2001-2002 Official Manual, Chapter 1, Pages 11 - Secretary of State

CHAPTER 1

Missouri Almanac

Dedication of the Simon Bolivar Memorial Statue, Bolivar, July 5, 1948.President Harry S Truman, Governor Phil M. Donnelly, and Mayor Doyle C.McCraw stand for the playing of the national anthem.(Missouri State Archives, Commerce and Industrial Development Collection)

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The City of Jefferson:The Permanent Seat of

Government, 1826–2001

The City of Jefferson—1826“The appearance of the place [is]somewhat fatigueing”

Ambivalence, uncertainty, and discomforthung like clouds of gloom over the MissouriGeneral Assembly members who gathered in theCity of Jefferson (more commonly known in lateryears as “Jefferson City”) for their first officialmeeting on the third Monday in November1826. They had become accustomed to the rela-tive comfort provided by the much larger settle-ment of St. Charles, site of the temporary capitalsince Missouri’s admission to the Union in 1821.

Indeed, calling the place named for the thirdpresident of the United States a “city” in 1826reflected a quite liberal use of the term. JeffersonCity had thirty-one families in 1826 and no morethan a handful of businesses, including one hotel(the Rising Sun), a general store, a gristmill, a dis-tillery, several tan yards, and multiple dram shopsand taverns, most of them hastily opened toaccommodate the newly arriving lawmakers. Soill prepared was the city to host the first meetingof lawmakers in the new state capital that a num-ber of legislators were forced to stay in tents.More fortunate members, such as Dr. WilliamCarr Lane, who was also mayor of St. Louis, foundhousing with city residents. In a letter written in1826, Lane noted that he roomed with “MajorRamsay” and that he paid “$4.50 per weekbesides something for washing.” Lane’s pay for hislegislative work was $2.25 per day. He noted that“We lodge in a cabin containing 3 beds, such asthey are.” He concluded: “I will not detain youwith details, but sum up all in this—the businessof Legislating does not please over much.”

One of the first institutions established in theCity of Jefferson as a consequence of its status asstate capital was a newspaper and printing officeowned by Calvin Gunn, who hoped to makemoney by serving the new government’s printingneeds. Gunn called his newspaper theJeffersonian Republican, a title used to describethe members of the political party that arose inopposition to the Federalists during the lastdecade of the 18th century.

In the first issue of his newspaper (June 24,1826), Gunn wrote “a brief sketch of the City ofJefferson” for “our distant subscribers.” Much ofGunn’s description represented commentary onthe physical characteristics of the place, includ-ing “a series of promontories,” where the Capitol,Governor’s Mansion, and prison would set subse-quently, and the “intervening dells” betweenthem that “render the appearance of the placesomewhat fatigueing [sic].” Although the townwas still aborning, Gunn assured his readers that“improvements is [sic] the order of the day.”

The First State House“`Tis a rough looking city indeed”

The first state building erected in the newcapital city was a combination governor’s houseand legislative hall, erected near the site wherethe Governor’s Mansion now stands. In aNovember 18, 1826, article, Gunn described thebuilding as a ten-room structure, sixty by fortyfeet, “fronting the Missouri [River], on an emi-nence of two hundred feet above the level of itswaters.” It was in this building fourteen monthslater that Missourians came together for the firststatewide political convention held in the newcapital city. In January 1828 a number of thestate’s residents gathered to endorse the selectionof Tennessean Andrew Jackson as president ofthe United States. In addition to choosingJackson as its candidate, the convention, chairedby future governor Thomas Reynolds, also nomi-nated Daniel Dunklin to serve as Missouri’s chiefexecutive. Although Jackson was elected in1828, Dunklin had to wait until the 1832 elec-tion to be chosen as governor of the state.

Old Hickory was honored, also, in an annu-al celebration held on January 8 of each yearoutside the new state house. This gathering com-memorated General Jackson’s decisive victory atthe Battle of New Orleans in 1815. One suchcelebration nearly ended in disaster when cele-brants exploded five pounds of gunpowder infront of the Capitol. As the local newspaperexclaimed: “Such a report was never heardbefore or since in the City of the Hills. It was dis-tinctly heard at Fulton . . . the Legislature did nobusiness for a week, for there was not glassenough in the city to refill the windows of thecapitol and wagons had to be sent to neighbor-ing towns to make out a supply.”

Despite the assurances of Calvin Gunn in1826 that “improvements” were the order of theday in the City of Jefferson, many people thoughtthat converting this wilderness outpost into afunctioning, urban, governmental center wasnothing more than a pipe dream. No one cap-tured this sentiment better than John Shriver, acivil engineer from Baltimore, hired in the late1820s to survey a national highway fromWheeling, Virginia, westward to Missouri’s newcapital. In a letter dated August 9, 1829, Shriverwrote to his brother of his impression of the Cityof Jefferson: “`Tis a rough looking city indeed,and one which does not bid fair to become ofmuch importance.” Two years later, James S.Rollins visited the City of Jefferson. Some yearsafterward, he recalled that the city “was at thattime a small and insignificant village.”

13THE CITY OF JEFFERSON

Choosing a Capital SiteHow had it happened that this seemingly for-

saken place had been chosen to serve as the cap-ital of the state of Missouri? The first Missouri leg-islature, elected in August 1820, in anticipation ofthe state’s admission to the Union, convened inSt. Louis in September 1820. Fourteen state sena-tors and forty-three representatives chose St.Charles as the state’s temporary capital andappointed a five-member commission to choosea permanent seat of government. Eager to ensureinput from all Missourians, legislators specifiedthat commissioners must be chosen, “one fromeach part of the state, and one from the center.”

The five commissioners, James Logan ofWayne County, John Thornton of Howard, RobertG. Watson of New Madrid, John B. White ofPike, and James B. Boone of Montgomery, met atCote sans Dessein, in southern Callaway County,on the first Monday in May 1821. Commissionershad been directed by the state constitution tochoose a site on the Missouri River, within fortymiles of the mouth of the Osage River. Framers ofthe constitution hoped that by placing these geo-graphic requirements on the site, they wouldensure the capital’s central location and itsaccessibility to all Missourians. Ironically, theMissouri River, which in the 1820s was a majorartery for travel into the interior of the state,would become in less than a century an obstacleto gaining easy access to the capital. Indeed,

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making the capital city accessible to allMissourians would be a major concern of statelegislators for the next 175 years.

In addition to the requirement that the newpermanent seat of government be on theMissouri River and near the mouth of the OsageRiver, legislators decreed that the capital siteshould contain at least four sections (2,560 acres)of unclaimed public land, not yet distributed bythe government of the United States. This lastprovision excluded a site that many Missouriansthought might be chosen: the town of Cote sansDessein, where the commissioners met. Foundedin 1808 by old stock migrants to the region, Cotesans Dessein was in southern Callaway County,on the north shore of the Missouri River, and wasin the midst of highly desirable agricultural land.

The site ultimately chosen to be Missouri’scapital city was available largely because it wasdeemed by many to be undesirable land: it wasrocky and hilly, thought by many to be unfit formajor agricultural production. The commission-ers themselves had referred to this site as “toopoor to support any considerable population orextensive settlement.” Thus, almost no one hadsettled there, making it one of the few placesalong the Missouri River and near the mouth ofthe Osage that could provide the requiredamount of unclaimed land.

Despite the criticism of Jefferson City as thesite for Missouri’s permanent seat of government,many people held out the hope that the new cap-

Sketch of Jefferson City, c1850Missouri State Archives

ital city would prosper. Among the supporters ofJefferson City as a capital site was Gov. JohnMiller, a native of Virginia who was elected asMissouri’s chief executive in 1826. Gov. Millerbelieved that constructing public buildings inJefferson City would increase the city’s chancesof remaining the capital.

A New Residence for theGovernor and a NewCapitol Building“A new impulse to business of everydescription”

In 1831, Gov. Miller proposed that the statebuild a penitentiary in Jefferson City. Opponentsof the plan, many of whom preferred that thepenitentiary be built in or near St. Louis, fromwhere, it was assumed, a majority of the inmateswould come, delayed passage of a bill authoriz-ing the Jefferson City site until 1833.

Meanwhile, Gov. Miller, who was a bachelorand could live comfortably in two rooms of thestate house, was replaced by Gov. DanielDunklin of Potosi. The new governor was a mar-ried man with six children. Soon after his elec-tion in August 1832, he began a campaign topersuade legislators to appropriate money for anew governor’s residence. The legislature provid-

ed $5,000 and a new house was built just to thesouth of the existing combination Capitol andgovernor’s home. Gov. Dunklin and his familyoccupied the building in 1834.

Three years later (1837), fire destroyed thestate house that had been built in 1826. Stategovernment moved temporarily into the ColeCounty Courthouse while a new Capitol wasbeing built on a high bluff west of the site of theoriginal structure. The Jeffersonian Republicannoted in 1838 that “an appropriation for a StateHouse has given entirely a new impulse to busi-ness of every description” in the capital. Thepaper added, “for every thousand dollars appro-priated for the improvement of the seat of gov-ernment, the State is benefited four thousand, bythe increase in value of unsold lots, of which thestate is yet a large holder.”

Controversies Surroundingthe Penitentiary“Where are the many industriousmechanics that formerly gave our townlife and prosperity”

Meanwhile, also, the Missouri State Peniten-tiary was ready finally to receive its first inmatesin 1836. The placement of the penitentiary inJefferson City had a dramatic effect upon the


Entrance to Missouri State Penitentiary, c1910Missouri State Archives

development of the capital city. Missouri legisla-tors, committed to the Jeffersonian notion of theneed for minimal government (“That governmentis best which governs least”) and a low rate oftaxation, tried to figure out a way to operate theprison at the least possible cost to the state.

