The Cole County Bank: Victim of the Great Depression

The Southside began to take off with its own business district in the decades around 1900. By then the original German immigrants were dying off and the younger generation spoke English. Folks no longer used the German “Muenchberg” but began using calling it Jefferson City’s “Southside.”

On summer evening in 1912, as they sat under shade trees in Friemel’s beer garden—on a grassy hillside across from today’s Central Dairy ice cream parlor—an informal, tight-knit group of businessmen who called themselves the “Southside Boosters” discussed the need for a community bank in the growing Southside. They chose the name “Cole County Bank” because much of the Southside’s business came from farmers in the county.

The boosters had no trouble soliciting stock, and on October 17, 1912, the Cole County Bank was incorporated with a capitalization of $25,000. The bank had eighty-five shareholders, all of whom were listed in the local newspaper with the number of shares each owned at $100 per share.

Among the shareholders were:

• Jacob F. Moerschel (of the Capitol Brewery),
• George Bartholomaeus (co-owner of the Dunklin Theater),
• John W. Fischer (a prominent farmer),
• Joseph Pope (a street contractor),
• Wm. F. Winkelmann (a farmer and banker),
• T. G. Nilges (a grocer and city councilman),
• Ernst Simonsen (a manufacturer and the namesake of the high school), and
• members of the Dulle, Bassmann, Busch, Schmidt, Tanner, Seidel, Renn, Sommerer, Schell, and Kielman families.

The list even included Hugh Stephens (printer and banker). Officers at incorporation were T. G. Nilges, president; J. W. Fischer and A. W. Happy, vice-presidents; and Wm. F. Winkelmann, cashier and secretary.

The bank officers narrowed the location for their new bank down to two sites. One was “Schmidt’s Corner,” the southwest corner of Dunklin and Madison, where the Henry Schmidt Grocery was (now known as the Wel-Com-Inn). The other site was “Kielman's Corner,” the southeast corner of Dunklin and Jefferson, where the Farmer’s Home hotel was and still is, with ECCO Lounge in part of it.

They chose Kielman’s Farmer’s Home and began operations in 1912 in the corner room of the hotel. A separate Southside Building and Loan Association, organized to provide loans for the large number of new houses then going up in the Southside, operated in conjunction with the bank.

At the same time that the Cole County Bank got going, Henry Schwartze quit his blacksmith and wagon repair business in the building catty-cornered from Farmer’s Home, the northwest corner of the same intersection. In 1914 that vacant two-story brick building was completely renovated into a retail business downstairs and offices upstairs. The old doorways, wide enough for wagons, were bricked in, new windows installed, and the interior space divided into rooms. The address today is 626 Jefferson Street.

The original, soft-brick exterior walls of the 1880s were replaced, or covered over, with new wire-brushed, resistant brick to give the building the completely different appearance that you can see today.

Following this thorough building renovation in 1914, the Southside Drug Store and Jefferson City’s first branch post office opened on the first floor, and doctors’ offices on the second floor.

The corner room in the Farmer’s Home building had become entirely too small for the growing Cole County Bank, so shortly after 1921, the bank left that corner room and moved diagonally across the corner into the larger space that the Southside Drug Store had occupied. The drug store simply moved next door on the north, where it stayed into the 1960s. Doctors and dentists remained on the second floor.

The bank advertised heavily in both German and English newspapers. A neighborhood bank was a great help to Southsiders. They could do their banking while shopping in the Southside. Frugal families could create savings accounts rather than hiding their precious earnings in mattresses. They knew the officers and tellers and trusted them with their money.

Things went well during the 1920s. The bank quickly doubled its capitalization, then again recapitalized. In 1922 it passed the million-dollar mark in assets. As the population grew in the Southside and nearby farmers prospered, so did the bank.

Then the unexpected happened! The national stock market crashed in 1929, which brought on the Great Depression. Small banks were vulnerable to the economic hard times and the huge decline in circulating money. Nevertheless, people continued to trust their neighborhood bank with their money, just as they would a friend.

