​     Often genealogy searches lead me to a dead end because of my inability to verify a person’s name. In a large family several off-spring might name their children after a parent or grandparent, leaving me no precise answers.
     This frustration led to my investing in another online program,  Newspapers.com. It not only helps me find wedding announcements and obituaries, with family names and dates, but I can also look up pioneer newspapers. 
     In researching old newspapers with news of Grain Valley, one can begin with The Kansas City Times and Star, circa 1880,  The Buckner Star, circa 1890s, The Buckner Tribune, circa 1897, The Jackson County Examiner, circa 1898, or The Examiner, circa 1898, which became The Independence Examiner in 1905.
     I find the articles to be most informative and fascinating like this news item that appeared in “Missouri Notes” in The Kansas City Star on January 17, 1905.  It read “Grain Valley people must get noisy very easily. The Grain Valley correspondent of The Sni-A-Bar Voice says: Everybody is loud in their praise of the new gasoline lamp which the ladies bought for the church.” 
     Okay, so it is not the most earthshattering news.
     When I put The Sni-A-Bar Voice into the search line, I came up with the following information. The first issue of The Voice (serving Sni-A-Bar Township) was published by David C. Herrington (my great, great uncle) in Blue Springs, MO, in July, 1901. 
      It also gave me 1,283 hits with the word Sni-A-Bar. While I have only gotten through about half of them, I want to share one I found to be quite amusing. It appeared in December, 1914.
 
Missouri Man Tells of the Most Remarkable Results of His Printing
It pays to advertise.
      “We are doing a superfine line of advertising in our office just now,” says the Sni-A-Bar Voice, “and our sale bills are the talk of the county. Week before last we got out an order of bills for a farmer north of town and they were so attractive and nifty that he couldn’t begin to take care of the crowds that flocked to the sale.
     After getting top price for every animal, implement and article on the bill the auctioneer simply couldn’t stop. The people just clamored for more.
The farmer, in the hopes of driving them away, put up his mother-in-law. She brought $160 on the hoof. Then he offered his mortgage for sale.
     A lifelong friendship between two old neighbors was shattered as each tried to outbid the other. It was finally knocked down to the richest man, who was promptly knocked down by the poorer.
     He sold the weeds along the roadside. He sold a gold brick that he bought in Chicago at the World’s Fair. He sold the ruts in the road in front of his place and then offered to sell the secret of where he had the sale bills printed. We cannot give the results as the returns are not all in. They are bidding yet. That’s the kind of sale bills we print.” – Sni-A-Bar Voice.
 
     This “advertisement” drew the attention of newspapers throughout the Midwest.  As I stated, I’ve only perused about half of the over twelve hundred hits for Sni-A-Bar, but I found the story reprinted in The Kansas City Times, The Sedan Times Star (Sedan, Kansas), The Shreveport Times (Shreveport, Louisiana), The Overbrook Citizen (Overbrook, Kansas), The New Era (Davenport, Oklahoma), Indiana Gazette (Indiana, Pennsylvania), and The Sun (Glasco, Kansas) to name a few.  I don’t know how much business they received from their ad, but they certainly got attention.
 
     Over the new few weeks, I hope to find more stories to share from the newspapers that have served Grain Valley over the past century.
 
Visit the Grain Valley Historical Society at 506 S. Main on Wednesdays or visit us online at ww.grainvalleyhistory.com and Facebook (@grainvalleyhistory).
 

     The "Missouri Waltz", became the  state song of Missouri under an act adopted by the General Assembly on June 30, 1949. Lee Edgar Settle, a well known ragtime piano player wrote and played, The Graveyard Waltz, which was the actual melody for the "Missouri Waltz" was first published in 1914. 
     Sales increased substantially after Missourian Harry S. Truman became president, and it was reported that the "Missouri Waltz" was his favorite song. Although, when asked about his feelings the following reply was published by the White House: 
     "President's attitude towards the song? He can take it or leave it. Is it really his favorite? No. Does he play it often? No. Is Margaret ever heard singing it? No. What is the President's reaction to the song's adoption as the Missouri as state song? See answer to first question."
     The song is played by the University of Missouri's Marching Mizzou at every home football game to a unique marching style in 3/4 time.
 

