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Tales from Days Gone By
New episode released the second and fourth Thursday of the month.
Hosted by Dr. Bill Eddleman

Behind the big themes, celebrated figures, and dry dates of history are the interesting stories of life in the past and ordinary people. Southeast Missouri has a varied and rich history that you often don’t hear about in history classes. Join Bill Eddleman of the State Historical Society of Missouri to hear about these stories with “Tales from Days Gone By.”

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  • One of the original hangars from the Malden Army Airfield (now Malden Regional Airport). Photo by Bill Eddleman.
    Pilot Training in the Bootheel: The Malden Army Airfield
    When the U. S. declared war on Japan and Germany at the end of 1941, mobilization of the armed forces began immediately. An acute need for fighter pilots required that training had to begin as soon as possible. The War Department acquired several new sites for airfields, including 2900-acre site four miles north of Malden in Dunklin County.
  • Label applied to locally brewed beer from Old Appleton Brewery for the St. Louis market, making it appear the beer was from Huether Brewing Co., Ltd. in Kitchener, Ontario. Federal dry agents discovered the fraud during a raid on the brewery. St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 26, 1932.
    Nearly 100 Years of Brewing in Old Appleton
    One of the longest-running local breweries in southeast Missouri, Old Appleton Brewery, started with a German immigrant, Caspar Ludwig.
  • Detail of “The State of Missouri.” 1858. Showing local of Big River Mills. E. Mendenhall: Cincinnati, Ohio. Courtesy of The State History Society of Missouri.
    St. Francois County’s Oldest Settlement: Big River Mills
    One of the first American settlements in the Ste. Genevieve District was at a cluster of land grants on the west side of Rivere Grande, or Big River, in present-day St. Francois County.
  • Cape County Milling Company Mill “A,” circa 1908. Courtesy of Jackson Heritage Association, photo by Frank Medley.
    The Unquiet Grave of Nathan Watson
    Among all the stories in Southeast Missouri history that have sparked tales of ghosts and hauntings is one that should have but has not.
  • Rezin P. Bowie (older brother of James Bowie), alleged inventor of the Bowie knife. From History of Texas, Vol. 1, John Henry Brown, 1892. Public domain.
    The Bowie Family in Southeast Missouri – Before the Bowie Knife
    Few people realize that the family of James, or Jim, Bowie, who made the Bowie Knife famous and later died at The Alamo, spent time in Southeast Missouri at the beginning of the 19th Century.
  • Monument marking the location from which Battery F, 2nd Illinois Light Artillery initially fought from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Battle of Shiloh, April 6, 1862. “ILLINOIS/BATTERY F/2ND REGIMENT LT. ARTILLERY/UNASSIGNED/ARMY OF THE TENNESSEE.”
    Samuel Scism: A Stoddard County Unionist’s Civil War Tale
    Samuel Scism’s story is a common one among Civil War soldiers who survived prison camps. Vegetables in their diets might have prevented many cases of chronic dysentery. The state of medical care of the time meant that the malady was untreatable and subject to recurrence.
  • Advertisement for the mercantile business of Jesse Gunn in Chicopee, Carter County, which burned after an acetylene lighting system exploded on March 26, 1912. The Current Local, issue of February 22, 1912, page 8.
    Disaster in Chicopee: The Burning of the Jesse Gunn Store
    The quiet of the early evening of March 26, 1912, Chicopee on the Current River in Carter County would soon be broken by a catastrophe.
  • Membership List Showing Death Years of Aaron Jr. and Betsey Pinson, Providence on Big River Baptist Church, Washington County, Missouri, Minutes of Meetings and Lists of Members, 1831-1894, unpaginated; FamilySearch.org, Image Group Number 00985201, image 146 of 151 (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C39J-Z9CX-X?cat=355458: accessed July 20, 2025).
    The Many Moves of Aaron Pinson Jr.
    Sometimes we underestimate the mobility of the early generations of European settlers in what became the U. S.
  • Juvenile, male, and female Passenger Pigeons. Watercolor by Louis Agassiz Fuertes, Birds of New York, New York State Museum Memoir No. 12, Albany University of the State University of New York. Public domain.
    A Biological Storm: Passenger Pigeons in Eastern Missouri
    A traveler from southeastern New York, Christian Schultz, descended the Ohio River in 1807. He stopped at the mouth of the Ohio River on the Missouri side on October 24, 1807, and noticed a strange phenomenon.
  • The Greenville Sun, issue of May 1, 1924, page 1.
    The Tangled Web of Clacy T. Kinder
    The morning of November 15, 1923, was out of the ordinary at the Bank of Patterson in Wayne County. The cashier, Clacy T. Kinder, failed to appear.