In 1839, legislators placed the penitentiaryunder a “lease system” that allowed privateentrepreneurs to pay the state for the right tomanage the prison, in exchange for which theycould hire out the prisoners for their own privategain. By 1841, an advertisement in the localJeffersonian Republican advertised the followingconvict-made goods at the prison: plows, wag-ons, carts, drays, trace chains, harness, single-trees, chairs, bureaus, bedsteads, tables andother furniture, boots and shoes, bricks, cigars,bacon and lard. In addition, the lessees adver-tised prison labor for landscaping and groundskeeping, blacksmithing, house and sign painting,and for “Building of any kind, at a moment’snotice.” Even the City of Jefferson used convictlabor. The 1842 minutes of the city’s Board ofAldermen reveal numerous expenditures forconvict labor on street repair, building construc-tion and furniture. Women sentenced to theMissouri State Penitentiary during the early1840s were sometimes hired out to work asdomestic servants for local businessmen.

Working inmates in this way had two unan-ticipated consequences. The first, and most obvi-ous, was that convicts working outside the prisonwalls were more likely to escape. A “Report ofthe Inspectors of the Penitentiary,” issued in1845, indicated that 50 inmates (28% of the totalnumber incarcerated) had escaped over the pre-vious 20 months. Often townsfolk joined prisonguards in chasing and trying to recapture con-victs. If the legislature happened to be in sessionwhen an escape occurred, lawmakers oftenadjourned, picked up weapons at the statearmory on the Capitol grounds, and joined thechase!

The fact of frequent escapes unsettled legisla-tors and local residents alike. Even more unset-tling, especially for its long-term implications,was the challenge convict labor posed for thefree labor system upon which capitalism wasbased. The editor of the Jeffersonian Republicanposed the question this way in 1842: “Where arethe many industrious mechanics that formerlygave our town life and prosperity?” Heanswered, of course, that they had been “drivenaway, for want of employment,” because of con-vict labor. The prison, its inmates, and the use oftheir labor, would remain sources of controversyin the capital city into the twenty-first century.

Antebellum Growth of theCapital City“Good living, clever fellows, and themost lovely women in the world”

Despite the charge that “industrious mechan-ics” were bypassing the capital city, JeffersonCity’s population grew steadily during the firstseveral decades of its existence, reaching a totalof 1,174 by 1840. A glimpse of what one visitorto the city thought of the capital and its residentscan be gleaned from a letter written in 1840 tothe editor of the Jefferson City Inquirer. The visi-tor, who signed his letter “A Traveller,” noted thathe remained a guest at the City Hotel for moredays than he had anticipated because of thehotel’s “well filled cellars and larder and mostbountiful table.” He praised the state house as a“magnificent and stupendous pile of free stone,”and commented on the beauty of the court-house, the prison, and a number of privatedwellings. He commended the capital city to“traveling bachelors,” in particular, because itfeatured “good living, clever fellows and themost lovely women in the world.” Highlights of“A Traveller’s” stay in Jefferson City includedviewing a dramatic performance of William Telland “dancing parties” at the courthouse.

Legislators tried to facilitate access to andcommunication with Jefferson City in a variety ofways, none of which was more important thanthe promotion of the building of a cross-staterailroad. While other communities vied in a vari-ety of ways for railroad service to their towns,sometimes offering large grants of land andmoney, Jefferson City earned access to the PacificRailroad by virtue of its status as the capital cityof Missouri. The law that authorized the expen-diture of public funds to build a railroad acrossthe state, passed in 1849, stipulated that the newform of transportation must pass through the cap-ital city. Two years later, in anticipation of thecompletion of the railroad to Jefferson City, thestate capital was connected to St. Louis by tele-graph service. Thus, Missourians between St.Louis and Jefferson City, at least, could knowwhat was going on in the capital.

Political Division in theCapital City“Blood up to the armpits”

Political division became apparent in the Cityof Jefferson during the 1830s and 1840s,although the anti-Jackson party known as theWhigs, formed during the mid-1830s, was adecidedly minority party in the capital city. In a

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late life reminiscence written in 1901, localphysician Dr. Robert E. Young recalled an occa-sion during the 1840 campaign whenDemocrats drinking at a local saloon decided toconfront Whigs drinking at another saloon.According to Young, a fight that threatened toleave combatants standing in “blood up to thearmpits” was narrowly averted. Tension betweenthe two groups had been exacerbated by asteamboat captain who displayed on his craft alog cabin, the symbol of the presidential cam-paign of Whig candidate William HenryHarrison.

Politics became increasingly divided inMissouri and the capital city during the decadeand a half leading up to the Civil War, especial-ly after the debate over the expansion of slaverycrystallized in the wake of the Mexican War(1846). The issue of whether or not slaveryshould be allowed in the territory acquired fromMexico divided Missourians. Those persons whotraced their ancestry to the South generally sup-ported the expansion of slavery. Those whoseancestors came from the North tended to opposeit. Recent European immigrants, likewise, oftenopposed the expansion of slavery into new terri-tories.

The Fight Over Slavery“Free Soilers” v. “The CourthouseClique”

The friction intensified when Missouri’s sen-ior United States Senator, Thomas Hart Benton,defied a directive from the Missouri GeneralAssembly and took a stand against the expan-sion of slavery. Benton’s actions dividedMissourians, including residents of the capitalcity, into pro- and anti-Benton factions andresulted in Benton’s defeat in the 1850 Senaterace.

The fight over the expansion of slaveryprompted a group of capital city residents to tryto create a new city adjacent to the City ofJefferson during the 1850s. Led by Germanimmigrant and physician, Dr. Bernard Bruns,and prominent local resident Thomas L. Price,the anti-expansionist group created the JeffersonCity Land Company and began to buy propertyjust west of Jefferson City, from roughly modern-day Bolivar Street to Gray’s Creek.

The Jefferson City Land Company subse-quently launched a campaign to attract “FreeSoilers” to the region, hoping thereby to under-mine the power of the pro-expansionist “court-house clique” which they claimed had a stran-glehold on local government. The Jefferson CityLand Company hoped to attract “especiallymechanics and manufacturers with machinery.”

A key element of their community was to be “afirst-class University,” where the Free Soil philos-ophy could be promulgated. Controversy overthe idea of a Free Soil community adjacent to thestate capital prompted a heated debate in the hallof the House of Representatives, with ClaiborneFox Jackson, slave owner, Southern sympathizer,and future governor, leading the fight againstsuch a development. Although the LandCompany purchased a considerable amount ofproperty west of the Capitol, the idea of buildinga new city never came to fruition.

The Civil War“We are living in very stirring times”

The Civil War brought interest in and actionto the City of Jefferson. Union and Confederatesympathizers alike hoped to persuade the state ofMissouri to join their side. On the evening ofJanuary 3, 1861, newly elected Gov. ClaiborneFox Jackson minced no words in lettingMissourians know how he felt on the issue. In hisinaugural address, he proclaimed his belief that“The destiny of the slaveholding States of thisUnion is one and the same. So long as a statecontinues to maintain slavery within her limits, itis impossible to separate her fate from that of hersister States who have the same social organiza-tion.” Gov. Jackson made it clear that he thoughtit was in Missouri’s best interest “to stand by hersister States, in whose wrongs she participates,and with whose institutions and people she sym-pathizes.”

Gov. Jackson called for a state convention tobe held in which delegates could debate anddecide whether or not Missouri should join theaborning Confederacy. The General Assembly setFebruary 18, 1861, as the date for electing dele-gates to such a convention. By the time that datearrived, seven states had seceded from the Union.

The state convention met in Jefferson City onFebruary 28, 1861, but voted almost immediate-ly to re-convene in St. Louis, where the atmos-phere was more favorable to the state of Missouriremaining in the Union. After debate on theissue, delegates to the convention voted over-whelmingly not to secede. Perturbed but not per-suaded by the vote, Gov. Jackson acted to moveMissouri into the Confederate camp anyway.Included in his machinations was the establish-ment of a pro-Southern military encampment inSt. Louis that bore his name: Camp Jackson.German immigrants living in Jefferson City dur-ing the early months of the war, widely knownfor their loyalty to the Republican Party and tothe Union cause, feared reprisal by the governor.Henrietta Bruns, who lived a block south of theCapitol, where the governor flew “a tremendous-

ly large secessionist flag,” watched state militia-men drill on the Capitol grounds and wrote war-ily to her brother back in Germany, “We are liv-ing in very stirring times.”

By June of 1861, federal General NathanielLyon, Commander of the West, had tired of whathe regarded as Jackson’s treasonous activities.He led a force of two thousand soldiers toJefferson City to remove the governor from officeand arrest him. Alerted to Lyon’s plan, Gov.Jackson escaped the capital city just ahead of theUnion troops, taking with him the state seal,which he intended to use to certify as “official”documents created by his rump government.Among the state officials accompanying Jacksonon his hasty retreat out of town were B.F. Massey,secretary of state; Alfred W. Morrison, state treas-urer; William S. Moseley, state auditor; and, JohnF. Huston, register of lands. In addition, at leastseven pro-Southern legislators fled with the gov-ernor.

