AREA SAFARI: PROFESSOR'S COLLECTION OF STORIES INCLUDES LION HUNT

~Correction: Lions were not killed by Tom Hodgkiss, as is indicated here. Pete Wise killed the lions, according to Missourian records.sks.

COMMERCE -- Lions and other large felines are often interwoven in folk tales and local legends. Most every locale has a fable about a fiery-eyed cat of gargantuan size that has preyed on livestock and hapless humans. By stirring together elements such as an innocuous bobcat, a dark night, an overactive imagination, and perhaps a bit of spirits, an epic story can evolve with large doses of embellishment ... but little truth.

Stories about lions inhabiting areas along the Mississippi River have blossomed. One alludes to lions and other large, wild animals. Another talks of a man who raised lions on a remote Mississippi River island for many years until a spring flood drowned his menagerie. Still another refers to a lion that escaped from a circus, swam to a river island, and lived there peacefully for many years until being hunted down.

The most unique concoction involves a lion that, in escaping from a sinking circus riverboat, comes upon a riverfront baptism and in one minute generates more conversions for the preacher than all his prior baptisms.

Dr. Frank Nickell, head of the Center for Regional History at Southeast Missouri State University, has collected some of these animal tales as well as information on actual events on which stories are based.

A St. Louis businessman and hunter, Denver Wright, conducted two lion hunts near here, one in October 1932, and the other in January 1933. Wright managed to outrage local residents, local and state officials and editorial writers of many major newspapers for his efforts.

The story of the lion safaris of Southeast Missouri originated with Wright's own origins. According to Nickell's account, Wright moved to Southeast Missouri by covered wagon near the end of the 1800s with his family. After a boyhood in the lowlands, he moved to Cape Girardeau, then on to Lutesville. He worked at the shoe factory there, dropped out of school, started a leather shop in St. Louis, and developed the enterprise into a major leather company.

The story of Wright's venture in big-game hunting starts in 1932, as the Depression was taking effect. "Wright was contacted by the owner of a small circus that ran out of money while passing through St. Louis and needed to get rid of the menagerie," Nickell said. "Although he rejected the offer, Wright ended up with two 10-month-old female lions named Nellie and Bess." Problems developed because the lions had a voracious appetite, eating 20 pounds of meat daily, and Mrs. Wright became concerned about the safety of the nine Wright children.

A hunter from way back, Wright decided to stage Missouri's first lion safari to solve his domestic challenge. He announced plans to hold it in his old stomping grounds in the Bootheel.

Vigorous opposition mounted immediately. Simon Loebe of the Charleston Enterprise-Courier described the proposal as "not only foolish, but intolerable."

The Sikeston Daily Standard rebutted, tongue in cheek: "Let Wright bring the lions down. What in the hell will we do for gossip if we don't have a lion or something to chase? If the editor of the Charleston Enterprise-Courier would take a few swigs of the panther juice they turn out down in the swamps he could claw the lions into submission into three minutes."

To allay the fears of local residents, Wright agreed to stage the hunt on Towhead Island, safely away from civilization. The two lions were transferred to a small barge at the Commerce landing the morning of Sept. 16, 1932, and taken across the river channel by Wright and his small hunting party. The tame lions refused to leave the cages when the doors were opened, but were finally prodded out. Then Wright made a bad choice.

"Because the animals were so nervous, Wright decided to give them a chance to settle down," Nickell said. The entourage returned to Commerce for lunch to drink a few vats of coffee and swap hunting yarns. But Deputy Sheriff Tom Hodgkiss, riverboat man Pete Wise and St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Leland Chesley returned to the island, where the deputy used a sub-machine gun to kill the two lounging animals.

As Wright and the party reverted to the island for the hunt after lunch, the other three evaded them, dumped the carcasses on the Commerce riverfront and left no tracks. Wright, finding out what happened, was "somewhat aroused," according to the Daily Standard account, and spent two days in the area attempting to locate Wise and Hodgkiss.

Nationwide press coverage of the event was, at best, extremely critical. The Cleveland (Ohio) Press succinctly suggested Wright set up the stuffed lions in his basement and blaze away at them there when the urge overcame him.

"Undaunted by the outcry against his 1932 safari, Wright returned in 1933 with two 5-year-old lions from another bankrupt circus," Nickell said. "They were taken to a 200-acre island across from East Prairie and released."

Wright had arranged tight security, complete with barbed-wire fencing and patrol boats, to prevent repetition of the fiasco. The synthetic safari spent several damp, cold nights on the island to get in the mood of an expedition.

The morning of the hunt, Wright and three others found the first lion lying indolently in the brush. Shouts and gunfire into the ground did not rouse him. When Wright approached within 20 feet of the beast, it did start to move, and his poorly-aimed shot only wounded it. A second shot soon afterward killed it. The other lion was also killed after several efforts by others to provoke it.

Wright's son, Ed Wright, writing later of the event, described it as "one of those crazy things that could only happen during the Depression."