three white robbers from St. Louis, and the intensive two year effort by Howe's white neighbors and the Callaway Sheriff's Department to hunt down, convict, and punish those three white men. The growth and problems of Fulton's State Hospital No. 1, Missouri's largest institution for the mentally ill is followed through the forty year period. Early coal mines, the firebrick industry and the shoe manufacturing factories are chronicled with pictures of employees and stories about strikes, protests, and layoffs. This history tells the story of a town, primarily through direct transcription of events reported in the newspapers of the time.