Jackson and his cabinet were replaced by aprovisional government, headed by Gov.Hamilton R. Gamble. Federal troops occupiedthe capital city for the remainder of the war. In1862 residents of the City of Jefferson chose theGerman immigrant and Radical RepublicanBernard Bruns, one of the founders of theJefferson City Land Company, as their mayor.Bruns’s victory over Democrat C. Clay Ewing was

made possible because of the disfranchisementof a large number of Democrats who refused totake a loyalty oath to the Union as provided forby the state provisional government.

Only once during the war was Jefferson Cityseriously threatened by Confederate forces, andthat was in October 1864, when General SterlingPrice, former governor of the state, approachedthe city from the south, only days after his fightat the Battle of Pilot Knob, in Iron County.General Price spent the night on the outskirts ofthe capital city, presumably planning his attack.But the attack on the capital never came. Thegeneral and his soldiers bypassed Jefferson City,leaving the capital unscathed, and local citizenswondering why he had not attacked. Some spec-ulated it was because he did not want to endan-ger the many friends he had made while he livedin the city as governor, from 1853–1857.

One consequence of the war for JeffersonCity was that its population grew significantly asa consequence of an in-migration of people whosought to escape Union and Confederate soldiersand their sympathizers who roamed the country-side, pillaging and harassing the citizenry.African Americans, in particular, sought safety inJefferson City, in large part, it seems, because ofthe presence there of so many Union soldiersand because the so-called “Radical Republi-cans” controlled state government. Radical Gov.

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View of Jefferson City showing new fortifcations and the arrival and departure of troops, Harpers Weekly, Oct. 19, 1861Missouri State Archives


Thomas Fletcher, elected in 1864, supported theRadical position on a number of issues, includ-ing the abolition of slavery, access to public edu-cation for freedmen, and the right to vote forAfrican American males. By January 1865, theblack population of Jefferson City had grown to565 persons, an increase of 70% over the num-ber present just five years earlier.

Establishing LincolnInstitute

The city’s African American population greweven more over the next decade because of theestablishment of Lincoln Institute there in theFall of 1866. In September 1866, Richard B.Foster, a white minister from New England whohad served as an officer in the 62nd UnitedStates Colored Infantry, a unit composed ofMissouri freedmen, arrived in Jefferson City withmoney pledged by the men of his unit to open aschool for blacks. Foster had gone first to St.Louis, but had run into intense hostility there. Hecame to Jefferson City because he believed thatthe presence in power of Radical Republicanswould guarantee a warmer reception.

Although Foster encountered oppositionamong some townsfolk to the idea of establishinga school for blacks in their city, he was able toopen the school as a private facility soon after

arriving in the capital. Over the next several years,State Superintendent of Schools Thomas A. Parker,also a Radical Republican, tried to establish pub-lic schools for blacks throughout the state. It soonbecame apparent that a shortage of black teacherswas a major obstacle. Black parents did not wanttheir children to be taught by whites.

A solution to this problem, proposed byAfrican American political leader James MiltonTurner, was to make Lincoln Institute a state sup-ported facility for the training of black teachers.Lincoln received its first state appropriation($5,000) in 1870 and the use of twenty-fiveMissouri State Penitentiary inmates to build thefirst building on what is now the LincolnUniversity campus. The school was taken overentirely by the state in 1879 and continued to bethe only state supported institution of higher edu-cation for African Americans in Missouri untilintegration occurred in the wake of the U.S.Supreme Court’s famous Brown v. Board of Edu-cation decision in 1954.

The tenure in office of the RadicalRepublicans was short-lived. Democrats com-plained that Republicans had run up the statedebt to $36 million during the war and that theyhad used the power of the central government toencroach on local rights and privileges. ADemocratic governor was elected in 1872 with apromise of restoring fiscal conservatism to stategovernment and returning much power back tolocal communities.

The 1875 Constitution Creation of a Prison Factory System

Fiscal conservatism and local rule were keyconcepts enshrined in a new constitution adopt-ed by Missouri citizens in 1875. One conse-quence of the effort to cut down on the amountof money needed to run state government was arenewed effort to force convicts to finance theirown incarceration. Prison and governmental offi-cials decided to have the state construct factoriesinside the prison walls, and then negotiate multi-year contracts with private entrepreneurs for theuse of convict labor. Gov. John S. Phelps summa-rized the plan in his 1879 message to theGeneral Assembly: “[I]t would seem reasonableto expect the prisoners would not only be able,by their labor, to earn an amount sufficient tosupport themselves, but also to pay the salariesand wages of the officers and guards.”

This new prison factory system brought toJefferson City a number of entrepreneurs whowould not, under other circumstances, have cho-sen the city as a place to set up business. One ofthe first of these was August Priesmeyer, presidentand founder of A. Priesmeyer Shoe Co., who

James Milton TurnerMissouri State Archives

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moved to Jefferson City in 1874 to open a facto-ry inside the prison walls. Priesmeyer managedthe business largely with the help of his nephew,Henry F. Priesmeyer, and a Scottish immigrantnamed John Tweedie Sr. Tweedie took over thebusiness during the early twentieth century, andhe and successive generations of his familybecame pillars of the commercial and civic com-munities of the capital city.

Another immigrant to the Jefferson City com-munity because of the prison factory system wasLester Shepherd Parker, who came to JeffersonCity in 1895 as superintendent and general man-ager of the Jefferson Shoe Company, a Chicago-based business that had been incorporated inIllinois in 1885 and that operated a factory insidethe Missouri prison. Parker established his ownprison factory in 1896 and subsequently builtone of Jefferson City’s finest homes, a strikingNeo-Classical Revival house across the streetfrom the drab and sometimes dangerous prison.Parker became a civic booster and city promoter,who as an avocational painter and poet, didmuch to promote the cultural and artistic healthof the community.

Yet another businessman who moved toMissouri to operate a prison factory was James A.Houchin, who came to Jefferson City fromIllinois in 1890 to take a job as a bookkeeper andstenographer with the Charles R. Lewis ClothingManufacturing Company, also a prison factory.In the mid-1890s, Houchin launched his owneffort at establishing a prison industry. His StarClothing Manufacturing Company became oneof the leading prison factories during the earlytwentieth century. The Houchins, with the helpof convict labor, erected a magnificent home inthe 600-block of E. Main St. (later called CapitolAvenue). The Houchins’ home became animportant social gathering place for politicians.Presumably because his business was so closelytied to state government, James Houchin becamea political activist, deeply involved inDemocratic Party politics throughout the firstthree decades of the twentieth century. Heserved as the statewide coordinator of Joseph W.Folk’s successful gubernatorial campaign in1904. In 1912, Houchin sought the Democraticnomination for governor in his own right, but lostto Elliott Major, who went on to be chosen gov-ernor in the general election. Houchin triedagain in 1916, this time losing to FrederickGardner.

The Houchins entertained frequently. Soonafter their house was built, they began holdingreceptions for members of the legislature andtheir families during each session. According toa 1944 newspaper article about the Houchinhouse, written on the occasion of its sale, “threeor four hundred people usually attended these

receptions which were elaborate and character-istic of a lavish bygone day.” The usual menu was“chicken salad, oyster patties, olives, beaten bis-cuits, ices, cakes, bonbons, and coffee, withpunch served in the sun room by young ladies.”On one occasion, the Houchins’ daughterMyrene recalled in 1944, her parents entertainedtwo nights in succession, first for legislators andthen for their Jefferson City friends. A total ofseven hundred people attended these twoevents. Mr. and Mrs. Houchin, their daughterMyrene, and her husband, Jack Hobbs, contin-ued to be leading Jefferson City socialites andcivic boosters of the capital city throughout thefirst half of the 20th century.

A New Governor’sMansion Creates a NewSocial Atmosphere in theCapital City

In September 1867, a correspondent for theSt. Louis Republican wrote an extensive piece forreaders back home on “First Impressions of theCapital.” Although he acknowledged that manypeople came to Jefferson City because “here aregathered and disbursed the public revenues[and] here are held the reins of public authority,”he asserted, also, that “The first impressions thatthe city of Jefferson make upon a stranger aregenerally unfavorable.”

Why the negative feelings? Because, theRepublic correspondent asserted, “The town isgenerally full, more or less, of strangers, attract-ed here by the pressure of urgent business withthe departments and that over, they have nodesire to remain.” The fact that so many tran-sients visited the city led local residents to treatthem inhospitably, unless the stranger arrived“recommended or known,” in which case localcitizens were capable of exhibiting “generousfeeling . . . toward a guest.” Notwithstanding itsdeficiencies, the correspondent claimed,“Society here is refined and cultivated, a largemixture of which consists of the families ofretired officers of State, who have remained hereattached to the place by its advantages of health,culture and economy.”

Many people thought that the capital citybecame a more hospitable place after Gov. B.Gratz Brown and his family moved into a newGovernor’s Mansion on January 20, 1872. Thenew Mansion, designed by St. Louis architectGeorge Ingham Barnett in the fashionableRenaissance Revival style, replaced the olderstructure just to the south, whose dilapidatedcondition had become an embarrassment to leg-islators.

The new three-story Governor’s Mansion,with its Great Hall, Double Parlor, and thirteenbedrooms, was built to entertain and to impress.Among the first guests to visit the spacious newstructure was the Grand Duke Alexis, the twen-ty-two-year old son of the Russian Czar. TheGrand Duke, who was returning by train to theEast coast after a buffalo hunting trip in the West,was accompanied by General George ArmstrongCuster. Grand Duke Alexis spoke briefly to theMissouri General Assembly and then he andGeneral Custer joined Gov. Brown and others foran “unostentatious . . . but brilliant” lunch at theMansion. Later, the Grand Duke provided manyresidents of the capital city with a rare opportu-nity to see a royal personage when he receivedlocal well-wishers and curiosity seekers at theMadison Hotel, across the street from theMansion.

