 Miller County Sheriff Lafe King, whose investigation helped unravel the 1933 disappearance and murder of Charles T. Babcoke. King later recounted the case in the May 1935 issue of True Detective Mysteries. Photograph published in True Detective Mysteries, May 1935. Public domain. It was for nearly two months in the spring of 1933 that Charles Thomas Babcoke was simply gone.
The 52-year-old farmer lived south of Eldon in rural Miller County, not far from the countryside surrounding what is today known as Stark Caverns. Neighbors knew him as a farmer and churchman, a man whose habits were so predictable that his sudden absence attracted attention. There were explanations for where he had gone. Babcoke had left Missouri to become a traveling salesman, people were told. Perhaps he had gone to Kansas or possibly Oklahoma. He had supposedly turned his farm over to another man before leaving. But there was a problem … Charles Babcoke had never left his farm. On May 23, 1933, searchers discovered his decomposing body concealed in a shallow grave behind one of his farm buildings. He had been shot. What followed was one of the strangest murder investigations and most protracted criminal prosecutions in Miller County history, a case involving missing livestock, a dead man's watch, and an abandoned farmhouse whose clock inexplicably continued to run. Then came sensational newspaper reports of a possible "murder farm," two deadlocked juries, two convictions and two trips through Missouri's appellate courts. At the center of it all was Babcoke's neighbor, George C. Thompson, who consistently maintained he was innocent. Charles Babcoke had deep roots in Miller County. County records show that he married Eliza A. Crum at Eldon on February 26, 1911. His parents were Joseph Newton Babcoke and Martha Bliss, members of a family that had been established in Miller County for generations. By 1933, Charles was farming south of Eldon while Eliza was spending time in Kansas City, where contemporary reports said she was employed as a domestic worker. That left Charles largely alone on the farm. In hindsight, testimony about his behavior during his final days seemed to border on ominous. Roy Thacker, a young farmhand, later testified that he spent the night of March 22 at Babcoke's place. According to coverage of Thompson's September 1933 trial, Babcoke had become unusually cautious after dark. On one occasion he extinguished a light while the two men were talking. Thacker said Babcoke warned him not to unlock the door unless he knew who was outside. More troubling was something Babcoke said on what may have been his final night alive. He had, Thacker recalled, "something to tell him." But Babcoke hesitated. He was afraid Thacker would laugh. Whatever Charles Babcoke wanted to say, he apparently never said it and Thacker testified that he last saw him March 23. Babcoke's Missouri death certificate would eventually give his date of death only approximately—"About Mar 23 1933"—and list the cause as a gunshot wound and the manner of death as murder. But in March, there was no body and no known murder. There was only a missing farmer. George C. Thompson lived nearby and knew Babcoke well. When questions arose about Charles's whereabouts, Thompson had an explanation. In later accounts he said Babcoke had decided to leave farming temporarily and try his hand at salesmanship. Exactly where Babcoke had supposedly gone seemed to vary. At Thompson's first trial, witnesses testified that they had heard several versions. One recalled Thompson saying Babcoke had gone to Kansas City. Another said Thompson placed him in Oklahoma or Kansas, learning to sell automobiles. Other testimony concerned an arrangement under which Thompson claimed Babcoke had turned over the farm, livestock and equipment to him. Years later, Miller County Sheriff Lafe King recalled the investigation in an article published in True Detective Mysteries. According to King, Thompson offered a simple explanation whenever questions arose about the missing farmer: “Charlie had gone away.” Thompson maintained that Babcoke had voluntarily left the area and entrusted his farm and property to him, an explanation that became increasingly difficult to accept as the investigation unfolded. As the weeks passed, however, Thompson was doing more than watching a neighbor's farm; he was using Babcoke's property. Livestock changed hands and farm equipment was being used. Personal possessions belonging to the missing man appeared in Thompson's possession. Even Babcoke's watch was involved. Contemporary newspaper accounts said investigators found Thompson carrying Babcoke's pocket watch and possessing clothing and other property belonging to him. Thompson had an explanation for that, too. When he eventually testified in his own defense, he said Babcoke had entrusted the watch and other personal effects to him before leaving. "No, I did not," Thompson answered when asked at trial whether he had killed Charles Babcoke. His position remained consistent in one important respect for the rest of his life: George Thompson denied being a murderer. Yet one of the strangest details of the case concerned an ordinary household clock. When relatives entered Babcoke's abandoned farmhouse after his disappearance, there were few indications that its owner had deliberately embarked upon an extended journey. His gun remained there while food or evidence of a meal had been left behind. And an old eight-day clock was still running. The detail became so closely associated with the murder that a later national crime magazine titled its account of the case "The Clue of the Running Clock." The magazine embellished portions of the story in the dramatic fashion common to the genre, but the clock itself was not simply a writer's invention. At Thompson's trial, Babcoke's brother-in-law Henry Uptergrove testified that when relatives were at the house on May 16, the clock was "still running." Someone apparently had been inside the supposedly abandoned farmhouse. Roy Thacker, a 24-year-old farmhand who occasionally stayed with Babcoke and may have been among the last people to see him alive, possessed a key to the farmhouse. Thacker acknowledged entering the house after Babcoke disappeared. He noticed that Babcoke's Sunday clothes were gone and initially assumed the farmer had gone to Eldon. But Thacker had also witnessed Babcoke's uneasiness shortly before he vanished, such as his nervousness after dark, his reluctance to open the door to strangers, and his cryptic admission that he had "something to tell" Thacker but never did. Other testimony, however, indicated clothing disappeared from the house and later reappeared. Money and livestock soon became central to the investigation. Babcoke reportedly owned 17 head of cattle before his disappearance and Thompson, meanwhile, was in financial difficulty. E. T. Collins of the Bank of Eldon testified during the first trial that Thompson executed a mortgage involving cattle on April 18. When the bank later took nine animals to satisfy the debt, Collins testified that only one of the nine actually belonged to Thompson. Babcoke's wife also became suspicious. Eliza returned from Kansas City and pursued legal action over cattle she believed belonged to her husband. A contemporary Kansas City newspaper reported that she had gone back to Miller County specifically to investigate livestock that had disappeared from the farm. Thompson maintained that his possession of Babcoke's livestock and property resulted from an arrangement between the two men. But there was still no Charles Babcoke to confirm