NEW BOOK 'MARKS' STATE HISTORY

In the 1950s, the State Historical Society of Missouri began placing roadside markers made of a cast aluminum alloy with an enamel blue finish and 23-karat gold lettering topped by the state seal. The information they conveyed was intended "to give the traveler and the local citizen a feeling of identity with his environment."

To celebrate its centennial, the society has published a book, "Marking Missouri History," that collects the information inscribed on the markers and adds related essays, photographs and drawings.

The historical society began placing the markers in 1951. Each county and St. Louis had at least one, adding up to a total of 121.

The text was a synopsis of the historical significance of the site or the county or community. Cape Girardeau County's marker tells of Louis Lorimier, Spanish land grants, the effect of establishing the county seat in Jackson and notables buried in Lorimier Cemetery. The marker is at Cape Girardeau County South Park.

Many of the markers have been moved from their original sites to courthouse lawns and parks.

In researching the book, the society tracked down all but two of the markers. The first one placed, at Fort Osage in Jackson County, could not be located. Another marker on the north side of the Missouri River in Boonville was lost to the flood of 1993.

Besides the marker inscriptions, the book also contains essays written by the historical society staff. Their source was the organization's 450,000-volume library, which has the largest collection of state newspapers in the United States.

Lynn Wolf Gentzler, one of the book's editors, said the historical markers give a very concise depiction of the state's history, one that had never been compiled before.

"I think there's a resurgent interest in local history these days. We're trying to encourage that," she said.

Cape Girardeau County's essay is on railroad baron and historian Louis Houck.

The Scott County essay is about Phil A. Hafner, an early 20th century newspaperman whose Scott County Kicker advocated organizing the region's tenant farmers and small landowners. He sought the formation of a local Socialist Party and often was denounced as an anarchist.

Bollinger County's Will Mayfield College and Perry County's Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther, an important figure in the state's Saxon settlement, also are profiled.

Missouriana found elsewhere in the book:

-- Howard County's Missouri Intelligencer, which in 1919 became the first newspaper published west of St. Louis. Situated in Franklin and later Fayette in Howard County, the paper was independent at a time when newspapers were proudly partisan. Its philosophy became the standard of the modern newspaper.

-- Wayne County's Bernard Macfadden, who was born in Mill Spring in 1868 and was an early advocate of physical exercise and eating vegetables, fruits and grains along with nudity, fasting and enemas. He founded Physical Culture magazine, which had 550,000 readers in 1900. In 1919, he published the country's first confessional magazine, True Story.

-- Henry County's Jane Froman, a singer who was discovered by a talent agent at the University of Missouri. She was the top female vocalist on the radio in 1934, appeared with Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey and made it to Broadway in 1940 with "Keep Off the Grass."

She was badly injured in the crash of a USO plane in Portugal in 1943. The 1953 movie "With a Song in My Heart," starring Susan Hayward, was based on Froman's life.

The book is available for $17.50 plus $5 postage and handling from: State Historical Society, 1020 Lowry St., Columbia, Mo. 65201-7298. Some of the state's 375 local historical societies also are selling the book.