The day after the Grand Duke’s visit,Governor and Mrs. Brown held a grand ball atthe Mansion to celebrate its official opening.Estimates of the number of guests in attendanceranged as high as two thousand, no doubt thelargest crowd to gather in the capital city for asocial event to that date. Although one journalistpraised the gathering as “one of the most mag-nificent entertainments which ever occurredwest of St. Louis,” others present complained ofthe gawking, pushing masses who, among otherthings, “jammed . . . into Mrs. Brown’s beautifulrooms . . . particularly the supper room, andrifled things like a flock of locust.”

The opening ball at the Governor’s Mansionestablished the use of the great house as a placeof hospitality and entertainment in the capitalcity. Party conventions, inaugural balls and othercelebrations were held there. For many yearsduring the late nineteenth-century the grandestgathering in the capital city, at least during thewinter months, was a New Year’s Day Ball,supervised by the state’s adjutant general.

A less joyous occasion came in 1887, whenGov. John Sappington Marmaduke died in theGovernor’s Mansion on December 18 of thatyear after a bout with pneumonia. A former gen-eral in the Confederate Army, and the son of anantebellum Missouri governor (Meredith MilesMarmaduke), the younger Marmaduke was apopular chief executive. His funeral was themost elaborate and well attended state funeralwitnessed in Jefferson City prior to the funeral ofGov. Mel Carnahan in October 2000. Gov.Marmaduke lay in state in the main hall of theGovernor’s Mansion from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00p.m. on the day of his funeral. The funeral wasconducted in the Mansion by Bishop Daniel S.Tuttle of the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri andthe Rev. John Gierlow of Grace EpiscopalChurch in Jefferson City. Newspaper accounts ofthe funeral reported that a procession extendedmore than a mile, from the Governor’s Mansionon Madison Street to the State Cemetery on EastMcCarty Street, where Marmaduke was buried.


Governor’s MansionMissouri State Archives

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Other Late Nineteenth-Century Visitors to theCapital City

Two years after Marmaduke’s death, thenoted suffragist Susan B. Anthony visited the cap-ital city and delivered a lecture in the Hall of theHouse of Representatives to Missouri legislatorsand an overflow crowd of curiosity seekers andsupporters on “the question of the enfranchise-ment of women.” Miss Anthony was accompa-nied by Mrs. Virginia L. Minor of St. Louis, one ofthe earliest supporters of the franchise forwomen during the post-Civil War generation,and a long-time president of the Missouri chap-ter of the National Woman Suffrage Association.In announcing Miss Anthony’s presence in thestate capital, the editor of the local State Tribunecommented that “She will not likely make manyconverts, but nevertheless the venerable lectureris entitled to a respectful hearing.”

Six years later, perhaps influenced byAnthony’s pleas for equality, capital city womenformed what, arguably, became the most presti-gious women’s club of the twentieth century: theso-called Tuesday Club. The Tuesday Club’s firstmeeting was held in the home of the Rev. andMrs. J.T.M. Johnston. Rev. Johnston was the pas-tor of the local Baptist church. An election washeld at the first meeting, with Mrs. George B.Macfarlane, wife of a Missouri Supreme Courtjudge, chosen as president. Mrs. MourtonJourdan, whose husband worked in the stateattorney general’s office, was elected vice presi-dent. Early club by-laws indicate that the organ-ization existed primarily “for literary purposes,”

although the club history suggests that the orga-nization’s members quickly learned that theycould serve the common good by applying thepower of their individual and collective intellectsto a search for solutions to the social problems oftheir day. Denied access to the “normal” avenuesof power available to their spouses (voting andoffice-holding), club women wielded powerinformally, by influencing their husbands, whowere prominent leaders of the business and gov-ernmental communities, to take action on theissues that concerned them. As the club’s historyindicates, “Women did not have the right to votethen but they became expert in getting resultsanother way.” Among the club’s early projectswas an effort to help establish a local publiclibrary. Apparently from the beginning, theTuesday Club invited First Ladies of Missouri tojoin their exclusive organization as honorarymembers.

Arguably, the most popular national politicalleader to visit the capital city during the 1890swas the three-time Democratic presidential can-didate, William Jennings Bryan. The “GreatCommoner,” as he was known, made multipletrips to Jefferson City as both a Chautauquaspeaker and as a political campaigner during the1890s. In 1899, for example, he delivered anoration on the virtues of “Free Silver” to a crowdof five thousand people from the steps of theCapitol. According to a local newspaper accountof the event, Bryan, whose speech had taken twohours, “apologized somewhat for trespassingupon the time of the audience.” Rather thanbeing offended or bored, the crowd respondedwith “many calls for him to proceed further.”

Missouri River BridgeOpening, 1896Missouri State Archives

The Fight Over Removal ofthe Capital Bridging theMissouri RiverBridging the Missouri River

The presence and popularity of theGovernor’s Mansion in Jefferson City and theincrease in social activities accompanying the“Gay Nineties” notwithstanding, some Missouriresidents continued to question the wisdom ofretaining the permanent seat of government inJefferson City. One thing that especially both-ered many of the state’s citizens was the absenceof a bridge across the Missouri River into thecapital city. The “Big Muddy,” which an earliergeneration had seen as a highway for travel tothe capital city, had become, in the age of therailroad, an obstacle to access.

Fearful of losing the designation as the capi-tal city, a number of businessmen, including therecently arrived entrepreneurs associated withprison industries, launched an effort to build abridge across the river. Calling themselves the“Commercial Club” (later the name waschanged to “Chamber of Commerce”) these menspearheaded an effort to erect a $225,000 tollbridge across the river. The completion of thebridge in February 1896 diminished, if it did notend altogether, the criticism of Jefferson City’sstatus as the capital city.

The favorable climate for business created bythe Commercial Club, and the continuingopportunities for doing business with state gov-ernment, made Jefferson City a community ofgreat hope as the twentieth century dawned. OnMay 12, 1900, the Jefferson City Daily Press car-ried an article written by a local reporter whooffered an assessment of the capital city’s eco-nomic viability as it moved into the new centu-ry. For much of its existence, the reportercharged, Jefferson City had the reputation ofbeing “an old fogy” town run by “old fossils whohad held the town down.” But then, the reporterconcluded, “the Jefferson City people got amove on themselves and galvanized a little lifeinto the old fossils.”

In truth, the “life” came more from the out-siders (such as Priesmeyer, Parker and Houchins)who moved to the capital city because it was theseat of government, rather than from the “oldfossils” who had been around a generation ormore. Among the most progressive of JeffersonCity’s early twentieth century business and com-munity leaders was Hugh Stephens, who movedfrom Columbia to Jefferson City at the turn of thecentury to manage a print shop purchased by hisfather, Edwin W. Stephens, a Boone Countyprinter and publisher. The Jefferson City print


shop, known as the Tribune Printing Company,and later the Hugh Stephens Printing Company,existed primarily to serve the printing needs ofstate government.

With his place of business only two blockseast of the Capitol, and engaged in a businessthat took him to the Capitol often, Stephensquickly became a key figure in state and localaffairs. Ultimately, Stephens was elected to thepresidency of the Commercial Club and servedfor an unprecedented eight terms. Among hismany contributions to his adopted city, and to hisstate, was his effort to promote the accessibilityof the state capital to all Missourians by means ofbetter highways. He was a leading proponent ofbuilding U. S. Highways 54, 63, and 50 throughMissouri, for example, and making sure thatthese important cross-state highways intersectedin Jefferson City.

The Capitol Fire and itsConsequences

Tragedy befell Jefferson City and the state ofMissouri on the night of February 5, 1911, whena lightning bolt struck the dome of the Capitol.The ensuing fire could not be contained with firefighting equipment available. Firefighters and cit-izens alike watched helplessly while the fireraged out of control. When the heavily timbereddome collapsed into the interior of the Capitol,all present knew that the structure was doomed.

Hugh Stephens, Jefferson City Chamber of Commerce.Missouri State Archives

24 OFFICIAL MANUAL

A valiant, and largely successful, effort wasmade to retrieve historical documents from theburning building. Among the people pressedinto service for this dangerous mission was agroup of Missouri State Penitentiary inmates.Gov. Herbert S. Hadley commuted the sentencesof several of these inmates out of gratitude fortheir efforts.

One consequence of the Capitol fire was are-emergence of the debate over whether or notJefferson City should remain the state’s perma-nent seat of government. Opponents of the ideamounted an effort to oppose the passage of abond issue aimed at financing the rebuilding ofthe Capitol. Supporters of retaining the city asthe site of the capital, led by the city’sCommercial Club, countered with a campaignof self-promotion. The day after the fire, localbanker Sam B. Cook took a train to St. Louis toenlist the assistance of key legislative leaders inthe quest to retain Jefferson City as the perma-nent seat of government. Cook, another “out-sider” who had a dramatic impact on the capitalcity, had moved from Mexico, Missouri, toJefferson City in 1900, after being elected as sec-retary of state. Although defeated for re-electionin 1904, Cook opted to remain in the capitalcity, where, in 1905, he assumed the presidencyof the Central Missouri Trust Company, a bankwhose first president was a former Democraticgovernor of the state, Lon V. Stephens. Asked bya newspaper reporter why he had chosen tomake Jefferson City his home, Cook replied, “Ihave for some time been very favorably im-pressed with the State capital, both in a businessand a social way. It is one of the most solidtowns in the State, and in my judgment there isno city of like population that has so bright andsubstantial a future.”