Thompson's story. Then came May 23, 1933. Searchers gathered at the Babcoke property. Near one of the farm buildings, something looked wrong. Later accounts variously called the structure a barn, milk shed or wagon shed, but investigators noticed disturbed ground and farm implements that appeared to have been moved and that inspired them to begin digging. Only a short depth beneath the soil, they encountered human remains. Charles Babcoke had been home on his farm all along. His badly decomposed body had been concealed in a shallow grave. One contemporary account said barely six inches of dirt covered it. Miller County's official death-record index lists Charles T. Babcoke's death as March 23, 1933. The surviving coroner-inquest index records an inquest dated May 25 and lists the cause simply as "Gunshot Wound." The death certificate was more explicit about what authorities believed had occurred. Babcoke had been murdered. The precise firearm involved became less certain as the story was retold. Some newspaper reports described a rifle; others mentioned a shotgun. At Thompson's first trial, Miller County Coroner Dr. J. R. Ellison reportedly testified that the fatal wound was just below the skull and could have been caused by a .45-caliber revolver or a .410 firing a slug. A 1937 retrospective instead claimed Babcoke had been shot with a .22 rifle. Regardless, the conclusion was that Charles Babcoke died from a gunshot wound. On May 24, 1933, the Kansas City Journal printed an extraordinary phrase: "MURDER FARM MAY BE BARED BY DISCOVERY." For a brief period, authorities and reporters wondered whether Babcoke's death might be only one part of something much larger. Several people connected with the family or neighborhood had died or disappeared during previous years. Babcoke's half-brother George was missing. Jim Butler, stepfather of Frank and Oliver Richardson, had also disappeared. Even the earlier death of Babcoke's father attracted renewed attention. Searchers reportedly dug around both the Babcoke and Thompson properties looking for additional bodies. There was even a bizarre story about the skeleton of a missing man's dog being discovered chained to a tree. The facts eventually proved to be considerably less sensational. George Babcoke was found alive, working near Butterfield, Missouri. Butler was located in Kansas City. Another man authorities had sought returned. There was no proven "murder farm." There was, however, one murdered farmer and investigators increasingly focused upon George Thompson. Thompson was charged with first-degree murder. The case drew enormous attention. Miller County reporting of the period estimated that approximately 2,000 people descended upon Tuscumbia for the opening of his September 1933 trial. The prosecution did have a significant problem: no eyewitness could place a gun in Thompson's hand at the moment Babcoke died and there was no confession. The case was circumstantial, yet prosecutors worked to build their case piece by piece. Babcoke had disappeared, Thompson took control of his farm and Babcoke's livestock and property passed into Thompson's possession. Witnesses recalled differing explanations from Thompson about where Babcoke had gone while a supposed agreement governing the property could not be produced when witnesses asked about it. Then there was Babcoke's watch and other belongings associated with Thompson. Finally, Babcoke himself was found buried on the farm Thompson was operating. Thompson took the witness stand and offered an innocent explanation. Babcoke, he said, intended to leave and become a salesman. He had asked Thompson to operate the farm and safeguard some of his possessions. Thompson told the jury he had no idea anything had happened to Babcoke until the body was found. The jury listened and most of them believed the state had failed to prove its case. After four ballots, the jury stood with nine for acquittal, three for conviction and the judge declared a mistrial. The state tried Thompson again in January 1934. The jury could not agree and it resulted in another mistrial. Thompson had now faced two juries for Charles Babcoke's murder and neither could convict him. The state tried a third time in March 1934. This time prosecutors obtained a conviction and Thompson received a life sentence. But the case still wasn't finished since Thompson appealed. The Missouri Supreme Court ordered another trial after a dispute involving Thompson's effort to obtain a change of venue and allegations of prejudice against the trial judge. For the fourth trial, another judge, W. M. Dinwiddie, presided. In October 1934, approximately a year and a half after Charles Babcoke disappeared, George C. Thompson faced yet another jury. This one convicted him of first-degree murder and again, the punishment was life imprisonment. On November 2, 1934, Thompson entered the Missouri State Penitentiary at Jefferson City. Thompson continued fighting the conviction. In March 1936, the Missouri Supreme Court finally allowed the life sentence to stand. The Iberia Sentinel, looking back over the extraordinary prosecution, described the state's case as a “weave of circumstantial evidence.” It also noted that Thompson "maintained throughout all of his trials that he was innocent of the crime." Four trials had been required and two juries had failed to convict him. One conviction had been overturned and the final conviction survived. In the eyes of Missouri law, the question was settled. George Thompson was the murderer of Charles Babcoke. Thompson did not serve a long life sentence. On November 16, 1937, he died inside the Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City. The Iberia Sentinel announced: “MILLER CO. SLAYER DIES IN STATE PRISON AT 76.” National detective magazines turned the Babcoke case into true-crime entertainment. One emphasized Sheriff Lafe King's investigation. Another built its story around the mysterious household clock that continued ticking while its owner lay buried outside. But beneath the sensationalism remained a remarkably human story. Charles Babcoke had apparently sensed that something was wrong shortly before his death. He had become cautious after dark and affirmed there was something he wanted to tell Roy Thacker. Then he vanished. For weeks, explanations substituted for answers. He was in Kansas. He was in Oklahoma. He had become a salesman. He had turned his farm over to someone else. Meanwhile, his livestock changed hands, his possessions appeared elsewhere and inside the empty farmhouse, the clock kept running. Then came the digging. The discovery of Charles Babcoke beneath the soil of his own farm transformed a local disappearance into one of Miller County's most disturbing murder cases. Four trials, two hung juries, two convictions and repeated appellate proceedings eventually determined George Thompson's fate. Through it all, Thompson never supplied the one thing that might have answered every lingering question: a confession. He died behind the walls of the Missouri State Penitentiary in 1937, still maintaining his innocence. By then, the courts had spoken. George Thompson had been convicted of murdering Charles Babcoke and sentenced to spend the remainder of his life in prison. The verdict, however, could not fill every blank left behind on that Miller County farm. No witness had seen the fatal shot fired nor was there a confession to explain what happened. Even some contemporary accounts disagreed over some of the most basic details of the killing. What remained certain was considerably simpler. In the spring of 1933, Charles Babcoke disappeared from his farm. Someone attempted to make that disappearance look permanent, burying him beneath a few inches of Missouri soil and allowing the world to believe he had simply gone away. He had not gone anywhere. He had been home all along. Jeremy P. Ämick is author of the historical compilations “Moments on the Moreau,” “Beyond the Moreau,” and “Voices of the Moreau.”
