Let the Library display your WWI Veteran's Photos this Fall

In commemoration of 100 years since the beginning of Armistice Day and the end of World War I November 11, 1918, the Poplar Bluff Municipal Library with community partners plans a series of programs celebrating our veterans for their service to our country.

Organizations participating in some or all of these events include:

• Poplar Bluff Municipal Library
• Poplar Bluff Chapter of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution
• Poplar Bluff History Museum
• Veteran’s organizations
• Veterans of Foreign Wars
• Vietnam Veterans
• American Legion
• John J Pershing Veterans Administration Hospital

One of these events includes a photographic display of World War I veterans serving from the counties to which Poplar Bluff Municipal Library provides free library cards. These counties are Butler, Carter, Dunklin, Ripley, Stoddard, and Wayne.

The library is asking for submissions of photos for public display in the library October 1 through November 30, 2018.

Approximately 30-50 photos of these photographs will be placed on a standing display in the library on a first come first served basis. Photos received after meeting the maximum allowable space on the display unit will be placed in a notebook with photos in plastic sleeves and arranged alphabetically. This notebook will be placed in close proximity to the standing display for browsing and viewing.

With the name of the veteran, the library will attempt to find pertinent service related information for each veteran including service and draft records if available. Additionally, names of veterans and photos will be submitted to the website missourioverthere.org for searching and public viewing and as a resource for genealogy research.

The Library will accept all photos meeting the criteria described below.

Criteria for Submission:

1. Submission form and photo must be received no later than August 31, 2018.
2. Mail to or bring by the library:


Sue Crites Szostak OR Shon Griffin
Poplar Bluff Municipal Library
318 North Main Street
Poplar Bluff, Missouri 63901


3. All photos must be a 5x7 copy of the original photo on photo quality paper.
4. No photocopies will be accepted
5. No originals. These photos become the property of Poplar Bluff Municipal Library and will become a part of the library’s photo archives.
6. The veteran must be from Butler, Carter, Dunklin, Ripley, Stoddard, or Wayne County, the counties Poplar Bluff Municipal Library serves with free library cards.
7. The owner consents that the veteran’s information be submitted to the Missourioverthere.org website.
8. All photos submitted must include the name of the veteran, the name of the submitter and address and good telephone number written legibly but lightly in pencil on the back of the photo.

The submitter understands there may not be enough room to include all photos on the standing display. However, all photos will be available in the library either on the display stand or in the notebook(s). Photos are accepted on a first come/first served basis for the purposes of display. All overflow photos will be put into a notebook alphabetically by last name and placed near the standing display.

Questions:

Email: szostak@poplarbluff.org OR shon@poplarbluff.org
Call: 573-300-4590 OR 573-203-4678

Wheatley Yearbooks - 1954 & 1956 - Now Available

The library is happy to present to you yearbooks from Wheatley School for 1954 and 1956.  These are viewable AND searchable in PDF files, and even better, files can be saved to your computer!

These were digitized after a generous citizen graciously allowed the library to borrow these rare books.  Now we are sharing our good fortune with you, the public.

To see the yearbooks, along with Poplar Bluff and Neelyville yearbooks, follow this link and enjoy!

John Stanard's Pictorial History Books Christmas Special - One Day Only!!!

"The Way We Worked" Exhibit @ the Library

Guest Speakers to Discuss Exhibit on Wednesday, September 25th at the Poplar Bluff Municipal Library

Two opportunities to join the conversation @ 10 a.m. and 6 p.m.

"The Way We Worked" is a stunning, locally created exhibit focusing on the history of local Poplar Bluff and Butler County industry, commerce, and education. The story unfolds in striking pictures depicting how the river, railroad, cypress forests and agriculture shaped our community.

Join the Library for a meeting of memories, as Dr. Frank Nickell, retired SEMO History Professor, and John Stanard, retired journalist, author and local historian, discuss the exhibit and provide further insight and story behind the pictures.   

"The Way We Worked" is on exhibit at the Library now until Monday, October 7th.

1949 Aerial Photograph of Poplar Bluff

Have you visited the Genealogy Department lately and noticed a new photograph?  If not, take a look on your next visit!

This photograph was donated to the library by Mr. and Mrs. Harold Jackson of Poplar Bluff (former owners of Jackson Dodge).

What you are seeing is an aerial photograph of Poplar Bluff taken in 1949 as Butler County celebrated its Centennial of existence after being carved out of Wayne County in 1849.

This is a great example of how well the community had recovered from the devastating impact of the 1927 Tornado 22 years earlier.  You'll find familiar landmarks that help you orient yourself to the city's past.  Along the bottom of the photograph is Black River with the bridges of Pine and Vine crossing it.  Follow the right bridge (Pine St.) up to the top and you'll see the "dog-leg" curve with Sacred Heart Church and at the top is the "intersection" of Highways 60 and 67 along with the old water tower.

The library has had this photograph reframed with UV resistant glass to protect it from fading by sunlight and to preserve it for future generations to admire.

