When searching for local history, some interesting places to explore are newspapers in other states.

In recent years many newspapers have become available online though various websites, making the search for long lost relatives more convenient (but sometimes only if you are willing to pay up for the subscription fee).

For instance, a search for Cassville in the California papers would result in an item from Stockton in 1867 about the “shocking account that a little daughter of a Mr. Martin, eight years old, deliberately shot and killed her brother because he pulled her flowers and declared if the other children pulled any more of them she would shoot them too.”

The article picked up from a Cassville paper in Barry County shows that kids and guns have always been a troubling mix. Since most of the Cassville newspapers burned in the fire of 1893, which consumed both newspaper offices, out of area newspapers can offer glimpses of the past not frequently seen.

Specifically, when searching for Cassville in old newspapers, you want to make sure you have the correct one, as there are towns by that name in Wisconsin, Georgia, Indiana, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and New York, as well as another “Barry County” in the state of Michigan.

Some items tended to make all the papers nationally, such as the hanging of Ed Clum for murder in 1887, which made the Sacramento, Calif., paper.

Another item frequent in out-of-town papers was the All-American Redheads traveling women’s basketball team that originated in Cassville. In 1950, they could be found playing in Kalispell, Mont., according to their newspaper.

The C&E Railroad was regularly covered nationally, as well, for being the shortest standard gauge railroad in the county. The closure of the railroad made national news in 1956 and was reported in places like Corpus Christi, Texas.

After the passing of her husband Dave Dingler, Ida Dingler made the Chattanooga, Tenn., paper in 1940 for becoming a woman president of a railroad.

Articles such as these are a reminder of the complicated nature of people, in how they can be open-minded about some issues such as accepting a woman as president of a railroad or forming a professional women’s basketball team, yet during the same period, the area was considered a sundown town — all-white towns or neighborhoods practicing racial segregation by excluded non-whites through discriminatory laws, intimidation or even violence.

Sometimes an interesting piece of Civil War information might come up in a search, such as in 1862 the Emporia, Kan., paper reported: “Arrivals from Springfield, Mo., announce the presence of the notorious Col. Coffey, with several hundred guerrillas, at or near Cassville, on the Fayetteville road. They have cut the telegraph line between Springfield and Cassville.”

Crime always seems to be of interest to newspaper readers. In 1908 the Brazil, Ind., newspaper reported that in Cassville, Mo.: “T.M. Allen, postmaster here was arrested by a post office inspector who alleges that he opened mail addressed to a person in his office.” It seems at one time the postal service took security seriously.

In 1896, a New Orleans paper reported: “Robbers entered the bank at Cassville, Mo., last night and blew open the safe, securing the contents. The robbery was the work of professionals.” In 1894, a Salt Lake City paper stated that “At Dry Hollow, eight miles south of Cassville, Mo., in a fit of despondency, Mrs. William Jones cut the throats of her five and seven- year-old children with a razor and committed suicide in the same manner.”

Disasters were another favorite topic for newspapers to spread far and wide. News of the Golden tornado of 1909 was carried as far as Brainerd, Minn., which reported “four people killed, at least twelve injured.”

And sometimes, the stories are just odd. In 1934, the Gallup in New Mexico ran an item from Cassville where Charles Jackson, Barry County farmer, offered his barber five pigs for a shave, and “When he was shaved, Jackson went to his car, brought in a burlap sack and dumped five squealing pigs on the barber shop floor.”

Hopefully, our neighbors didn’t judge us too harshly by what appeared in the newspapers, as I’m sure we were never judgmental about them.

While we may appear a bit violent or a little odd to our neighbors, a true measure of an Ozarker is how little they care about what “foreigners” actually think of them.

Jeremiah Buntin is a historian at the Barry County Museum. He may be reached at jbuntin@barrycomuseum. org.