Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 August 1895 — CURIOUS HORSE BLOCKS. [ARTICLE]

CURIOUS HORSE BLOCKS.

Relia of Desperadoes in a Small __ Missouri Town. "Not long ago a Washington Star writer had occasion to be in western Missouri. Just north of Kansas City, about twelve miles, is the littla town of Parkville. It is built up on the two sides of a valley which opens against the broad Missouri, and the hamlet might contain perhaps fifty houses. Among other matters, however, it shelters a seminary of considerable local fame, which teaches both boys and girls the higher branches of an education, but with which just now we have nothing to do. The main street of the village runs along the bottom of the valley at right angles with the Missouri river. On each side of the street are the various village stores, perhaps a dozen in all, and, as the town does considerable trade with the farmers round about, the stores are what might be termed “good sized.” To illustrate the slowness of the village of Parkville, and its calm acquiescence to a condition, once it be brought about, the following might be told: The Star writer was sitting in front of one of the stores, smoking a very bad cigar of local origin, and conversing with the merchant who had sold it. It was about 8 o’clock in the afternoon, and many of the country people were coming' into town- A country girl of the region came cantering up on a bareback horse and slid off on what, now that the Star man’s attention was called to it, he noticed was a unique sort of horse block. It was nothing more nor less than an old rusty safe of considerable size. It had apparently lain there for years, and when examined disclosed a suspicious looking hole on one side, clearly the work of explosives. At this point the attention of tho investigator from the East was called to two other safes, similarly exploded, and also lying on their sides in the street and doing duty as horse blocks. “How about these safes?” asked the Star man of the Parkville merchant. “What story goes with them ?”

“Nuthin’ much of a story,” remarked the Parkville merchant, helping himself to a thoughtful chew of tobacco. “Them safes have laid right thar where you all see 'em since ’73. They wuz dragged out there and busted by Quantrell and Jess and Frank James and the Younger brothers, along with the rest of Quantrell’s gang. They come chargin’ down the street one day in June and tuk the town in about a minut and a half, and then went fur them safes. Money wuz mighty poplar with Quantrell and the James boys, and they usually went arter all they heard of.” “How much did they get from the safes?” "I dunno how much they got from them on t’other side of the street,” said the Parkville man. “They hunted $3,800 out’n mine,” and hero he pointed sadly at the safe nearest to him ; the one on which the young rustic had just alighted. “Was that safe yonrs?” he asked. “Yes,” lie answered. "I kep’ store then right whar I Jo now. and jest as I do now.” “Why haven’t you removed the safes?” “What's the use?” observed the Parkville man. “They ain’t in nobody’s way, and they do fust-rate fur hoss-blocks. ’Nuther thing, we ain't got no carts nor tackle strong enough to move ’em, nohow; so we jest let ’em go as they lay, as they say in' faro.”