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A Church Called Ebenezer - For nearly 150 years, a rural Callaway County congregation has endured10/12/2026  Ebenezer Baptist Church, northeast of Fulton in Callaway County, traces its beginnings to 1879, when a small group of Baptists organized the congregation and erected its first church building. The present structure reflects generations of additions and improvements to the rural church that has served the surrounding community for nearly 150 years. Photo by Jeremy P. Amick. On March 1, 1879, a small group of Baptists gathered at the Callaway County home of Thomas Wright to establish a church. There was no sanctuary waiting for them. No steeple rose above the surrounding countryside, and the congregation did not yet have a cemetery in which to bury its dead. Rather, they possessed a shared faith and a desire for a Baptist church closer to their homes. From that modest gathering came Ebenezer Baptist Church, a rural congregation northeast of Fulton that has endured for nearly a century and a half. The church's 72nd anniversary history, published in the Missouri Telegraph in March 1951, provides a detailed account of those beginnings. The organizational meeting included W. B. Walthall and men identified as Tipton, Robinson, Sallee, Brooks, Womack and Lovelace. Letters from Unity and Richland Baptist churches recommended members for acceptance into the new congregation. Richland Baptist Church, organized in 1840, identifies Ebenezer as one of several congregations it helped establish, along with First Baptist Church of Fulton and Grand Prairie Baptist Church at Auxvasse. The man identified simply as “Tipton” in the later Ebenezer history was the Rev. William Morton Tipton, a Baptist minister whose life before entering the pulpit reflected the turmoil that had engulfed central Missouri less than two decades earlier. Born in Columbia in 1846, William Morton Tipton came of age during the Civil War, when Callaway and surrounding counties were caught in Missouri's bitter internal conflict. Although Missouri remained in the Union, loyalties throughout central Missouri were deeply divided. Callaway County became so closely associated with Southern sympathies that the famous 1861 confrontation involving Col. Jefferson F. Jones helped give rise to the enduring nickname “Kingdom of Callaway.” Tipton was among the young Missourians who served under the Confederacy. Military records identify William Morton Tipton as a Confederate, while prisoner-of-war records associate William M. Tipton with the command of Confederate Col. John A. Poindexter, whose forces operated throughout central and northern Missouri in 1862. Tipton was captured at Columbia on Sept. 30, 1862, and subsequently confined by Federal authorities, including a period at the military prison at Alton, Illinois. He had only recently turned 16 years old. Whatever experiences the teenager carried home from the war, his later life followed a decidedly different course. Tipton became a Baptist minister and spent decades preaching among the small congregations scattered across central Missouri. Records of the Concord Baptist Association place W. M. Tipton at Big Lick Baptist Church in Cooper County during the 1870s, years before he appeared at Ebenezer. A February 1879 edition of the Fulton Gazette also identifies “Rev. W. M. Tipton” as a Baptist pastor in Fulton. Just weeks later, on March 1, he helped organize Ebenezer. The new congregation initially had no church building of its own. From April through December 1879, its members met monthly at Hardin School, with Tipton serving as pastor. At the April meeting, the congregation selected the site upon which Ebenezer would be built. H. J. Roberts, John Meadows, Matt Pugh, J. G. Roberts and J. G. Berry were appointed to solicit money for construction. The final cost was $768.73. On December 6, 1879, the congregation held its first service inside the new church. The following August, church members appointed a committee to lay out a cemetery beside the sanctuary, beginning another part of Ebenezer's history. Generations of families associated with the church would eventually be laid to rest there. There has long been a minor discrepancy concerning exactly when Ebenezer began. The Kingdom of Callaway Historical Society's Yesterdays in Callaway County described the church as having been “organized 1878,” while Ebenezer itself has traditionally used 1879 as its founding year. The detailed 1951 anniversary account, however, gives the organization date of March 1, 1879, and describes the subsequent meetings at Hardin School and construction of the church that same year. The congregation continues to recognize 1879 as its establishment date today. Ebenezer gradually became more than a place for Sunday preaching. By April 1889, the congregation had organized a Sunday school. Among its early superintendents were S. F. Dews, A. E. Berry, Ben Roberts and P. C. Maddox. In 1904, Robert S. Lamar became superintendent, a position he held until his death in 1943. In 1911, the Rev. J. Robert Black served Ebenezer in what was reportedly his first pastorate after ordination. Remarkably, Black would return decades later and again lead the congregation. Women also assumed an increasingly important organizational role. On September 24, 1913, Ebenezer's Women's Missionary Society was organized with Mrs. A. G. Graves as its first president. By the time Ebenezer celebrated its 72nd anniversary in 1951, the church reported that the society had missed only one meeting since its founding. Emma Hardin, who served as secretary for two decades, reportedly missed only six meetings during those 20 years. One of the most consequential periods in Ebenezer's history came during the pastorate of the Rev. S. S. Keith. In August 1928, the congregation held a revival led by noted evangelist Dr. Marion P. Hunt. A local newspaper reported that the revival lasted from August 8 through August 17 and resulted in 18 additions to the church. The meetings produced something else as well. Members pledged approximately $2,060 toward improving the church building. Plans called for raising the existing structure high enough to construct a roomy basement beneath it. The project eventually included additional Sunday school space, and the expanded church was completed the following year. Hunt returned in the fall of 1929 to deliver the principal address at the dedication. The congregation's growing importance was demonstrated in August 1928 when Ebenezer prepared to host the annual meeting of the Callaway County Baptist Association. Rev. Keith served Ebenezer for nine years and was followed in 1930 by the Rev. K. E. Magruder, who remained until 1945. Magruder's tenure carried Ebenezer through some of the most difficult years in American history—the Great Depression and World War II. During his pastorate, the congregation adopted half-time preaching, an arrangement common among rural churches in which ministers often served more than one congregation. By June 1949, during the pastorate of the Rev. A. R. Friesen, Ebenezer was again making improvements. The congregation approved work that included basement improvements, a new furnace and a