For The Big Rriver Freaks Like Me

[jdmidwest]

Pretty impressive structure for the day. What was its demise, fire or flood?

[Al Agnew]

A bit of history of Morse Mill, from my notes for a possible book on the rivers in the Meramec Basin:

The mill was built by John H. Morse, who settled in the area in 1847. It was was the most prosperous and longest lasting grist mill in Southeast Missouri, operating until well into the Great Depression. Today the dam is mostly gone, and there is nothing left of the mill itself but the stone foundation.

Morse was a contractor and bridge builder, and built the Sandy Creek Covered Bridge, one the few covered bridges still standing in Missouri. He also built the iron frame bridge at Morse Mill, which is also still standing, though expected to be torn down soon. In the early 1870s Morse erected his three story frame home in the settlement bearing his name. Later, it was used as a hotel, and the guest list boasted such luminaries as Charles Lindbergh and Clara Bow.

The heyday of the hotel was during the Roaring 20s, when Morse Mill became a thriving resort community. Local legend has it that Al Capone spent time there, and the hotel was a busy speakeasy where the booze never stopped flowing. There were cottages along the river, and swimming, fishing, dancing, and gambling were all very popular.

Another guest at the hotel was Bertha Gifford, sometimes called America's first female serial killer. Allegedly, she killed her first victim at the hotel. Gifford went on to kill, by arsenic poisoning, as many as 17 people. She had been known in local communities for her cooking skills and her care for sick people, and supposedly she believed in the curative powers of arsenic. A number of her victims were children. She was finally arrested and charged with the murders of three local people, and the bodies were exhumed and found to have died of arsenic poisoning. She was found not guilty by reason of insanity, and spent the rest of her life in the Missouri State Mental Hospital in Farmington, dying in 1951.

The resort community declined during the Depression, but the hotel still stands, and has a local reputation for being haunted, thanks in part to the linkage to Bertha Gifford's history. Though it is in poor condition, the present owner is in the process of rehabilitating it. Meanwhile, he offers paranormal tours of the old building.

[jdmidwest]

A bit of history of Morse Mill, from my notes for a possible book on the rivers in the Meramec Basin:

The mill was built by John H. Morse, who settled in the area in 1847. It was was the most prosperous and longest lasting grist mill in Southeast Missouri, operating until well into the Great Depression. Today the dam is mostly gone, and there is nothing left of the mill itself but the stone foundation.

Morse was a contractor and bridge builder, and built the Sandy Creek Covered Bridge, one the few covered bridges still standing in Missouri. He also built the iron frame bridge at Morse Mill, which is also still standing, though expected to be torn down soon. In the early 1870s Morse erected his three story frame home in the settlement bearing his name. Later, it was used as a hotel, and the guest list boasted such luminaries as Charles Lindbergh and Clara Bow.

The heyday of the hotel was during the Roaring 20s, when Morse Mill became a thriving resort community. Local legend has it that Al Capone spent time there, and the hotel was a busy speakeasy where the booze never stopped flowing. There were cottages along the river, and swimming, fishing, dancing, and gambling were all very popular.

Another guest at the hotel was Bertha Gifford, sometimes called America's first female serial killer. Allegedly, she killed her first victim at the hotel. Gifford went on to kill, by arsenic poisoning, as many as 17 people. She had been known in local communities for her cooking skills and her care for sick people, and supposedly she believed in the curative powers of arsenic. A number of her victims were children. She was finally arrested and charged with the murders of three local people, and the bodies were exhumed and found to have died of arsenic poisoning. She was found not guilty by reason of insanity, and spent the rest of her life in the Missouri State Mental Hospital in Farmington, dying in 1951.

The resort community declined during the Depression, but the hotel still stands, and has a local reputation for being haunted, thanks in part to the linkage to Bertha Gifford's history. Though it is in poor condition, the present owner is in the process of rehabilitating it. Meanwhile, he offers paranormal tours of the old building.

So what was the mills demise?

[joeD]

"Mills?"

"Mills!"

Yeah, we'll get right on it.

The demise of the mill was and is the march of time running roughshod over everything we do.

Or, if you don't like my sarcasm, then how about this: When that picture was taken, women couldn't vote and our black brothers were being mutilated and hung from trees on a regular basis.

The demise of mills occurred because we didn't (and don't) need them anymore.

Old pictures are cool. I get it. But don't romanticize the past as something better, or simpler, or more worthy of humanity.

[exiledguide]

History ignored is history repeated. Grist mills and water power were high tech at the time. In 2009 I road on the Erie canal out of Pittsford NY most people don't understand the signifigence of the Erie Canal and how it changed American history or even the Eads Bridge over the Mississippi at St Louis. People with your attitude burned the Library at Alexandria. Lack of history lead large cities in Europe to be built in Europe without sanitary sewers even though 1500 years prior the Romans had flush toilets and running water and sewers.

[lee G.]

simpler?? I kinda thought it was, I didnt need to know binary in those days.

OH, exiled, you forgot the hot water the romans had, lol

[fisheye]

The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false.

--Paul Johnson

[Mitch f]

Love old pictures.

Notice how they are just pictures, moment in time, as opposed to composed and self conscious?

I don't know where it is.

Yes, such a pleasure to see as opposed to self portraits with an iPhone making a duck face and trying to spruce up the photo with Instagram special effects! All these new Michael Angelos out there! The last pic is more like a Monet painting

[snagged in outlet 3]

Cool!

I spent a lot of time there in my late teens and early twenties which was in the early to mid 1980's.

As I recall the booze was flowing then too.

Thx Smallie.

Snagged

[Old plug]

Very cool pics. I wonder how the Smallie fishing was back then? May not of been very good with all of the pollutants folks would dump without any knowledge (or care) about the damage being done.

Well it would depend on where you were. As far pollution goes. Those rivers get run over now with every summer person around. They use the rivers for a potty chair among other things. I think there is more of a pollution threat today than then. But back then there was no conservation dept. People took what they wanted. I know in some areas like around Onandaga Cave dynamite was popular. My wife's grandfather did a lot of it.