But the Cole County Bank was overextended. It had too many unsecured loans for its assets. For instance, the bank had to foreclose on the mortgaged Farmer’s Home hotel for only $500, when the building was worth several thousands of dollars. The bank just couldn’t sell the property. There were no buyers with money during the Great Depression.

Try as they could to keep afloat, the Cole County Bank finally was forced to close its doors in May 1938, paying only 62 1/2 cents on the dollar to shareholders. On November 9, 1938, the Director of Finance of the state of Missouri, after a six-month search to find owners of unclaimed deposits, liquidated all remaining assets. The bank had failed. The Southside Building and Loan Association, however, survived and stayed in business in that corner building.

Many Southsiders lost all their savings. Folks shared their sorrows with some bitterness. Single women, widows, aged couples, and younger people who were saving for retirement in those days before Social Security lost everything! Jack Howser, who as a young boy lived across the street in the Farmer’s Home hotel, had put his meager savings in the bank, and seventy-four years later, his painful loss of exactly $3.25 remained etched in his memory.

A bank organized by and for Southsiders and county farmers no longer exists. However, the Southside does have a branch facility of Jefferson City’s Hawthorn Bank, which is said to be their most used facility. In late 2013, its longtime motor bank was replaced by a completely new building on the corner of Dunklin and Washington, built to architecturally harmonize with the historic brick buildings of the neighborhood.

More recently, River Region Credit Union opened a drive-through facility and community room on Broadway at the Highway 50/63 expressway.

If you live, work, or visit in the Southside, you still have banking services in walking distance!

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This essay appeared, in slightly different form, in Walter A. Schroeder, Southside Sketches: Essays on Jefferson City’s Old Munichburg (Jefferson City: Old Munichburg Association, 2016). Copyright © 2026 by Walter A. Schroeder.

Grandma Thomas's Love of Singing

March is Women's History Month, so we're sharing some stories about Munichburg women. Below is one of the essays from Walter Schroeder's new book, Zombies Invade the Southside! In this essay, he remembers his maternal grandmother, Caroline Wilhelmine Thomas. Enjoy!

I wasn’t with my grandmother nearly as much as I was with my grandfather. Later on, Mom helped put my fragmented recollections of her in context when she talked about her mother. At the top of the list of remembrances is how much Grandmother liked to sing, especially with family at Christmastime and when she was with other German women. Mom said her love of singing was the chief reason she married my grandfather and why the two left Germany and came to America.

Here’s the story. It seems that young Caroline Wilhelmine Andree, raised Catholic, became friends with some Methodist girls. (Methodism had been spreading into the German Rhineland after the Napoleonic disruptions.) These friends liked to sing. She went to some of the Methodist worship services, which had group singing. This Protestant activity was frowned upon by her parents, yet she continued going for the joy of singing. Catholics at the time had no congregational singing when they celebrated mass, and no music that seemed as joyous and uplifting as that of the Methodists.

[Pronunciation note: Caroline Wilhelmine was the original, German, spelling of her name. After she arrived in America, she would also spell it “Carolina Wilhelmina,” which helped English speakers pronounce the “eena” ending of both of her names correctly.]

At the same time, she developed a friendship with a young man, Albert Thomas, an Evangelical Protestant who also liked to sing. The friendship blossomed and culminated in marriage on April 14, 1885; she was nineteen, he was twenty-three. The union was acceptable to Albert’s parents, but Wilhelmine’s parents objected. In addition to the religious difference, Wilhelmine’s family was well-off, and her marrying a simple country boy would be lowering their status.

The couple’s first baby, a boy named Albert Arthur, born five months after their marriage, did not live. According to Mom, Wilhelmine’s parents attributed it to their mixed Protestant-Catholic status and to conception before marriage, which was against Catholic teaching and likely a reason for the marriage. A second baby, a girl, came, and this time, rather than withstand the criticisms from the Andree family, the couple chose to follow the lead of another couple, friends from the village, and immigrated to America, going first to Boonville, where those friends, the Toennes family, had settled. Wilhelmine’s parents shunned the pair and wouldn’t even go to the train station to see them leave for America!