sidewalk. Norman Roberts served as building-fund treasurer, while W. P. Divers headed a committee that included J. F. McVeigh, Ray Maddox, Hubert Books and Yates Backer. Those improvements prepared the old church for another generation. Then, in June 1951, the church's Vacation Bible School enrolled 100 children while average daily attendance was 91. For a rural congregation several miles outside Fulton, the enrollment demonstrated that Ebenezer was not merely surviving but serving as an important center of community life. The pastor was once again the Rev. J. Robert Black, the same minister whose first pastorate had been Ebenezer four decades earlier. In 1957, the Rev. Fred Pulliam became pastor, moving with his wife, Nathana, and their three children into the church parsonage in Fulton. Pulliam had previously served at Centertown and had worked in Sunday school ministry for Missouri Baptists. Ebenezer remained active into the new decade. In January 1961, the church ordained three deacons—Gorden Acree, Sherman Miles and Melvin Underwood—and invited ministers and ordained deacons from other churches in the Callaway Association to participate. That spring, Ebenezer hosted a weeklong evangelistic crusade featuring nationally known evangelist Rev. Philip Forbes Taylor of St. Petersburg, Florida. Taylor brought something beyond preaching to the rural church: color-and-sound motion pictures. Those attending could watch films depicting England, Florida, Niagara Falls, the Pasadena Rose Parade and biblical subjects. Many decades later, Ebenezer Baptist Church remains northeast of Fulton today at 6841 State Road Z. The building has changed considerably over the years. Additions, classrooms, basement space and a prominent front tower transformed the simple frame sanctuary constructed by the congregation's founders. Evidence suggests that the oldest portion of the present church survives within the enlarged building. A Missouri historic survey cited in a published description of the property concluded that the original or early church structure remains extant behind the later additions. Beside it lies the cemetery that church members first voted to establish in 1880. A modern cemetery registry likewise dates Ebenezer Baptist Cemetery to 1879. The surroundings have also changed. Roads improved, automobiles replaced horses and wagons, electricity was installed in the sanctuary, and generations of pastors and parishioners came and went. But the purpose expressed by that small group gathered at Thomas Wright’s home in March 1879 survived and the name they chose was appropriate. In the Old Testament, the prophet Samuel raised a stone after Israel’s victory and called it Ebenezer, meaning “stone of help,” and declaring, “Thus far the Lord has helped us.” Nearly 150 years after a handful of Callaway County Baptists organized a congregation, built a $768.73 church and laid out a cemetery beside it, their Ebenezer is still there. And its story remains written not only in church records and fading newspaper columns, but in the old sanctuary, the stones of the cemetery and the generations who have continued to gather there. Jeremy P. Ämick is author of the new historical compilation “Voices of the Moreau,” available at www.missourihistorymoments.com.  The grave of Charles C. Simcoe (1859–1915) and Clara J. Simcoe (1865–1954) stands in Ebenezer Baptist Cemetery beside the church. The cemetery was laid out soon after the congregation’s founding and became the final resting place for generations of families associated with the Ebenezer community. Photo by Jeremy P. Amick. A Church with Six Sides - The story of the Olean Baptist Church in Miller County, Missouri10/8/2026  Reverend R.L. Hood and his wife, Mary Belle Kneisly Hood. Hood was among the Baptists from Green Ridge who helped organize Olean Baptist Church on April 21, 1894. He joined Pastor Lemuel Agee and deacons B.D. Roark and William Roark in assisting with the formation of the new congregation. Courtesy of the Moniteau County Historical Society.  The original Olean Baptist Church was one of Miller County's most distinctive houses of worship. Erected following the congregation's organization in 1894, the wooden church was built in an unusual six-sided design and could accommodate approximately 250 worshippers. A contemporary account called it “one of the prettiest little churches in the county.” The building served the congregation for nearly half a century. Courtesy of the Miller County Historical Society. For nearly half a century, one of the most distinctive landmarks in the little Miller County community of Olean was a wooden church that looked unlike almost any other house of worship in the region. It had six sides. Built during the 1890s, the original Olean Baptist Church was a hexagonal, one-room structure capable of seating approximately 250 worshippers. There were no permanent Sunday school rooms inside. When smaller spaces were needed, the congregation improvised, using wires and curtains to divide the sanctuary into temporary classrooms. Electricity did not arrive until 1928. Yet the unusual building represented something considerably larger than its architecture. For generations it served a Baptist congregation whose history mirrored the changing religious life of rural Miller County. Its story came to life in an era when traveling ministers preached only once or twice a month, neighboring congregations helped establish new churches, and membership in a Baptist association connected an isolated congregation to churches scattered across the countryside. The story of the present Olean Baptist congregation begins on a Saturday evening in the spring of 1894. On April 21, 1894, missionary Baptists assembled in Olean for the specific purpose of organizing a church. They were not alone. A council arrived representing Baptist congregations at Clarksburg, Rock Enon, Green Ridge, Mt. Herman, Spring Garden and High Point. Elder J.T. Baker, missionary for the Concord Baptist Association, explained why they had gathered and was selected chairman. Elder W.L. Cornett delivered the sermon, drawing his text from First Peter and Ephesians. Appropriately, his subject was: “The Church of Christ and its development.” Thirteen people became charter members: Missouri Gilleland, Victoria Currence, Addison Walser, Thomas and Dora Starling, Kittie Mode, Mary J. Skelton, L.R. and Harriet Campbell, Mary E. Roark, William Mosher, Nettie Moser and Mollie McCann. Among the Baptists who came from Green Ridge to assist with the organization was R.L. Hood, along with Pastor Lemuel Agee and deacons B.D. Roark and William Roark. Prior to the organization of Olean Baptist Church, another Baptist congregation—Mt. Zion Colored Baptist Church—had been organized in the Olean area around 1873 and reportedly counted 48 members by 1889. Within about a year of the 1894 organization, Olean's Baptists had their unusual six-sided church. The building stood at High and Walnut streets. Its appearance apparently attracted favorable attention almost immediately. A local newspaper account of Olean praised the town's religious character, declaring that “deep religious feeling seems to pervade the community.” At the time, Olean supported Baptist, Methodist, Christian and African American Baptist congregations. The newspaper was particularly complimentary of the Baptists, observing, “The Baptists own one of the prettiest little churches in the county and are out of debt.” Church life was also considerably different from the weekly schedule familiar to modern congregations. Sunday school met each Sunday at 9:30 in the morning and