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In 1961, the Missouri Civil Defense Agency prepared for nuclear war by planning to evacuate urban populations to caves and mines in rural areas. Robert C. Ellis, the Jefferson City engineer who led the federally financed project, estimated that mines and caves could protect almost three-quarters of Missourians from radioactive fallout. The plan lacked one crucial element: meeting the basic needs of urban refugees. State and federal policymakers assumed rural Americans would voluntarily operate reception centers, and provide food, sanitation facilities, and first aid.

Cape Girardeau Research Center Coordinator Bill Eddleman presents the next installment in his genealogy series: “Combining Traditional and Archival Resources to Tell a Life Story: Michael S. Eddlemon.” Most of us consult the “traditional” sources when researching our families, and many of these are discussed in earlier sessions in this Basic Genealogy series and include census, vital records (birth, marriage, and death), land records, and more.

2024 marks fifty years since Gary Kremer, executive director of SHSMO, published his first essay on the African American experience in Missouri. Over the course of the past five decades, he has written dozens of articles and five books on the topic of race in Missouri, a publishing record unrivalled by any other scholar of the subject.

In the spring of 1885, newspapers around the United States carried sensational coverage of mysterious bones, artifacts, and alleged riches discovered by an exploration party in Tim Collins’ coal mine near Moberly, Missouri. However, just as quickly as the story reached a national audience, allegations of a hoax dampened the excitement. Join State Historical Society of Missouri Assistant Director of Research, Sean Rost, for Chapter 5 of the Missouri Mysteries series as he explores the mystery of Collins’ Coal Mine. 

Peter Herschend is the co-founder of Herschend Entertainment Corporation (formerly Silver Dollar City, Inc). The Herschend family business started in Southwest Missouri with a hole in the ground called Marvel Cave. To give cave visitors more to do, Peter and his brother Jack built an old Ozarks Village named Silver Dollar City - now USA TODAY'S and Tripadvisor's number one theme park in America. Today, Herschend Enterprises is the nation's largest family-owned entertainment company.