History

Howell County 1895 - What it Was and What it Is. The "Howell County News" published its first edition in July 1895, and this incarnation of the paper (I suspect you are aware of a later paper with the same name) lasted until 1907. The editor looked at the county's past and present in its first...
For the past several years, and more recently since the pandemic, there’s been a surge in urban poultry farming. From my experience and perspective, “farming” is a poor choice of words, but nevertheless, cute little cedar henhouses have populated municipalities, and city dwellers are gathering “...
Nineteenth and early twentieth-century newspaper obituaries are a great source for historians and genealogists doing research. To our sensitivities, they often contain too much information, seem a bit harsh, and more resembled a news story. That is because the newspaper editor most often wrote...
In Part 1, I related the story about Buck Nelson, the hillbilly farmer from north of Mountain View, who, in the mid-1950s, claimed to have been visited by extra-terrestrial space aliens who took him on a trip to the moon, Mars, and Venus in a flying saucer. His tale stopped short of describing...
Looking through my old newspaper files I noted in “The Willow Springs News,” dated July 18, 1940, local teacher and historian, Ella Horak was writing a “Pioneer Series,” about our older citizens. Ella is best known for a book she wrote for the 1969 Willow Springs Centennial but was writing local...
In this column three years ago, I mentioned Buck Nelson, the hillbilly farmer from north of Mountain View, who, in the mid-1950s, claimed to have been visited by extra-terrestrial space aliens. Moreover, according to Buck, these spacemen took him on an interplanetary trip in a flying saucer.  I...
Due process is defined in the Oxford Dictionary as “a fundamental principle of fairness in all legal matters, both civil and criminal, especially in the courts.” The idea has been the topic of national discussion lately. A diary recently made available to the public tells the story of J. Posey...
With planting season rapidly approaching, my dad’s gardens come to mind. He always had big, beautiful gardens that provided abundance, not only to us, but to neighbors and friends in the Howard’s Ridge Community. My grandma always said that we’d never go hungry because Daddy was so generous with...
While researching my files, I came across two copies of a Willow Springs newspaper I was unfamiliar with. "The Willow Springs Democrat" existed for only a year in its first life and not much longer in its second. The practice of a newspaper declaring a party affiliation predated the Civil War....
Howell County is generally drier in its north than in other parts. Reliable water sources, especially in drought, were prized and their location was “well” known to the early settlers. In 1973 retired schoolteacher and local historian Ella Horak wrote of a watering location, which happens to also...

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Howell County News

110 W. Main St.,
Willow Springs, MO 65793
417-252-2123

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