prayer meetings were conducted on Thursday evenings, but regular preaching services were held only on the third Sunday of the month under pastor John Robinson. The arrangement was typical of rural churches whose pastors often served multiple congregations. Olean continued with part-time preaching for decades. Church records indicate that services were later held twice each month, and sometimes only monthly. It was not until 1946 that Olean Baptist moved to full-time preaching every Sunday. The congregation's institutional identity changed in the early twentieth century. On July 2, 1907, members voted to request dismissal from the Concord Baptist Association so they could affiliate with the Miller County Baptist Association. Concord granted the request. Olean's first delegates to the Miller County organization were L.F. Agee, W.H. Burris, J.C. McSpadden, R.G. Atkins and D.B. Taylor. The change placed the church more directly within the Baptist organization serving the county in which its members lived. Women also assumed an increasingly organized role in church life. Records contain a reference to a Ladies Aid organization by 1912. In April 1927, the Women's Missionary Society was organized with Mrs. Earl Wiser serving as president. Then came another modest sign of changing times. In 1928, electric lights were installed in the old hexagonal church. By the 1940s, the remarkable old six-sided building had served Olean Baptists for roughly half a century. A new era began after the congregation moved to the corner of Clark and Locust streets. Local historical research records that Naomi Walker Cain donated one-and-a-half lots for the new location, and in 1948 a sandstone church was erected there, with Ernest Waite associated with organizing the project and Glen Knoch overseeing construction. The move produced one of the most memorable stories in Olean Baptist history. The bell from the old church was not simply discarded. According to the church's historical account, missionary Sam Upton told the congregation of Christians in Africa who needed a bell to summon people to worship. In an era and place where many people did not possess watches or clocks, a church bell could announce that it was time for services. The Olean congregation agreed to send its old bell overseas, paying $186 for the shipment. The history closes the story with a simple hope: “Hopefully the bell still rings.” The postwar years brought a succession of pastors and changes to the congregation in Olean, but also continuity. One especially important minister was Arnim Ray. Olean was Ray's first pastorate, and the congregation also ordained him. Glen Walker became the first person Ray baptized there, followed by Roy Lane. The church marked its 75th anniversary in 1969 and celebrated a century since its organization on June 26, 1994. By then, Olean itself had changed dramatically from the community in which those 13 Baptists gathered in 1894. Businesses disappeared, the whistle of trains along the tracks had faded into history, old buildings vanished and many of the rural institutions that once tied residents together became memories. The old six-sided church is gone. Its curtains and wires, monthly preaching services and newly installed electric lights belong to another age. Even its bell traveled far beyond the community whose people once heard it ringing across Olean, but the congregation remains. Perhaps the most appropriate connection between the Baptists who gathered on that April evening in 1894 and those who worship there today is a message from the sermon preached at the church's organization: “The Church of Christ and its development.” After more than a century, the history of Olean Baptist Church is, in many ways, the story of that development itself. More than 130 years after its organization, Olean Baptist Church continues to worship at Clark Avenue and Locust Street. Its weekly church notices in The Advertiser summarize the congregation in a simple phrase, “A small country church with a big heart. All are welcome.” Jeremy P. Ämick is author of the new historical compilation “Voices of the Moreau,” available at www.missourihistorymoments.com.  Olean Baptist Church today. The congregation moved to its present location at Clark Avenue and Locust Street in the 1940s, where a native-stone church was constructed in 1948. More than 130 years after its organization, Olean Baptist continues the tradition begun by 13 charter members in April 1894. Photograph by Jeremy P. Amick.  The Gardenway Motel along historic Route 66 near Villa Ridge, Missouri, during its heyday. The sprawling roadside motel was part of the travel corridor that grew around The Diamonds and catered to motorists traveling the Mother Road. Postcard from the collection of Jeremy P. Ämick. Editor’s Note: This is the second of two companion articles exploring neighboring landmarks along historic Route 66 in Franklin County, Missouri. The first installment traced the history of The Diamonds; this article turns to the nearby Gardenway Motel and its place in the changing story of travel along the Mother Road. Louis B. Eckelkamp understood something about highway business that he had learned decades earlier at The Diamonds, most notably that success depended on being where the motorists were. As a young man, Eckelkamp had approached Diamonds founder Spencer Groff looking for work and started near the bottom, washing dishes and cleaning up. He eventually rose through the business, becoming part-owner and then taking control of one of the best-known restaurants on Route 66. But Eckelkamp did not limit his ambitions to feeding travelers. He also wanted to give them a place to spend the night. The result was the Gardenway Motel, a Route 66 landmark that survived for nearly seven decades and eventually became intertwined with the story of a second Diamonds restaurant nearby. The name Gardenway had a history before the motel existed. In 1935, a portion of Route 66 running westward from St. Louis toward the Missouri Botanical Garden's Arboretum at Gray Summit was dedicated as the Henry Shaw Gardenway, honoring Missouri Botanical Garden founder Henry Shaw. The roadside was beautified with native trees, shrubs and flowers. A July 31, 1958, Bonne Terre Register historical feature noted that markers had been placed along the “Gardenway, named for him,” extending along U.S. Highway 66 from St. Louis to the Arboretum. It was along this scenic stretch of Route 66 that Eckelkamp entered the motel business. The Missouri Route 66 Historic Resources Survey dates the first portion of the Gardenway Motel to about 1945. A second section was constructed in 1953, according to Franklin County property records cited in the survey. The first motel contained 25 rooms, and the expansion added 16, eventually giving Gardenway 41 rooms. The motel was built a short distance from the Eckelkamp family home and differed architecturally from the sleek, automobile-inspired appearance of The Diamonds. Gardenway used a Colonial Revival design that projected something more domestic: a comfortable place to stop after a long day on the highway. In a 1993 Washington Missourian feature on longtime Diamonds employee Glen Wood, the newspaper recalled that Eckelkamp had Gardenway built “probably in the mid-1940’s” and connected its name with the Gardenway designation then associated with Highway 66. By the end of the 1950s, Gardenway's reputation extended beyond Missouri. The Dec. 25, 1959, Meramec Valley Transcript reported that the motel had been selected for inclusion in the 1960 edition of Duncan Hines' Lodging for a Night. Gardenway