     The Voice, circa 2017, is an on-line newsletter I have been producing to promote the Grain Valley Historical Society. Like these articles for Valley News, I sometimes struggle to come up with a “feature” for each edition. 
     For January, 2021, I wanted to write about a New Year’s Eve from the past. I remembered some old photographs and newspaper articles sent to me several years ago by a cousin in Oklahoma. I remembered that one of the articles mentioned a New Year’s Eve Watch Party that had been attended by my parents. 
     What I did not remember was that the article appeared in a newspaper entitled The Free Press, and just below the title, the words “GRAIN VALLEY, MO. THURSDAY, JANUARY 8, 1932”.
     Needless to say, I became curious about this paper. Since it is Volume 1, was this the first edition? My research has revealed very little about the paper. I have only learned that this paper was “a weekly newspaper, published every Thursday by the Free Press Publishers.” J. C. Simpson was the editor and manager and R. K. Jones was the advertising and circulation manager. The paper provided the following information: For insertion of late news items phone Victor 2518, Kansas City, Mo. KANSAS CITY OFFICE 734 Cherry Street.
     Further investigation revealed that as early as 1925, the Pruitt Publishing Co. was operating from the same location on Cherry Street in Kansas City and they were placing advertisements in Popular Mechanics Magazine and another publication called American Fox and Fur Farmer. Yes, one hundred years ago there really was a magazine by that name.          
     Since becoming a town in 1878, Grain Valley has been served by a number of newspapers.  The Kansas City Evening Star, co-founded September 18, 1880, by William Rockhill Nelson and Samuel E. Morss has provided us with national and world news. However, it is from the small, local papers from the Oak Grove Banner established in 1890, or the Sni-A-Bar Voice established in 1901, through the Jackson County Democrat, established in 1952, The Pointe,  established in 1998 and finally our current Valley News that citizens of our town have received the local news.  Over the next few weeks, I hope to give you a history of all of the papers and a glimpse at the “big stories.”
 

​     It is probably no wonder that gift wrap as we know it started in Kansas City, Missouri. On January 10, 1910, a teenager from Nebraska stepped off a train in KC with little more than big dreams and two shoeboxes of picture postcards. From those inauspicious beginnings an iconic brand was born.
    The first foray into other product lines came in 1917 when the Hall brothers “invented” modern gift wrap. During the peak Christmas season, their stationery store ran out of solid-colored gift dressing, which in those days was plain tissue paper.
     The brothers improvised by selling fancy decorated French envelope linings. Those sold out so quickly that they decided to begin printing their own gift wrap. The teenager was Joyce Hall, and as they say, "...the rest is history."
 

     From a December 27, 1995 article by Forrest Martin in the Examiner:
    “Grain Valley planners soon will look into changing some ordinances to reflect the city’s recent growth.
     City administrator Tim Ryan said the city’s population has grown from 1,898 as shown in the 1990 US Census to an estimated 2,650 today.
    ‘By the year 2000, the population is expected to be 4,402, and by 2005, it is projected to be 7,225,’ Ryan said.”
     The article details efforts by Ron Eilers, the city’s building inspector and code enforcement officer, and the Planning Commission, to undergo the first major revision to the city’s zoning ordinance since 1989.
     Updates included mandating paved commercial parking lots, rather than chipped and sealed lots.
     “Proposed too, are several new zoning districts. These would include ‘non-retail business’ and ‘controlled business’.
     “These would both be appropriate between retail and residential areas,” Eiler said. “They would allow office uses, day-care centers, small restaurants, all better as a buffer than having something like a grocery store backing up to a neighborhood.”
     The article continues, “Several steps would be taken to get public opinion on the topic. After the Planning Commission reviews it, builders and engineers would get to comment. The commission would then refine the proposal and have a public hearing on the final draft.”
     “At the same time the city is working on coming up with these new rules, it hopes to complete work on a comprehensive plan for the whole city that would include some of these new zoning districts.
     ‘We hope to have the city adopt the new regulations and the comprehensive plan about the same time,’ Eiler said.”
     “It will allow us to get a handle on and plan our growth over the next 15 to 20 years,” he said.
 

​     What started in 1925 with a single strand of 16 colored lights has evolved into one of America's most famous Christmas lighting displays. 
     Known simply as the Plaza lights, the first lighting ceremony took place in 1930. The only time the Plaza lights were not turned on was in 1973, when then-President Richard Nixon called for curtailing the use of Christmas lights to reduce dependence on foreign oil.
     This year's 91st lighting ceremony will be remembered as the first and let's hope the only "virtual" event! 
 