When the two, with baby Paula, relocated to Jefferson City the following year, 1889, they immediately joined the German Methodist Episcopal Church, at the corner of Broadway and Elm, and found a room in a house directly across the street. Methodists sang happy songs of praise and joy not the lugubrious, depressing hymns of other local German immigrant congregations. Singing was to express religious joy! Grandma Wilhelmine became a pillar in that congregation and taught happy songs to the Sunday School children, which included my mother and her sisters. When the German Methodist Church disbanded in 1916, she and Grandpa joined Central Evangelical Church, attracted by the German socialization and singing, and the religion, of course.

Above, the Thomas family, ca. 1900. Front row, left to right: Esther, Wilhelmine, Minnie, Albert, and Karl ("Doodle"); Paula (Polly) stands behind them. (Daughter Edna wasn't born yet.)

Often in the evening after supper, Grandma and Grandpa would go out onto the front porch and sing folk songs: Weiss du wieviel Sternlein stehen; Muss i’ denn; Mein Vater war ein Wandersmann; Du, du liegst mir am Herzen; Sah ein Knab’ ein Röslein stehn; In Lauterbach hab’ ich mein’ Strumpf verlor’n; Die Lorelei (Ich weiss nicht, was soll es bedeuten). You might know some of these by their English titles: “Do you know how many little stars there are?”; “Do I have to [leave home]?”; “My father was a roamer”; “You, you stay in my heart”; “A little boy saw a little rose [blooming]”; “In Lauterbach I lost my stocking”; and “The Lorelei” (the last referring to a mythical siren whose beautiful singing lured boatmen on the Rhine to destruction).

Their repertoire of German songs also included energetic party songs like Bier her, Bier her oder ich fall um; In München steht ein Hofbräuhaus; Fuchs, du hast die Gans gestohlen; Mein Hut der hat drei Ecken; and O du lieber Augustin. These translate to “Bring beer, bring beer, otherwise I’ll faint”; “In Munich stands a Hofbrauhaus”; “Fox, you stole the goose”; “My hat has three corners”; and “O dear Augustin.”

The duo sang German Christmas carols in the front yard in the evening, and neighbors would go out into their own yards to listen to the duets: “Oh, the Thomases are singing German carols tonight! Let’s listen!” Grandma and Grandpa gathered the family, including Richard and me when we were old enough, around the piano to sing German Christmas carols and songs. My little voice was lost in their robust singing, but at the same time I was learning the German words.

Their most distinctive song was the Bergisches Heimatlied, or “Bergisches Homeland Song.” It was an anthem. Berg is the small historic region (a duchy) of the Rhineland where they came from. The sheet music had been sent to them by Albert’s former schoolteacher as a remembrance of his homeland. It was their signature sign-off piece. Mom, of course, learned it, and she continued to sing it the rest of her life. I listened to her carefully to pick out words and melodies, with help from the sheet music.

Above, the Thomas family, ca. 1909. Front row, left to right: Esther, Wilhelmine, Edna, Albert, and Minnie; Karl ("Doodle") and Paula (Polly) stand behind them.

In November 1938, Aunt Minnie took Grandma to Kansas City to hear the Dresdner Kreuzchor (Boys’ Choir of the Holy Cross, Dresden, Germany) in the Municipal Auditorium. The world-famous choir, composed of boys ten to nineteen years old, was on tour of the United States, performing songs of Bach, Wagner, Schubert, Brahms, and Schumann. Grandma included the whole program in her scrapbook, including its long history of the seven-hundred-year-old choir. It must have been a highly memorable event for her.

Above, the radio in our living room during the 1940s.

Grandma bought a Philco floor model radio in the 1930s that received shortwave frequencies. Mom said that was so she could hear broadcasts of German music from Germany. Indeed, in one of Grandpa’s letters to his relatives in Germany in 1941, when the war was going on in Europe, he wrote, “Wir hören jetzt gerade die deutsch Musik von Berlin. Wir könnnen es gut hören.”—“We still hear German music from Berlin. We hear it well.”