was among approximately 5,200 lodging establishments in the United States, Canada and Mexico carrying the coveted designation “Recommended by Duncan Hines.” Gardenway had become part of the booming roadside economy that Route 66 helped create. For Eckelkamp, his success was tied closely to The Diamonds. In 1948, his rise had become noteworthy enough that a New York advertising agency selected the Eckelkamp family as a “typical midwestern family” for a national advertising campaign, according to the Dec. 23, 1948, Washington Missourian. Photographs were planned for such magazines as Time, Life, The Saturday Evening Post, Newsweek and Look. The agency even interviewed Eckelkamp about his humble beginnings at The Diamonds and his eventual management and ownership of the famous restaurant. But one recollection preserved by Glen Wood reveals another side of the businessman. Wood told the Washington Missourian in 1993 that Eckelkamp once told him, “Glen, this highway has been good to me.” Eckelkamp believed that prosperity created an obligation. Wood recalled being instructed to feed travelers who were hungry and unable to pay. Sometimes the restaurant even provided gasoline to people stranded without money. Asked how employees knew whether someone genuinely needed help, Wood replied, “You can tell the people who really need the help.” During the postwar years, The Diamonds was operating on a scale almost unimaginable when Spencer and Ursula Groff had started their little roadside enterprise. Advertising proclaimed it “The World's Largest Roadside Restaurant,” while another slogan called it “The Eating Place, The Meeting Place.” And there was considerable truth behind the advertising. The 1993 Washington Missourian feature reported that The Diamonds claimed more than 1 million customers annually. Wood had watched much of that history unfold firsthand. He began working at The Diamonds at age 17 and had accumulated 58 years with the business by 1993. He remembered the restaurant as a place frequented by everyone from ordinary families and truck drivers to celebrities and politicians. According to Wood, Harry Truman stopped there for country ham and black-eyed peas while still serving as a U.S. senator. Missouri governors and other officials traveling between St. Louis and Jefferson City also stopped. Actor Rory Calhoun once arrived with Mr. Muggs, the chimpanzee, while traveling to Meramec Caverns. St. Louis Cardinals players were familiar customers as well, including Pepper Martin. But the real measure of The Diamonds was not celebrity traffic. It was the buses. At its height, Wood recalled, the restaurant might receive 50 to 70 buses in a day. The highway seemed capable of supplying customers forever … but then the highway changed. Interstate 44 transformed travel through Franklin County. The old Diamonds had enjoyed one of the finest roadside locations imaginable. Route 66 motorists passed virtually at its doorstep. When I-44 bypassed the old alignment, the flow of customers collapsed. A modern highway could carry vastly more traffic while delivering far fewer customers to a business only a short distance away. The Eckelkamp family later remembered just how abrupt the change was. L.B. Eckelkamp Jr. recalled that when I-44 opened in 1967, business at The Diamonds suddenly dried up. Gardenway faced the same problem. The motel remained beside old Route 66 while motorists increasingly traveled on the interstate below. The response was impossible to miss—enormous GARDENWAY letters were placed atop the motel so travelers on I-44 could see that accommodations remained available on the ridge. Later accounts specifically remembered the rooftop sign as an attempt to attract interstate travelers back to the old highway. But Eckelkamp's response to the plight of The Diamonds was even more dramatic. Rather than merely advertise to the new traffic, he followed it. The original Diamonds ceased operating under that name, and the restaurant business was moved east to the Gray Summit interchange. The 1993 Washington Missourian account places the move in 1969, while other Route 66 histories describe a period between the closing of the old operation and the opening of the new complex. What is clear, however, is that the Eckelkamps shifted The Diamonds to the I-44 interchange as the interstate replaced the old highway as the principal traffic artery. The new location stood near Gardenway. And the famous Diamonds name and road sign followed. The second complex represented an adaptation to the interstate age. The restaurant was joined by service stations and, later, motel accommodations. Around 1979, according to the 1993 Washington Missourian account, the Diamond Inn Motel was constructed next to the relocated restaurant. Gardenway dated to the mid-1940s and stood along the old highway. Diamond Inn came decades later and was associated with the relocated Diamonds complex near the interstate. Yet the businesses were linked by ownership and geography, and eventually even their roadside advertising became connected. One large sign promoted DIAMONDS RESTAURANT next to that for GARDENWAY MOTEL. The second Diamonds remained a substantial operation. L.B. Eckelkamp Jr. later remembered working 12-hour shifts, six days a week. “It taught us how to work,” he recalled. The restaurant employed so many people from the Washington area that he jokingly remembered, “Everybody who is anybody in Washington worked at the Diamonds.” And the buses continued to provide an astonishing volume of customers. “We had buses,” Eckelkamp recalled. “Seventy-plus buses a day stopped for meal stops.” But travel habits changed again, proving that no roadside business was immune to the changing patterns of American travel. Eventually, revenues at the second Diamonds began to decline. The restaurant closed in 1995. Gardenway endured longer. For nearly seven decades, travelers slept in its rooms along the old highway. But in October 2014, the historic motel abruptly closed. Its distinctive signs survived for a time after the motel itself ceased operating. The giant rooftop letters and roadside neon became familiar relics to Route 66 enthusiasts. Eventually, they too began disappearing. And in 2023, the Gardenway Motel buildings were demolished. The Diamond Inn and remnants of the later Diamonds complex eventually met a similar fate. Yet pieces of their roadside identity remain along with two signs, one story. The surviving signs associated with Gardenway and The Diamonds stand near one another and the proximity is fitting. They represent businesses from different moments in the history of American travel, yet their stories were always connected. Gardenway belonged to the classic Route 66 motel era, the period when motorists pulled directly from the highway into individually operated tourist courts and motels. The later Diamonds represented an effort to survive the interstate revolution by moving to where the traffic had gone. Behind both stood Louis B. Eckelkamp. He had begun his working life washing dishes for Spencer Groff at a roadside restaurant. He eventually became a successful restaurateur, motel developer, banker and businessman. But the foundation of that success remained the stream of automobiles passing through Franklin County. Route 66 helped transform Eckelkamp, a young dishwasher, into a successful businessman. It sustained The Diamonds, Gardenway and countless jobs. Then Interstate 44 altered the landscape again, forcing the businesses that depended upon the old highway either to adapt or disappear. These days, motorists can cover this stretch of Franklin County in minutes. But slowing down reveals another landscape beneath the interstate exits and modern development, a landscape of Route 66, vanished motel rooms, restaurant sites and surviving signs. They are reminders of an era when the journey itself mattered almost as much as the destination, and when names such as The Diamonds and Gardenway promised travelers that food, a bed and a little Missouri hospitality were waiting a few miles up the road. Jeremy P. Ämick is author of the new historical compilation “Voices of the Moreau.”  