     I grew up in a much smaller Grain Valley when four school buses delivered everyone to and from school. By the time I reached high school the buses each had two routes. There was a longer route for kids in “the country” and a shorter route of maybe 5 or 6 miles for the kids that lived closer to town.
     Tyer Road was on one of the short bus routes that traveled from the school, turned west on RD Mize to Brizendine Road where it turned around and headed back east to Tyer Road. The bus turned north on Tyer to Duncan, west on Duncan to Porter Road where the bus would again turn around and head back to school. 
     In all, the bus drove past only about 15 houses. Back in the early 1950s, only three of them were on Tyer Road between RD Mize Road and Duncan Road if you didn’t count the Shrout House on the northwest corner of Mize and Tyer. 
     The Officer Family lived in the first house, (opposite of where the water tower is today)  The bus picked up Linda Corne  at the “Old Tyer Place” at the curve in the road and further down toward Duncan was Vickie Brown’s house. I really don’t remember her family but I think she had brothers.  They didn’t live there very long.
     Luther Tyer’s parents were John Wilson Tyer (1839-1919) and Amanda Isabel George (1847-1879).  They owned farmland with a post office address of Napoleon and Mr. Tyer was an officer at the Bank of Buckner. Amanda’s parents were David C. and Nancy George of Oak Grove.
      Luther Wilson Tyer (1873-1945) was living at Lake City, Missouri in December of 1896 when he married Paulina Agnes Dalton (1874-1952). “Lina” was the daughter of Lucy (1842-1931) and Reverend James G. Dalton (1824-1910) who served as the pastor at Lobb Cumberland Presbyterian Church for over 50 years. 
     Many members of the Dalton and Tyer families are buried in the Lobb Cemetery on the west side of  Missouri Highway 7. At Strode Road go West ½ mile to Lobb Cemetery Road and then North ½ mile to the cemetery.
     According to the U.S. Census of 1910, Luther Tyer, his wife Lina and their infant son, Dalton Luther Tyer lived in Sni-A-Bar Township northwest of Grain Valley. Luther was a farmer and later a WPA carpenter.  After Luther’s death in 1945 his wife moved to Chicago to live with their only son, Dalton.
     He was a teacher in the Chicago area for a number of years before his retirement in California. The Tyer house and land was first sold to a family named Shepard.  Glen and Willa Belle Corne bought the house and land in 1953. 
     Take a drive down Tyer Road. While a couple of the old houses are gone, the Tyer house is still there.  It would appear that much of the farm land has been divided into 5 to 10-acre plots with more than 10 newer and much larger homes along the route.  And that is all on the mile of Tyer Road before you reach Duncan Road!
 

     In last week’s column, I mentioned there were thirteen children in the McQuerry family who lived on McQuerry Road, northeast of Grain Valley.  Ruby Elizabeth McQuerry, the seventh child, married Elmer Sylvester Duncan and they lived northwest of Grain Valley on Duncan Road.
     Sanford Sylvester Duncan came with his family from Kentucky in the 1890s. For a while he resided in Fort Osage Township where he met and married Matilda Mae Vanarsdale in 1901. They had five children, Elmer Sylvester, 1902-1977; Spurgon Arthur, 1904-1983; Lola Mae, 1906-1979; Wilbert Lyle, 1909-1962; and Bessie Gertrude, 1911-1989. Spurgon moved to Marceline, Missouri, Lola Mae moved to Independence, and Bessie lived in Sedalia.
     My father would from time-to-time talk about Lyle Duncan who worked on Sni-A-Bar Farms from his high school years until the farm dispersal sale in 1945. Lyle’s main job was working with the grade cattle in the barns on Ryan Road.
     When the farm was sold, Lyle moved his wife Ann Laure (Lierman) Duncan and their family to Mt. Kisco in the state of New York.  He managed a cattle operation there until his death in 1962.
     Only Elmer remained in Grain Valley. Although the 1910 U. S. Census reported that Sanford Duncan farmed on rented property, at some point the farm was purchased. Growing up, I remember the Duncan farm just west of Tyer Road. Ruby graduated from Grain Valley High School in 1921 and Elmer graduated in 1923.
     They were married on September 11, 1925 and the had one daughter Paulina Duncan Graff, Class of 1948. The Duncans were members of the Grain Valley Christian Church and Mr. Duncan served on the Grain Valley School Board from the late 1940s until 1956. 
 
Now that I’ve mentioned Tyer Road, I suppose I will tell you about Luther and Paulina Tyer next week! 

     The Gateway Arch in St. Louis is the tallest monument in America at 630 feet.  It is 75 feet taller than the Washington Monument and over twice as tall as the Statue of Liberty. Mr. Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Zenfell (1917-2012) was the Supervisory Park Engineer during the construction of the Gateway Arch. Zenfell grew up in Vicksburg and Clarksdale, Mississippi where his Lebanese immigrant parents operated a general store. He earned an engineering degree at Mississippi State University before joining the Park Service. 
 
Personal note: His daughter, Jennifer, became my Alpha Delta Pi pledge daughter at the University of Missouri in 1965.