Billions and billions served .... BillionGraves.com

BillionGraves is a newcomer in to the world of online genealogy having been launched the Summer of 2011.  This website was recently brought to my attention by my genealogy and work colleague, Erin Rigby.  Headstones, new and old, can be photographed to provide much needed help to genealogists.  Families are far more mobile and less likely to stay in one place for an extended time period, creating "orphaned" graves.  Older monuments are preserved for posterity as they eventually succumb to weathering over the decades and centuries or the unfortunate case of vandalism.  This site is truly connecting the past, present, and future.

I admit I joined the site out of curiosity and have found it very user friendly.  I have taken photos, uploaded them, and transcribed not only mine but those of others as well.  I've even had the privilege of "adding" a cemetery that wasn't included in the site's database.

Screen shot of a partially photographed cemetery.
Using Google Maps and the GPS coordinates from a
smart phone, the layout of a cemetery can easily be seen.

Don't feel like you're experiencing deja vu, some aspects of BillionGraves are similar to that of Find-a-Grave.  Find-a-Grave creates an entry for each burial in a cemetery with the option of loading photos.  BillionGraves only allows legible, photographed entries that are transcribed at a later time from data uploaded by smart phones utilizing GPS technology on iPhone and Android devices. Each photo is encoded with coordinates that allow the grave site to be pinpointed on Google Maps which in turn can provide you with driving directions if you wanted to visit to pay your respects.  You must have their "app" installed on your device (available for free on iTunes and Market) to participate in taking and loading the photos to the website.

If you don't have a smart phone, you can still volunteer to participate.  Transcribers are needed to enter the inscriptions in the photo so the database is searchable.  Names, dates of birth, death, and marriages, epitaphs, and additional notations are all possibilities for a photo.  It's possible to have more than one photo associated, these photos are "linked" during the process of taking the photographs. The back of a stone may have a phrase, list of children, etc., or, if it's an obelisk, there may possibly be names, epitaphs, etc, on multiple sides.

Everyone one from shutterbugs taking a walk through the cemetery to the stay at home transcriber typing the day away can help share genealogy discoveries with the world.

85th Anniversary of Devastating Tornado

This afternoon, four score and five years ago, a tornado wrought destruction and death to the city of Poplar Bluff.  This will be remembered and marked by a few but go unnoticed by most.  May 9, 1927, may have left the community in pieces that day but life went on.

Two days later, "The Daily Republican", published a double-sided, one page edition with the banner headline "Poplar Bluff Will Rebuild".  One column contains a list the deceased.  Over 100 died that day.  As I delved further into my own genealogy research, that list became very personal after finding a death certificate for my great-great grandfather.  I had never read the list, just glanced over it. Looking back, sure enough, there he was: J.W. (John Wesley) Huson, my great-great grandfather.  The death certificate was submitted by D.B. Deem, Justice of the Peace, Acting Coroner (author of Deem's History of Butler County).

I have yet to discover where he was precisely.  His occupation was always listed as being a farmer but double checking the 1920 Census and following up with his widow in the 1930 Census, street addresses for Poplar Bluff were listed on the far left columns of both.  So many of my ancestors were farmers and always listed as "rural", "county road", or "country road", I'd become blind to the street address portion of the Census.

I definitely learned my lesson.  Even if you think you're familiar with a record, it's never a bad idea to take another look. You may find a new clue that leads you to additional information.  If nothing else, you'll be confirming what you already knew.

You can see the resulting devastation in a series of photographs, including a scanned image of the first post-storm edition of "The Daily Republican" published on May 11th, on the library's website.

See How We've Grown! Library Locations in Poplar Bluff

Look where we've been!  Prior to opening in our current location at 318 N. Main Street in 1936, the library was located in four other locations.

April 1916 – July 1919
First home of the Library.
A basement room in the building known as he Criterion Theater, on 129 North Main owned by W. N. Barron.

July 1919 – April 1930
Second home of the Library.
A 6-room house at the corner of Pine & Broadway, across the street from the first building. This corner is currently the Rodgers Theater.   The house, itself, was later moved to a new location at 630 Pine Street, and is still there today.

April 1930 – December 1935

Third home of the Library.

A building at the corner of Poplar & 2nd (210 Poplar) known as the Elk’s Home.

It currently houses the Daily American Republic newspaper offices.

December 1935 – August 1936
Fourth home of the Library.
  N.W. corner of Poplar & Broadway, also known as the Fraternal Opera Building, at 125 South Fourth. This image shows the building prior to the library occupying the site. The upper level was removed by the 1927 Tornado.

Formal opening: September 11, 1936. Dedication: October 12, 1936
The building we currently occupy as it originally appeared  in 1936 until another wing was added on in 1997-98 with  additional modifications made in 2007-08.

2009 - present
These show how the library has grown since the 1936 opening.

Time travel with the PB Jr. High School

Ever wonder what Poplar Bluff looked like when your family members came to town? What did they see walking down the street?  For some, it's just a stroll down memory lane.  Take a trip to yesteryear with the help of the Poplar Bluff Junior High school's website!

You will find photos and postcards of schools, churches, businesses, railroad and river scenes and many other subjects, as well as photos of the devastating damage from the tornado in 1927.  If you have something to share, you can even submit your own.

This is a great way to put your family's life into perspective with images from the late 1800's and going through the 1950's.  It's the next best thing we have in lieu of time travel, allowing us to see how they lived "back then".