The weathered Gardenway Motel sign still stands along old Route 66 near Villa Ridge in September 2026, a fading landmark from the highway’s golden age. In the distance at left, the surviving Diamond Inn sign provides another reminder of the roadside businesses that once served generations of travelers. Photo by Jeremy P. Ämick. Building The Diamonds - From a Roadside Stand to a Route 66 Legend, the Story of The Diamonds10/3/2026  The Diamonds Restaurant along Route 66 near Villa Ridge, Missouri, during the 1950s. A packed parking lot, the restaurant’s distinctive curved facade and its towering diamond-shaped sign illustrate the popularity of the landmark during the heyday of the Mother Road. Postcard from the collection of Jeremy P. Ämick.  An aerial postcard view of The Diamonds Restaurant and Cabins at the junction of U.S. highways 50, 66 and 100 near Villa Ridge. The image captures the remarkable scale of the roadside complex, with the restaurant, tourist cabins, parking areas and buses serving travelers during the height of automobile tourism. Postcard from the collection of Jeremy P. Amick. Editor’s Note: This is the first of two companion articles exploring neighboring landmarks along historic Route 66 in Franklin County, Missouri. This installment traces the story of The Diamonds, while the second examines the nearby Gardenway Motel and the roadside era these businesses shared. In the years before interstate highways carried travelers across Missouri at 70 miles per hour, a Franklin County farmer, Spencer Irwin Groff, discovered there was money to be made from the people passing by his property. What began as a humble roadside stand near Villa Ridge eventually became The Diamonds, one of the most celebrated restaurants along Route 66 and a place that would serve more than a million customers a year. Its story, however, began not with neon lights, tour buses or a sprawling restaurant, but with produce gathered from the Missouri countryside. Groff was born Oct. 17, 1883, at Villa Ridge, the son of Morgan and Rebecca Coleman Groff. He spent virtually his entire life in the community, farming land near the crossroads that would eventually become one of the busiest highway intersections in the region. The Missouri Route 66 historic survey traces the beginnings of Groff's roadside enterprise to 1923, when financial difficulties on the family farm prompted him to sell produce to passing motorists. The first effort was modest, essentially a roadside stand, but the proceeds were reinvested into something much more expansive. A later account of Groff's life preserved an especially vivid detail about those beginnings. Some of the first merchandise consisted of persimmons picked in the nearby woods by his sister, Ursula. The operation grew while Groff sold hot dogs, sandwiches, soda, fruits and vegetables and cold buttermilk. He installed a gasoline tank for motorists. Groff’s primitive roadside operation was as colorful as its name. A 1972 St. Clair Chronicle account recalled that he fashioned an early shelter by mounting the wooden roof of an old silo on posts. He sold gasoline along with hot dogs cooked on a kerosene grill, sandwiches, fruit and vegetables. Groff reportedly called the place Altamont Park, after the school he had attended, but travelers gave it another name. Somehow, the little roadside operation became known as the Banana Stand, and the nickname stuck. Then came the highway that changed everything. Groff's property occupied an enviable location at the intersection of the old Springfield Road and another important road leading through the region. With the development of the federal highway system, the crossroads became part of the Route 66 corridor. Groff eventually stepped out in front of his gas station and laid out a diamond-shaped form for a restaurant. The unusual design was dictated by the Y-shaped wedge of land between the roads, but it also supplied the new establishment with its memorable name. On July 3, 1927, the day the new road opened, The Diamonds opened for business. Period postcards advertised The Diamonds as “the old reliable eating place.” The restaurant operated 24 hours a day, serving the growing stream of motorists, truck drivers and bus passengers traveling the highway. The operation expanded well beyond a restaurant. Twenty-five tourist cottages were constructed behind it, along with a swimming pool and first-aid station. The roadside stand that had begun with produce was becoming a travel complex. And beside Spencer throughout much of that rise was Ursula Groff. Ursula was not simply Spencer's sister. She had been a piano teacher in St. Louis and Franklin County before joining her brother in the business. At The Diamonds, she became closely associated with the kitchen and the food that helped establish the restaurant's reputation. When Ursula died in 1958, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat looked back on her role in the restaurant's creation. In its Feb. 14, 1958, account of her funeral, the newspaper reported that Ursula had joined Spencer about 40 years earlier in establishing what became The Diamonds. The newspaper credited much of the restaurant's reputation to Ursula, stating that its fame was due in large measure to her “home cooking,” particularly her pies. The Diamonds quickly became a Franklin County institution. On April 3, 1936, the Meramec Valley Transcript reported that students from Washington, Sullivan and New Haven were scheduled to participate in a radio broadcast from station KWK in St. Louis. Before traveling to the studio, the students would be entertained at The Diamonds with an 8 a.m. breakfast “as guests of Spencer Groff.” Among the young people who found work at The Diamonds was Louis B. Eckelkamp. His rise became one of the remarkable success stories associated with the restaurant. Eckelkamp later recalled that when he first approached Spencer Groff looking for work, he owned only a pair of broken-down shoes and had 25 cents in his pocket. Groff hired him as a dishwasher and cleanup boy. From that modest beginning, Eckelkamp rose through the operation, eventually becoming assistant manager and general manager. Noble Key, another longtime employee, managed the night operation. By the mid-1930s, Eckelkamp was no longer simply an employee. A later account of Groff's life reported that The Diamonds was incorporated in 1935 with Eckelkamp becoming a part-owner. Three years later, surviving business records show that Eckelkamp and Key assumed controlling interests in the restaurant. A Missouri registration of fictitious name filed Aug. 18, 1938, identifies the business as The Diamonds, operating at the junction of U.S. highways 50 and 66 at Gray Summit. It lists Louis B. Eckelkamp with a 70 percent interest and Noble Key with a 30 percent interest. Another remarkable surviving document, minutes of a special stockholders meeting dated Aug. 3, 1938, records an agreement involving the use of the name The Diamonds. Most importantly, the document bears the signatures of Spencer Groff, Ursula Groff, Louis B. Eckelkamp