Formation of the JeffersonCity Country Club

Sam B. Cook and others apparently used theJefferson City Country Club to lobby “leaders ofpublic opinion across the state” to support theeffort against moving the capital. Organized at ameeting chaired by Gov. Herbert S. Hadley onSeptember 7, 1909, at the Monroe House(dubbed by some contemporaries as “theRepublican hotel”), the country club opened onMay 8, 1911, with a charter membership of onehundred men. Penitentiary Warden HenryAndrae, one of the charter members, had“arranged a detail of inmates to help clear andconstruct the golf course.” Gov. Hadley waselected as the club’s first president. Other char-ter members, in addition to Hadley and Andrae,included Attorney General Elliott W. Major,

Adjutant General F.M. Rumboldt, and a numberof prominent businessmen who operated facto-ries inside the prison. According to a localJefferson City newspaper of the time, it was com-mon during the summer of 1911 “to see crowd-ed excursion trains switched from the MissouriPacific mainline tracks to the Bagnell Branch andproceed gingerly over the uncertain roadbed tothe Country Club, where barbecues had beenprepared.”

Among the visitors to the Jefferson CityCountry Club in 1911 was the Republican presi-dent of the United States, William Howard Taft,who had traveled to Missouri to attend the StateFair. The president and his military aide, MajorArchibald Butt, joined Gov. Hadley and the Rev.Paul Talbot, rector of Grace Episcopal Church inJefferson City, in a round of golf.

Ultimately, the proponents of keeping thecapital in Jefferson City succeeded. Their victorywas solidified on August 1, 1911, whenMissourians voted by a three-to-one majority toauthorize issuing $3.5 million in bonds to build anew Capitol in Jefferson City. Late that night,when victory appeared certain, a crowd ofJefferson City revelers went to Sam Cook’s home,a half block south of the Capitol, aroused himfrom his sleep, and persuaded him to march at thehead of an impromptu parade, celebrating theevent. Newspaper accounts of the incident indi-cate that Cook was clad only in his pajamas, alounging robe, and slippers, but that his head wasadorned with a silk hat and he carried a cane.

The New CapitolThe decision to build a new Capitol building

in Jefferson City had at least one negative effecton Sam Cook’s personal life. The Capitol groundswere expanded greatly, resulting in the destruc-tion of the home he shared with his wife andthree children in the 200-block of WashingtonStreet. It would be only one of many displace-ments caused by the building of a new Capitolover the next century. Groundbreaking cere-monies for the new structure occurred on May 6,1913. Labor problems plagued work on theCapitol. Nonetheless, on June 24, 1914, thebuilding’s cornerstone was laid before a crowd ofapproximately 12,000 people and on August 12,1914, a flag raising ceremony celebrated thecompletion of the building’s steel frame.

Era of World War IWork on the new state Capitol neared com-

pletion in the summer of 1917, just as the UnitedStates entered World War I. The decoration andformal dedication of the new structure was


delayed as Missourians joined other Americancitizens in gearing up for the war effort.

Emblematic of the city’s contribution to thewar effort was a Fourth of July picnic held atMcClung Park in 1917. McClung Park, alsoknown as State Park Number One, was a state-owned facility named for prison warden D.C.McClung who used idle convicts to clean up thefifteen-acre piece of state property and turn itinto a state park, complete with park benches,pavilions, and a dance floor where prison bandsplayed for dancing capital citians on weekendsin the summer. According to the Daily CapitalNews, special trains and caravans of automo-biles brought central Missourians from outlyingcommunities to the capital city for the July 4,1917, picnic. The gathering was designed as afundraiser sponsored by the newly establishedlocal Red Cross chapter to help in the reliefeffort. It attracted a crowd of approximately tenthousand people.

Support for the war effort was modeled byGov. Frederick Gardner and Mrs. Gardner, whoplanted and worked in their “Victory Garden” onthe grounds of the Governor’s Mansion.Likewise, Mrs. Gardner joined with other ladieswho belonged to the city’s prestigious TuesdayClub in sewing pajamas and other clothing, aswell as preparing bandages, for American sol-diers in France.

World War I and its aftermath broughtnational, and no doubt unwanted, attention toJefferson City in 1918, when the first of two ofthe most radical women in the country arrived inthe capital city to serve a prison term for violat-ing the federal Sedition Act. This law prohibitedspeaking out against America’s involvement inWorld War I. There was no federal prison for

women in the country at the time, so the U.S.Department of Justice sought a place of confine-ment among the country’s state prisons.Missouri’s low bid netted it the dubious distinc-tion of housing in the capital city the notoriousanarchist and Russian immigrant EmmaGoldman, and Socialist Kate Richards O’Hare.

Goldman and O’Hare were confined in thestate’s women’s prison, a building that fronted onLafayette Street, inside the walls of the men’spenitentiary. From the perspective of state prisonofficials, these women were anything but modelprisoners. They complained widely and often,largely through the medium of letters to newspa-pers and magazines throughout the country, ofthe prison’s shortcomings: its unsanitary livingconditions, which included the lack of adequatebathing facilities, rancid food, and the presenceof rats; the drudgery and difficulty of workassignments in stifling heat and bone chillingcold; and, the general dehumanizing treatmentthey received at the hands of poorly-trainedguards who owed their positions to political con-nections.

Goldman and O’Hare’s time in prison washelped only slightly by the fact that O’Hare hadknown and worked with Warden William R.Painter when he had been Missouri’s lieutenant-governor. She had met Painter and his wife whileshe was living in St. Louis and working on behalfof state minimum wage legislation. O’Hare usedher acquaintance with Painter to gain access toGov. Frederick Gardner. Her pleadings to the twomen, as well as her complaints to U.S. Depart-ment of Justice officials, and her constant letter-writing, led to slight improvements in conditionsin the women’s prison. One of the bright spotsfor O’Hare and her fellow female convicts camein the summer, when they were allowed to walk

Completed MissouriState Capitol, 1917Missouri State Archives

26 OFFICIAL MANUAL

to McClung Park for Saturday afternoon outings.In the winter, inmates were sometimes shownsilent movies on the weekends. No doubt thewarden and the governor were greatly relievedwhen the troublesome prisoners O’Hare andGoldman were finally released from custody,Goldman in 1919 and O’Hare in 1920.

The Roaring TwentiesThe Jefferson City Country Club continued to

be an important place of recreation and relax-ation for Missouri politicians during the era ofWorld War I and beyond. Like his predecessorsHadley and Major, Gov. Frederick Gardnerjoined the country club and was selected itspresident in 1920. Mrs. Gardner later recalledhow much the governor enjoyed the club: “Mr.Gardner found the Country Club a haven ofrefuge and nothing pleased us more than to gothere for a bright soiree with our friends.” Theformer first lady of Missouri added, “Surely noth-ing was impossible to the folks who gatheredthere—gay and impudent, brave and reckless,impulsive and generous.”

Prohibition dominated the decade of thetwenties, although the Volstead Act was oftenignored in the capital city. Newspapers from theera are filled with accounts of raids upon illegal

distilleries in and around Jefferson City. Illicitalcohol was available even in the Capitol. Oneformer legislator recalled in a 1996 memoir thatwhen he arrived in the capital city in 1935, therewas still talk about “a custom during the dryyears of prohibition [that] members [of the legis-lature] would bring [to the Capitol] a little homebrew, white lightening, and sometimes a littlechicken hooch, often called that because it wasso strong that if you took a good swallow itwould make you lay.”

The decade of the 1920s had a dark side aswell. For many, the decade was a time of fear, asnativism, racism and religious bigotry permeatedthe land. One of the most controversial and dis-turbing gatherings in Jefferson City during the1920s occurred in the Missouri State Capitol inFebruary 1924 when a Ku Klux Klan meeting washeld in the Hall of Representatives.

The Klan was a powerful force in Americanpolitics during the decade, when it promoteditself as a patriotic organization committed to“100% Americanism.” Unlike its counterpart ofthe post-Civil War period, the 1920s Klan wasnot only anti-African American, but alsoopposed to immigrants, Jews, and Catholics.

According to a statement by Heber Nations,editor of the Jefferson City Daily Post, he wascontacted by Klan members who asked for his

Prominent men of Jefferson City with Gov. Major, center, at the country club, c1920Missouri State Archives


help in gaining permission to use the Capitol for aKlan meeting. Local newspaper stories of the timeclaim that the capital city had a Klan membershipof more than eleven hundred, with one Klan gath-ering at the Merchants Bank Hall attracting a gath-ering of 850 Klansmen.

Nations took the Klan’s request to HarryWoodruff, Commissioner of the Permanent Seatof Government, who, in turn, granted therequest. Later asked to explain his actions,Nations said, “I thought local people would beinterested in the attitude of the Klan as expressedby an official representative.” Nations added“that surmise proved correct when the largestaudience ever assembled in the legislative hallgreeted the [Klan] speaker Sunday afternoon.”

Both Nations and Woodruff defended thedecision to allow the Klan to meet in the Capitol,with Nations calling the gathering “entirely patri-otic and scholarly.” The unrepentant Nations stat-ed that if given the opportunity, he would do thesame thing over again, adding that “If the greatmembership of the Klan throughout the countryis composed of citizens of the same high gradewho shape its policies here, it is the greatestpatriotic organization in the world.”

