April 9, 2025: TIMES PAST compiled by Sue Ann Jones
This 1910 photo, shared with the Ozark County Historium by the late Ken Brown several years ago, shows the Kansas City, Ozark and Southern Train at the Ava train depot, which stood on the site of the present-day Ava High School parking lot and operated the 15 miles between Ava and Mansfield from 1910 until 1935. It was the second shortest rail line in Missouri. Indications were that the line would be extended into Ozark County, but those plans failed to materialize. Known locally as the Ava Southern, the rail line’s primary cargo was hand-hewn railroad ties, and later, canned tomatoes, but it also hauled walnut logs, cattle and other freight, according to a history of the railroad by Michael Boylink published in the April 11, 2019, edition of the Douglas County Herald. In later years, self-powered passenger coaches also operated on the rail line. When the railroad went into foreclosure, it was rescued by the city of Ava and managed for a while by the town’s bank president. In 1935, the year it closed, notices in the Herald reported the county collector’s suit against the railroad for unpaid taxes.
Ozark County News
April 12, 1883
A large number of homestead applications were made the past week, and land is being taken up more rapidly now than ever before in Ozark [County].
April 11, 1895
The people of the [Lilly Ridge] district deserve much credit for the effort they have made in building up an educational interest. . . . They have just finished their new schoolhouse which is one among the finest in the county. The house is a monument of modern workmanship, large and well lighted (however it was illuminated by gas on the evening referred to, J. W. Terry furnishing the gas) and ventilated.
Bakersfield Boomerang
April 19, 1902
The relief committee distributed 120 bushels of seed corn and 35 bushels of seed potatoes last Monday. This was contributed by the St. Louis merchants and has [illegible] in connection with the seed the government is to furnish. The carload of cotton seed which was expected to have been donated has not yet materialized.
Ozark County Times
April 10, 1925
William Fleetwood, charged with murder as a result of the fatal injuring of Lon Moffis at the Fleetwood home near Blanche on March 15, was arrested and brought before Justice E. W. Ebrite of this city on April 2, by whom he was placed under a $5,000 bond for his appearance before him for preliminary hearing on April 11.
April 12, 1945
Word came to the parents of Audie Ray Luna that he was wounded in the Philippines on March 17th. Later they were informed that he had died of those wounds soon afterwards. . . . Luna was born October 14, 1917 and was a graduate of the Gainesville High School. He was inducted into the army on June 4, 1941. He was sent to Fort Leonard Wood, where he was stationed for about two years. Later he was sent to . . . the Hawaiian Islands. Four months afterwards he landed on New Guinea, and on January 9, 1945, he landed on the Philippine Island of Luzon, where death came soon after March 17.
April 10, 1965
Paul Roy and Raymond Epley were elected as the two on the board of education for the coming year for the Dora R3 school district after the absentee ballots had been counted. At the close of the balloting last Tuesday only a margin of 15 votes existed between the leading candidate and the man receiving the lowest number among the four candidates, so the election had to be decided by the absentee votes.
The proposal to extend the city limits of Gainesville has been filed with the Ozark county circuit court, which has to give its approval before a special election can be held. . . . The extension would follow a line along Harlin Drive past the Dr. M. J. Hoerman and Mrs. Edith Gaulding properties to Highway 5 and then due west to include the Rose Snell and Will Luna properties, then south to a line west of the Rex Ebrite, Perry Cowart, Wilber Coward and Gary Morrison properties to Highway 160.
April 12, 1995
"I guess when people ask what it feels like to have nothing, I can tell them," said Billy Joe Tackitt as he watched his Caulfield home burn Friday afternoon. Just three weeks ago, Billy Joe and Patsy Tackitt lost their business, a shop building on Howell County Road 7830 near Caulfield, to fire.