and Noble Key. Groff appears to have retained ownership interests connected with the real estate even as Eckelkamp and Key took control of the restaurant business. The distinction would become important years later, when litigation involving Eckelkamp, The Diamonds Inc. and Groff's estate reached the Missouri Court of Appeals. Eckelkamp later recalled that owning The Diamonds had been an ambition almost from the time he began working there. “I made up my mind to buy the Diamonds someday shortly after I started working here eight years ago,” Eckelkamp said, according to a historical account reproduced by Lost Tables. The young dishwasher had become one of the men running one of Route 66's best-known restaurants. Eckelkamp's rise eventually attracted attention far beyond Franklin County. In December 1948, the Washington Missourian reported that the Louis B. Eckelkamp family had been selected by a New York advertising agency as a “typical midwestern family” for a national advertising campaign. Photographs of the family were scheduled to appear in such major magazines as Time, Life, The Saturday Evening Post, Newsweek and Look. In researching the family, the agency questioned Eckelkamp about his beginnings at The Diamonds and his eventual management and ownership of the restaurant. The story was an extraordinary turn for a man who had arrived at the roadside establishment years earlier looking for work. By the late 1940s, The Diamonds had grown to proportions Spencer Groff could scarcely have imagined when he began selling produce along the road. Then, on Feb. 26, 1948, disaster struck. The Belle Banner announced it across the top of an article with a blunt headline: “THE DIAMONDS BURN.” Beneath it was an equally striking subheadline: “Fire Early Today Destroys Nationally Known Cafe.” The Diamonds, now described as a “nationally known highway rest stop,” had reportedly burned to the ground early that morning. The loss was initially estimated at more than $100,000. According to the Belle Banner, the fire reportedly began because of defective wiring in a refrigeration unit and spread rapidly through the frame building. The heat became so intense that traffic was halted in both directions on Highway 66. One of the most interesting lines in the newspaper's account was its description of how the sprawling roadside business had begun: “Spencer Groff started the business with a peanut stand years ago.” Accounts may have varied regarding whether the original operation was a fruit stand, Banana Stand or peanut stand, but the newspaper's point was unmistakable. What had started on an almost impossibly small scale had grown into a nationally known business. The Belle Banner added an astonishing measure of that growth, noting, “Last year more than a million customers were served there.” The fire may have destroyed the building, but it had not destroyed The Diamonds. The restaurant rose again, this time on a far grander scale. The replacement building embraced the streamlined architectural style associated with the automobile age. The rebuilt complex reportedly cost more than $350,000, with a grand opening held July 10, 1949. It contained a 300-seat restaurant, coffee shop, cafeteria, curio shop, drive-in cafe, bus-ticket office, travel bureau, popcorn stand and filling station. The Diamonds promoted itself as the “World's Largest Roadside Restaurant.” It was a classic Route 66 attraction, being part restaurant, part service station, part tourist attraction and part advertisement. And behind all of it remained the unlikely story of a Franklin County farmer and his sister. Ursula Groff died in February 1958 at age 76 after suffering a broken hip in a fall. The Feb. 14, 1958, St. Louis Globe-Democrat described her as “a descendant of the pioneer Groff and Coleman families of Franklin County.” Her funeral was held at Brush Creek Baptist Church at Gray Summit, with burial in historic Brush Creek Cemetery. The newspaper's obituary recalled the roadside produce stand and explained that after U.S. Highway 66 was built in 1927, the business became known “from coast to coast as a stopping place for interstate trucks and busses.” And it made sure Ursula received credit. While Spencer handled the business end of the operation, the Globe-Democrat reported, “Miss Groff presided over the kitchen.” Spencer lived another four years. On Nov. 8, 1962, the St. Clair Chronicle reported his death under the headline: “Spencer Groff Has Death Collapse.” The newspaper described the 79-year-old as a “well known farmer and financier of Gray Summit.” Groff had gone to the home of neighbors as a supper guest on Saturday, Nov. 3, when he suddenly collapsed. His death was believed to have resulted from a heart attack and was officially attributed to natural causes. The Chronicle noted that Groff had “spent his entire lifetime in the Gray Summit area” and lived on a farm near The Diamonds. A separate Nov. 8 obituary in the Meramec Valley Transcript likewise recorded that Spencer was born at Villa Ridge on Oct. 17, 1883, had spent his entire life in the community and had been engaged in farming. But another contemporary remembrance provided perhaps the most fitting epitaph for the roadside entrepreneur. The account noted that Groff “built the original building at the Diamonds Restaurant” and recalled that Henry Feldmiller helped him construct the first stand, described as a “3-cornered outside road stand.” It also returned to that wonderful detail from the earliest days: among the first things offered for sale were persimmons picked in the woods by Ursula. Spencer, like his sister, was laid to rest in Brush Creek Cemetery, only a short distance from the highway landmark they had helped create. As the modern divided highway and Interstate 44 redirected traffic away from the old Route 66 alignment, the location that had once been The Diamonds' greatest advantage became its greatest liability. Louis Eckelkamp put the problem into memorable words when discussing a newer highway that carried motorists only hundreds of feet away from the restaurant. “It might as well be nine miles,” he said. For a roadside business, being visible was not enough. Motorists had to be able to reach it. The original Diamonds eventually closed at Villa Ridge. The famous sign and restaurant operation were moved east to a new location near the interstate at Gray Summit, while the old building later became home to the Tri-County Truck Stop. But the relocation of The Diamonds was not an isolated development. Nearby stood another major roadside enterprise associated with Louis Eckelkamp, the Gardenway Motel. The Gardenway and the later Diamonds represented the next generation of Missouri highway tourism, built not around the road Spencer Groff had watched develop in the 1920s, but around the interstate age that replaced it. And that is where the second part of the story of Missouri roadside icons begins. Jeremy P. Ämick is author of the new historical compilation “Voices of the Moreau.”  The former Diamonds Restaurant as it appeared along old Route 66 near Villa Ridge on Sept. 5, 2026. The once-bustling roadside landmark stood boarded and deteriorating, with damage from a recent tornado visible along the building. Despite decades of change and the storm damage, the distinctive curved façade remained recognizable from photographs taken during the restaurant’s glory years. Photo by Jeremy P. Ämick. |
AuthorJeremy P. Ämick is an award-winning author and historian dedicated to preserving music, military and local histories. Archives
October 2026
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