Not all agreed with Nations, of course. In fact,many people of both major political parties com-plained bitterly of the decision to allow the Klanto meet in the Capitol. Indeed, the Klan becamean important issue in the 1924 gubernatorialelection, with the Republicans and their guber-natorial candidate, Sam A. Baker, being widelyregarded as more anti-Klan than the Democrats.Baker was elected governor. In Jefferson City,

anti-Klan forces united to re-elect Mayor Cecil W.Thomas, who established himself as an opponentof the Klan during his first term in office.

The New Capitol Dedication“It was a real big doins”

The formal, belated, dedication of the newCapitol came on October 6, 1924, in what onecontemporary newspaper referred to as “unques-tionably the greatest celebration ever held in theCapital City.” People from all over the statebegan arriving in Jefferson City days in advanceof the celebration. The Missouri Pacific Railroadran special trains at reduced rates to accommo-date travelers and a housing committee of localwomen coordinated an effort to find rooms forthem. Existing hotels could not begin to provideenough rooms for all of the visitors. Churchesand civic organizations organized to servemeals, with former prison warden, D.C.McClung, heading a committee to regulate foodprices “to guard against profiteering.” Two daysbefore the event, a local newspaper sent out “Anurgent appeal to all housewives of Jefferson Cityto order enough groceries today [Saturday] to lastover Sunday and Monday.” All owners of carswere urged to leave their vehicles at home.

The dedication ceremony began on themorning of October 6 as so many gatherings inthe capital city have always begun: with aparade. A crowd estimated as high as 25,000watched as Grand Marshall Colonel Paul Hunt ofJefferson City, a World War I veteran, led a two-

Capitol Dedication, St. Louis ballet dancers, 1924Missouri State Archives

28 OFFICIAL MANUAL

mile-long parade from the Capitol, east onCapitol Avenue to Cherry Street, south to High,and then west, back to the Capitol. The paradeincluded fifty floats, bands from all over thestate, airplanes and a U. S. Army dirigible, alongwith 114 county queens, one from each countyin the state. Ku Klux Klan members were amongthe groups serving lunch along the parade route.Their lunch stand was on Capitol Avenue, infront of a sign that read “KKK, 100 percent.”

At 2:00 p.m. the throng of people assembledon the south lawn of the Capitol for severalhours of speeches by dignitaries, including Gov.Arthur M. Hyde and four past governors:Alexander Dockery, Herbert Hadley, ElliottMajor, and Frederick Gardner. David M. Franciswas the only living ex-governor unable to attendthe ceremony. Among the speakers, also, wasoctogenarian Mrs. Theodosia Thornton Lawson,a daughter of Colonel John Thornton of ClayCounty who more than a century before hadchaired the commission to select a site for a per-manent seat of government.

At 7:00 p.m. an elaborate historical pageant,written and directed by Mrs. Frank Leach ofSedalia, was presented on the south steps of theCapitol. The pageant required 2,325 charactersto depict the history of the state, back to the daysof French and Spanish colonial rule.Unfortunately, the pageant was cut short near itsend by a thunderstorm, which also caused theplanned fireworks display to be cancelled. Therain notwithstanding, the day’s activities werequite memorable. One newspaper summed upthe event with this headline: “It Was a Real BigDoins.”

Expansion of StateGovernment and Its Impacton the Capital City

The splendor and beauty of the new Capitolmade many Missourians want to show off thebuilding. For years, for example, the MissouriPacific Railroad ran special excursion trains atreduced rates to Jefferson City so that residents ofthe state could view the Capitol. That desire toput the Capitol on display, combined with thedramatic growth of state government during the1920s and 1930s, had consequences that wouldreverberate throughout the capital city into thetwenty-first century.

A hint of what was to come was contained inthe capital architects’ expression of regret thatbecause of the city’s topography and built envi-ronment, the Capitol would be barely visiblefrom southern and eastern approaches to the city.The architects’ suggestion was that a number ofbuildings on West High Street, south of theCapitol, be torn down and that the street be low-ered by several feet. This would, of course, havenecessitated the destruction of a number ofhomes and businesses belonging to capital cityresidents, as well as the United States Post Officeand the state Supreme Court building, the latterof which was erected in 1906.

While the idea of lowering West High Streetwas not implemented, a great many homes andbusinesses were destroyed by the rapidlyexpanding state government during the 1920sand 1930s. The expansion of the Capitolgrounds, as noted earlier, led to the destruction ofa number of private residences south of theCapitol. In addition, in the late 1920s, the State

Highway Department Building, 1931Missouri State Archives

of Missouri acquired land east of the Capitol toaccommodate the building of a structure thathoused one of the state’s fastest growing bureau-cracies: the Missouri Highway Department. This,too, resulted in the destruction of a number ofprivate residences. According to Missouri StateArchivist Kenneth H. Winn, the number of stateemployees grew by more than 180% during thedecade of the 1920s.

In 1929, after several years of discussion bycivic and political leaders, the City of Jeffersonhired the distinguished St. Louis planning firm ofHarland Bartholomew to assist in its effort to con-front what, arguably, has been the city’s majorproblem since solidifying its status as the seat ofgovernment during the early twentieth century:how to accommodate the expanding needs of anever-growing government without unduly infring-ing on the lives and property of local residents.

Asserting that “The Beautiful Capitol willform the nucleus of future public building devel-opment,” the planners proposed that the stateacquire all of the land east of the Capitol to theGovernor’s Mansion, including the land occu-pied by Tweedie Footwear Corporation, a shoefactory that was the largest non-governmentalemployer in the city, and the Ott Lumber Yard,owned by prominent Jefferson City businessmanLouis Ott. In addition, the planners proposedthat the state should acquire also land to the westof the Capitol, at least as far west as WalnutStreet, an area that planners also thought to beblighted by commercial and industrial develop-ment. Acquisition of these properties wouldallow the razing of a number of buildings, there-by “eliminat[ing] a large amount of the undesir-able development which now seriously detractsfrom the site and would also provide a largeamount of open space . . . .”

South of the Capitol, planners proposed thecreation of a memorial mall and boulevardapproach to the state house, which, again, wouldrequire the destruction of a number of buildings,including the red brick Missouri Supreme Courtbuilding, then only about twenty-five years old.The planners resurrected the Capitol architects’proposal that “The grade on High Street betweenJefferson and Broadway should be reduced . . . soas not to interfere with the view toward theCapitol.” Indeed, the planners went so far as toassert that “It would be desirable if eventually boththe Highway and [St. Peter Catholic] church build-ings could be removed.” The Highway Departmentbuilding at this time was less than a decade oldand St. Peter Church was the spiritual home of lit-erally thousands of capital city Catholics. City andstate governmental officials would revisit this earlyplan time and again over the decades to come asthey wrestled with the problem of regulating andshaping the growth of the capital city.

Missouri state government expanded at onlya slightly slower rate during the Depression yearsof the 1930s than it had during the previousdecade. Among the large, new state bureaucra-cies created during the 1930s was the StateSocial Security Commission and the Unem-ployment Compensation Commission, both cre-ated in 1937. Even entry-level state governmentjobs, some with a six day work week, werethought to be highly desirable during the difficultDepression years. In a 1998 interview, BernardPoiry recalled that sixty years earlier, he consid-ered himself to be extremely fortunate when hisfather’s political connections landed him a job asa prison guard. He gladly moved from hisNewton County farm to Jefferson City, where heearned $135 per month at the prison.

In the mid-1930s, with the number of stateemployees continuing to grow, and most of thestate’s business still being conducted out of theCapitol, the state house’s resources were over-taxed. Bill Barton, who came to Jefferson City in1935 as a Republican legislator, recalled that theCapitol building was so crowded with govern-ment workers that many state employees movedto temporary office space in the basement so thatlegislators could occupy their offices.

A new government office building, knowninitially as the “State Office Building” (laternamed the Broadway State Office Building) waserected during the late 1930s with the help of thefederal government under the auspices of theWorks Progress Administration. Groundbreakingfor the 96,000 square foot building occurred onMarch 1, 1938, and the first department wasmoved into it on November 18, 1938. Many ofthe state offices housed in the Capitol, includingthe Missouri State Highway Patrol, created in1931, moved across West High Street to the newState Office Building.

The capital city’s population grew by 67%between 1920 and 1940, from 14,490 to24,268, more than it has grown in any othertwenty-year period in its history since 1850.With a great many of the immigrants to the citycoming to take jobs in state government, a needarose for affordable housing within walking dis-tance of the government buildings. Among thebuildings erected in the downtown area was theBella Vista Apartment building just four blockseast of the Capitol. Another popular apartmentbuilding of the era erected to accommodate thelarge influx of state workers was the WymoreApartment complex in the 300-block ofWashington Street, just two blocks from theCapitol and one block from the State OfficeBuilding, and the Tergin Apartment Building inthe 300-block of West McCarty Street.


Background and Buildingof the Hotel Governor

Housing of legislators and the people whocame to Jefferson City to do business with gov-ernmental officials became a serious concern ofthe city’s Chamber of Commerce during the1920s. One suspects, in fact, that the need forsuch facilities was driven home by the presenceof such a large group of people at the 1924Capitol dedication.

The dominant hotel in the city that catered topoliticians during the early 1920s was theMadison Hotel, located on the southwest cornerof the intersection of Capitol Avenue andMadison Street, just across from the Governor’sMansion. Among other uses, this hotel frequent-ly served as a state convention site for both ofthe state’s major political parties. Unfortunately,this hotel was severely damaged by fire inFebruary 1931, the consequence of a travelingsalesman, J.M. Schlitz, smoking in bed. Schlitzdied in the blaze. More fortunate was Missouristate representative William Hicks, who occu-pied a room adjacent to that of Schlitz.Newspaper accounts of the fire indicate that thestate representative “barely escaped with hislife.” Hicks was rescued by firemen who raised aladder to the window of his room.

