Volume 3, Number 2 - Spring 1968
The Stone County Booklet (1927)
Continued from Winter 1967-68
Our County Sheriff
Mr. John Parker, sheriff of Stone County, is a very strong prohibitionist. And, it is said that he can smell moonshine corn juice "a cookin' clean across the County". He also believes in enforcing the laws of Missouri against gambling, thieving or any other dishonorable conduct, and he selects his deputy sheriffs accordingly, and we have as clean a county to offer to industrious, law-abiding homeseekers as any county in the state. Mr. Parker, in belief is a Hardshell Baptist, who does not seem to know what fear is, and he says, "What is to be will be, and if I ain't to be killed no body can kill me; and if I am to be killed no body can prevent it, and I'll be ready to go when my time comes, but I'm shore goin' after law violators while I'm sheriff".
Stone County Products
Stone County soil and climate will produce a medium crop of fine corn, wheat and oats. The Fall wheat that took first premium at the World's Fair in Chicago was raised by Uncle Tom Rutledge, near Neosho, Mo., on Ozark Valley land, and the flour that received first prize was made by a St. Louis Milling company from Uncle Tom's wheat. But there are counties in the central part of Missouri and other states that will produce more bushels of corn, wheat, and oats per acre than Stone County, but not any better quality.
But Stone County will compare both in quantity and quality with any county in production (with proper care and cultivation) of apples, cherries, grapes, strawberries, tomatoes, tobacco, blue grass, orchard grass, white, red, and sweet clover, soy beans, cow peas, and vegetables.
What History Says
Read carefully what the latest history written by Walter B. Stevens in 1915 says of the Ozarks:- "Col. J. L. Tory, who practiced law for twenty years in St Louis and framed the present bankrupt law, afterwards moved to Wyoming and very success fully conducted a large cattle ranch. Later he made a trip to the Ozarks, and after satisfying himself regarding the soil, water, and climate, he purchased 11,000 acres of Ozark land and raised thereon 167 varieties of grains, grasses, vegetables and fruits, many of his products taking first premium at the Missouri State Fair. No other country has ever produced so large a variety of soil products as the Ozarks."
"Some year ago a noted Scotchman came from Glasgow to examine the Ozarks and after investigating he exclaimed, "This reminds me of my 'ain Heelands.' In 1895 a thoughtful man stood looking over a large map of the United States hanging in the lobby of the House of Representatives in Washington, D.C., and pointing to the Ozarks Country he said, "here is the place where an industrious man with small means can go and be almost certain of making good".
The Shepherd of the Hills Country
It was in this country that Harold Bell Wright, an old friend of the writer, some twenty years ago spent a summer vacation near wonderful Marvel Cave in Stone County and wrote "The Shepherd of the Hills". The four seasons of the year, spring, summer, fall and winter,-are mild, pleasant and healthful, and its rivers of fine clear water make the lives of good men and women happy and hospitable.
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