According to local news reports, “Most of theguests of the hotel were members of the legisla-ture.” In addition, a number of lobbyists were

30 OFFICIAL MANUAL

Walthall M. Moore, St. Louis Representative, 3rdDistrict, 1924Missouri State Archives

registered at the hotel, including MichaelMulvoy, a St. Louis fireman, who was in JeffersonCity with Captain Egan of Kansas City, promotingthe interests of “the firemen’s pension bill.”Mulvoy directed the activities of the JeffersonCity fire department in its efforts to save thebuilding. Approximately $50,000 worth of dam-age was done to the structure. Unfortunately,another fire eight years later (on May 3, 1939)totally destroyed the Madison Hotel.

A push for a new hotel to replace theMadison, even in the face of the Great De-pression economy, was led by Chamber ofCommerce president Hugh Stephens. Stephens,who was also Chairman of the Board of theExchange National Bank, had as one of hisstrongest supporters Howard Cook, president ofthe rival Central Trust Bank. Stephens, Cook, andtheir allies, understood that many Missouriansrepresenting a variety of special interests wantedto gather in the capital city because it was theseat of governmental power.

On November 9, 1940, Cook wrote to apotential developer of his belief that “because ofstate conventions and for dozens of other excel-lent reasons Jefferson City hotel facilities are notnearly ample at the present time.” Cook believedthat “many other gatherings, large and small,would naturally come here if comfortable hotelaccommodations could be obtained.”

Ten days later, the developer, Bill Berberich,wrote to Hugh Stephens, offering to “build andoperate a hotel of not less than 145 rooms”whose minimum rates would be $2.00 a night.Berberich also promised a “banquet room seat-ing at tables not less than 400 persons.”

The deal was predicated upon the ability of acommittee headed by Stephens to acquire theproposed site “free and clear of all encum-brances.” Berberich wanted the group to donatethe land to him and to contribute a large amountof cash ($90,000) toward the building project.Stephens organized the campaign to raise themoney, but he cautioned Berberich that it wasprobably best not to let people know that thetotal project might cost as much as $500,000.Thus, Stephens revealed his awareness of the factthat many Jefferson Citians saw the hotel as abenefit more to state government than to theaverage City of Jefferson resident. Even manylocal merchants and retail salesmen doubtedStephens’ claims about the positive effect thehotel would have upon their businesses.

Eventually, the money was raised and thehotel was built. Among its most popular featureswas a basement bar known as the “Rathskeller.”Legislators and lobbyists flocked to the Rath-skeller, dubbed by many as the “Third Chamber”(in addition to the House and Senate). Much leg-islative business was transacted at the Rathskellerand even in the lobby of the Hotel Governor.

Indeed, long-time hotel employee Bill Kromerrecalled in a 2000 interview that “many pieces oflegislation were written and passed right there inthe lobby.” Live music and dancing opportunitiesattracted many area women to the Rathskeller. Asa consequence, the Rathskeller also became afavorite place for romantic rendezvous, earning ita second nickname—the “Passion Pit.”

One group that was not welcome at thenewly built Hotel Governor, or any other placeof public accommodation in the capital city, wasthe state’s African American population, includ-ing blacks who happened to be state legislators.The first African American General Assemblymember was Walthall Moore, elected as aRepublican from St. Louis City in 1920. From thetime that Moore began his term of office in1921, until the City of Jefferson passed a publicaccommodations law in the late 1960s, AfricanAmerican legislators were forced to stay either inprivate homes or in a dormitory on the LincolnUniversity campus. Long-time Lincoln Univer-sity employees remembered that legislatorswould stay in a men’s dorm (Allen Hall) andwould take their meals with the school’s facultyin the lower level of Schweich Hall. Dr. ThomasD. Pawley III, Emeritus Professor at the universi-ty, recalled in 2001 that in the 1940s, Rep-resentative James McKinley Neal, a Democratfrom Kansas City, roomed with Professor JamesFreeman in the latter’s home on Lafayette Street.Pawley remembered, also, that Neal would jointhe faculty in Schweich Hall at lunchtimebecause he could not obtain lunch in or near theCapitol building because of his race.

World War IIWorld War II witnessed action in the capital

city on behalf of the war effort, led by Mrs. PhilDonnelly, wife of Missouri’s governor. Mrs.Donnelly launched a chapter of the Red Cross“Gray Ladies” who organized a “Motor Corps”that traveled to Fort Leonard Wood once a week.While at the fort, the Gray Ladies helped soldierswith letter writing, provided them with cookiesand other treats, and simply visited them. A num-ber of the Gray Ladies were spouses of state offi-cials and government employees. In addition, by1943, nearly 700 Cole County women were reg-ularly providing services to the local Red Cross inthe form of production of surgical dressings.

GI’s at the recently completed Ft. LeonardWood, in return, often traveled to Jefferson Cityto dance and drink at the Rathskeller, or at Veit’sRestaurant and Motel on the western edge of thecapital city. Soldiers came by the busload on aFriday night, after being paid, and stayedthroughout the weekend. Two soldiers couldshare a motel room at Veit’s for six dollars a night


James McKinley Neal, Representative, Jackson Co., 4thDistrict, 1951Missouri State Archives

and a chicken dinner cost sixty-five cents. Beerflowed freely in the bar and lots of local girlsshowed up to dance with the G.I.’s to music fromthe jukebox in the barroom corner.

Veit’s Restaurant, established as a roadhousealong U. S. Highway 50 in 1941, was discoveredby politicians soon after it opened. For years, leg-islators gathered to eat and drink at Veit’s andhammer out the details of legislation. In a 2001interview, Bernadine Veit, who lived in an apart-ment above the restaurant for more than 60years, recalled that often during the restaurant’searly years, waitresses who were serving law-makers would come into the kitchen where shewas preparing food and announce, “Well, I knowwhat bills are going to be passed tomorrow.”More often than not, they were right. Legislatorswere not the only politicians who found Veits totheir liking: governors also dined there frequent-ly, especially Gov. Warren E. Hearnes, whoserved as governor of the state from 1965–1973.

The Post-World War II YearsState government continued to grow during

the post-World War II years. In March of 1952,the City of Jefferson entered into an agreementwith Harland Bartholomew and Associates to

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revise and update the City Plan of 1930.Although the city grew modestly (an increase ofonly 1,278 persons) between 1940 and 1950,government continued to grow greatly.According to the report, 27.7% of the city’s laborforce worked for state government.

According to the Harland Bartholomewreport, a 1950 survey showed state governmentoccupying 453,000 square feet of office floorspace, 117,000 of which was in rented quartersand 33,000 of which was “in corridors and con-verted quarters and other space not adapted foroffice use.” According to the survey, 694,000square feet of office space was needed, morethan twice the space owned by the state inJefferson City.

One attempt to respond to the need for newoffice space was the erection of a 14-story build-ing east of the Capitol and southwest of theGovernor’s Mansion. A contract for constructionof the building was let on August 28, 1950.When completed in December 1952, this build-ing (the Jefferson State Office Building) added160,000 feet of floor space available to stateoffice workers. The building cost $5,500,000.

A smaller, less expensive structure was builtat about the same time to house the MissouriDivision of Employment Security. Located a

number of blocks southeast of the Capitol com-plex, the Employment Security building, whichcost $500,000, was the first state office buildingerected in the City of Jefferson away from thedowntown/Capitol area. Indeed, in its 1954report to the city, Harland Bartholomew cited thebuilding of the Employment Security Buildingaway from the downtown area as a model forfuture development: “Future state office buildingsshould be located beyond the central area onsites such as that chosen for the new EmploymentSecurity Building.” Harland Bartholomew, in fact,called for a 10 % reduction in the number of stateemployees in the downtown area over the nexttwo decades in an effort to reduce the parkingproblem and the general overcrowding in thevicinity of the Capitol.

Emergence of the CapitalCity’s Favorite Son

The 1950s also witnessed the rise to the pin-nacle of state political power of a man whoseentire life had been shaped by happenings in thecapital city. James T. Blair Jr., was elected gover-nor of the state of Missouri in 1956. Althoughborn in Maysville, Missouri, in 1902, Blairmoved to Jefferson City as a child, after his father,a former legislator, was chosen to serve on theMissouri Supreme Court.

Blair attended the public schools of JeffersonCity, lived in the shadow of the State Capitol, andplayed in the Governor’s Mansion with the sonsof Gov. Herbert Hadley. Apparently his desire tobecome Missouri’s governor emerged while hewas still a child and was nurtured by his politi-cian/jurist father.

After earning a law degree from Tennessee’sCumberland University in 1924, Blair returned toJefferson City to practice law. He entered politicsin 1925 as a Democratic candidate for city attor-ney. His victory in that contest laid the ground-work for his election to the Missouri House ofRepresentatives in 1928 and 1930. In 1931, Blairwas chosen as majority floor leader.

Blair returned to his law practice in 1932,although he remained active in politics at thelocal, state, and even national levels. Blair waselected mayor of Jefferson City in 1947, resigningthe next year to run for the office of lieutenantgovernor of Missouri. He served in that positionfor eight years prior to his election as Missouri’sforty-fourth governor.

As governor, James T. Blair championed anumber of causes, including extending govern-ment aid to disabled persons, improving the effi-ciency of the state’s welfare system, and champi-oning the needs of the elderly. Arguably, thecrowning achievement of his years as governor

Construction of the Jefferson State Office Building,January, 1952Missouri State Archives


was the creation of the Missouri Commission onHuman Rights, an organization whose aim wasto end racial discrimination and segregation inthe state. In lobbying for the creation of the com-mission before the General Assembly, Blair pro-claimed that he would “Always and everywhere”identify himself “with any victim of oppressionor discrimination.” For a time, it appeared tomany that Blair might rise to national politicaloffice during the 1960 election. Instead, Blairretired to his home in the capital city. Sadly, Blairand his wife died of carbon monoxide poisoningin their home in July 1962. Among theMissourians who attended Blair’s funeral was for-mer President Harry S Truman, Gov. John M.Dalton, and U.S. Senator Stuart Symington.

Urban RenewalThe 1960s witnessed an intense battle

between residents of the capital city who wantedto save the city’s historic structures and state gov-ernmental officials who wanted to raze buildingsto provide more parking spaces for state govern-ment workers. Harland Bartholomew had con-cluded in the early 1950s that there were less thanthree hundred parking spaces in the Capitol areaand that all of those were needed for legislatorsand visitors. The planning firm concluded thenthat an additional eleven hundred parking spaceswere needed for government workers in the down-

town area. State planners, drawing upon the visionof long-range planners from the early 1930s,moved to acquire land and buildings owned bythe Tweedie Footwear Corporation, raze the build-ings, and replace them with parking lots.

Three of the buildings, however, were early-to-mid-nineteenth century structures that datedback to the days of the capital city’s importanceas a steamboat port. Led by Mrs. ElizabethRozier, a Jefferson City preservationist, thedaughter of a former state senator, and the wifeof a former state legislator, a group of JeffersonCitians began to protest the planned destructionof the buildings at what came to be called theLohman Landing Site.

The fight was long and oftentimes acrimo-nious. Sen. John E. Downs, D-St. Louis, calledLohman’s Landing “a stupid old unimportantpiece of masonry,” and Sen. A. Clifford Jones, R-Ladue, argued that the site “has no historical sig-nificance.” Jones added that there were only twohistorical sites worth saving in Jefferson City: theCapitol and the Governor’s Mansion. Eventually,however, the preservationists won, with the fightin the Senate championed by Sen. Omer Avery,D-Troy, and the fight in the House by Rep.Thomas D. Graham, D-Jefferson City. Instead ofbeing replaced by parking lots, the three build-ings were saved and restored in time for theBicentennial Celebration of the Declaration ofIndependence in July 1976.

Lohman’s Landing, c1955Missouri State Archives

Preservationists were less successful in theirefforts to save historically significant buildingswest of the Capitol, in an area that had long beenknown as “The Millbottom” because of the pres-ence there of multiple gristmills. To be sure, thearea, which had once been a respectable work-ing-class German immigrant neighborhood, hadbecome blighted by the mid-1960s.

Many state and city officials were eager toclean up the area because of the negative imagethey thought it projected to Capitol visitors. Theireffort, they claimed, was aimed at retainingJefferson City as “the showcase of a proudMissouri.” The Urban Renewal movement of the1960s promised a solution to the problem. Bythe early 1970s, federal, state, and city officialscombined to formulate a plan aimed at relocat-ing two hundred residents and some sixty busi-nesses in a roughly one hundred acre area of theMillbottom. All of the buildings would be razedand replaced with a “Capitol West” developmentthat would include a vibrant mix of state officebuildings, high-rise luxury apartments, new pri-vately operated businesses, and a conventioncenter. Ultimately, it became clear that the plan-ners’ vision exceeded their resources and theircapacity to execute their plan. Two new stateoffice buildings and one hotel were built in thearea, dramatically increasing the demand forparking. The vast majority of the acreage cleared

by the Capitol West Urban Renewal Project waspaved over for parking for state employees.

The Capital City in theTwenty-First Century

To many residents of the capital city, theCapitol West development seemed a fittingreminder that their city was, in fact, both a ben-eficiary and a victim of its destiny: a communitythat existed as a consequence of its status as thestate capital, but a community whose growthand development were dictated by forces overwhich it had little or no control.

In a very real sense, residents of the City ofJefferson had spent the bulk of the nineteenthcentury trying to make certain that their townwould remain the capital city. They spent muchof the twentieth century trying to reconcile them-selves to the results of their victory.

As the twenty-first century dawned, newopportunities appeared. The Missouri GeneralAssembly authorized the movement of the centu-ry-and-a-half old penitentiary from the heart ofthe city to an area just east of the city limits. Thisaction created the exciting possibility of state,county, and city officials working with privatebusiness interests to redevelop the old prison site,a riverfront tract of more than one hundred acres.

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Fireworks display at the Missouri State CapitolMissouri State Archives

A second opportunity centered on the out-come of a fifty-year-old debate about whether aconvention center should be built in the capitalcity and, if so, where it should be built and whoshould pay for its erection. But with both of thesepossibilities, a nagging question remained: howmany of the capital city’s historic nineteenth andearly twentieth-century structures would have tobe sacrificed to achieve the dreams of the twen-ty-first century visionaries? The challenge for thepresent and future remained, then, much as ithad been for the past: how to accommodate andnurture the growth of state government whilehonoring the rich traditions, culture, and integri-ty of the capital city and its residents.

That challenge notwithstanding, the capitalcity remained in the twenty-first century what ithad always been: a place where Missourianscame to transact business and to celebrate thevirtues and values of their state and nation. Bythe year 2001, gatherings such as the annual 4thof July celebration on the Capitol grounds rou-tinely attracted a crowd in excess of the city’sentire population and Missourians who visitedthe capital city boasted of the beauty of theirstate house. The old image of the City of Jeffersonas a “somewhat fatigueing” place that wouldlikely not amount to much was gone, replacedby a collective memory of 175 years of pride ingrowth and achievement.

Gary R. Kremer, Professor of History, WilliamWoods University and former Missouri StateArchivist.

For Further ReadingThis essay draws heavily upon my reading of

newspapers that are housed at The StateHistorical Society of Missouri, especially thosepapers that were published in the City ofJefferson during the nineteenth century and thefirst half of the twentieth century. In addition, Ihave made use extensively of governmentrecords compiled by the State of Missouri andthe City of Jefferson, housed at the Missouri StateArchives. I have used, also, the interviews withformer legislators that are a part of the “Politicsin Missouri” project housed in The StateHistorical Society of Missouri’s WesternHistorical Manuscript Collection.

Readers who wish to pursue the topic of thehistory of the City of Jefferson as the capital ofthe State of Missouri will find the following pub-lications useful:

Barton, William. Some Stories and IncidentsUnder the Capitol Dome During the Last SixtyYears. Jefferson City. Self-published. 1996.

Brugioni, Dino. The Civil War in Missouri AsSeen From the Capital City. Jefferson City:Summers Publishing, 1987.

Carnahan, Jean. If Walls Could Talk: The Storyof Missouri’s First Families. Jefferson City: MMPI,L.L.C., 1998.

Ford, James E. A History of Jefferson City.Jefferson City: New Day Press, 1938.

Giffen, Jerena East. First Ladies of Missouri:Their Homes and Their Families. Rev. Ed.Jefferson City: Giffen Enterprises, 1996.

_____________ “Jefferson City: A CommunityDiminished by its Destiny.” Pioneer Times. Part1, 7 (April 1983): 134-144; Part 2, 7 (July 1983):262-272.

History of Cole, Moniteau, Morgan, Benton,Miller, Maries and Osage Counties, Missouri.Chicago: The Goodspeed Publishing Co., 1889.

Kremer, Gary R. Heartland History: Essays onthe Cultural Heritage of the Central MissouriRegion. St. Louis: G. Bradley Publishing, Vol. 1,2000; Vol. 2, 2001.

_____________ “Politics, Punishment, andProfit: Convict Labor in the Missouri StatePenitentiary, 1875-1900,” Gateway Heritage. 11(Spring 1991): 66-75.

_____________ “Jefferson City.” Marian M.Ohman. Ed. Twenty Towns: Their Histories,Town Plans, and Architecture. Columbia:University of Missouri–Columbia, ExtensionDivision, 1985.

_____________ and Thomas E. Gage. “ThePrison Against the Town: Jefferson City and thePenitentiary in the 19th Century.” MissouriHistorical Review. 75 (July 1980): 414-432.

Ohman, Marian M. The History of MissouriCapitols. Columbia: University of Missouri–Columbia, Extension Division, 1982.

Rader, Perry S. “The Location of thePermanent Seat of Government.” MissouriHistorical Review. 21 (October 1926): 9-18.

Schroeder, Adolf E. and Carla Schulz-Geisberg. Eds. Hold Dear, as Always: Jette, A ger-man Immigrant Life in Letters. Columbia:University of Missouri Press, 1988.

Stout, Laurie A. Somewhere in Time: A 160Year History of Missouri Corrections. Rev. ed.Jefferson City: Missouri Department of Correc-tions, 1991.

Winn, Kenneth H. “It All Adds Up: Reformand the Erosion of Representative Government inMissouri, 1900–2000.” Julius Johnson. Ed. OfficialManual: State of Missouri, 1999-2000. JeffersonCity: Office of the Secretary of State, 1999.

Young, Dr. R.E. Pioneers of High, Water andMain; Reflections of Jefferson City. Jefferson City:Twelfth State, 1997.


2001-2002 Official Manual, Chapter 1, Pages 11 - Secretary of State

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