Wilhelmine and Albert Thomas, 1922.

It was through her many songs and her singing that I remember my grandmother most fondly.

This essay is excerpted from Walter A. Schroeder’s new book, Zombies Invade the Southside! (2023), pp. 24–27. We’ve added hyperlinks to some YouTube videos so you can hear the music. Some of the videos have the German lyrics and English translations, so you can learn to sing them!

Copyright © Walter A. Schroeder, 2023

Fred H. Binder Was Prominent Jefferson City Leader

By Walter A. Schroeder, for Historic City of Jefferson

Fred Henry Binder, prominent Jefferson City builder and civic leader, was born Oct. 14, 1845, in the Kingdom of Hanover to lumberman and architect Friedrich Binder and Johanna (Meier) Binder. He was apprenticed to carpentry at an early age and emigrated at age 21, arriving in Jefferson City in 1867.

How do you say it? "Binder" is a German name that is pronounced BINN-der, rhyming with the word “cinder,” or the first two syllables of the word “kindergarten,” which is a German word. So Jefferson City's Binder Lake, too, is pronounced “BINN-der” (not “BINE-der”).

In 1868 he married widow Katherine (Blochberger) Hugershoff with infant daughter Clara. Her sister was Margaret Knaup, wife of hotelier Fred Knaup, who helped Binder get established in business, according to memoirs of Binder’s son-in-law F. J. Zeisberg.

By 1873 Binder had his own carpentry business. his work as architect, builder, and contractor continued for three decades. St. Peter Catholic Church (1883), for which he was architect and builder, is in the North German Gothic style—tall, slender steeple and pointed-arch windows—the style of Binder’s native Hanover. He also had a role in designing St. Francis Xavier Church (1883) in Taos and was architect and builder of Central German Evangelical Church (1891), both in the same North German Gothic style.

Above, left to right: St. Francis Xavier Church, Taos; St. Peter Catholic Church; Central German Evangelical Church.

He was the leading proponent for the Water Works (1888), including the river pumping plant and settling basins, and was the company’s president and manager.

Above: The first Missouri River Bridge at Jefferson city opened in 1896 and operated as a toll bridge until 1932. It connected to the south side of the river at Bolivar Street, where Rotary Park is now. This bridge was replaced in 1954 (by the current span that carries southbound traffic). Image from the 1900 Illustrated Sketch Book and Directory of Jefferson City and Cole County, p. 40.

Binder was president of the Bridge & Transit Company. He oversaw construction and operation of the Missouri River Bridge (1895–96) and was the longtime company president. He was its largest subscriber and executed the $200,000 contract for the bridge.

Above: The U.S. Government Building, High St., between Jefferson and Washington streets, held the U.S. Circuit and District Courts for the Central Division of the Western District of Missouri as well as the U.S. Post Office for Jefferson City. Image from the 1900 Illustrated Sketch Book, p. 17. This building was on the north side of High Street, across from what is today's Arris' Pizza restaurant.

He had the state contract to design the U.S. Court House–Post Office in the 100 block of West High Street (demolished in the 1970s). He designed and built the Music Hall (1885), 238 E. High St., and the Binder Building, 214 E. High St. He reconstructed Bragg (City) Hall (1890), 240 E. High St., after a major fire and put a slate roof on the Supreme Court (1895). He was contractor for the enlargement of the state Capitol in 1887–88.

Above: The Binder Building on High St., as shown in the 1900 Illustrated Sketch Book, p. 431. The caption described the then-retired Binder, noting he was “the owner of a large amount of valuable property in the Capital City, included in which is the Music Hall, in which is his private office and that of the Water Works Company. Mr. Binder also owns a handsome park in the western suburbs of the city. Before retiring, he built, under contract, a number of the most modern and imposing buildings in the State outside of St. Louis. . . . He superintended the erection of the U.S. Government building of this city, which is conceded to be the most perfect piece of architecture in the State.”

Above: Bragg Hall, on the southwest corner of High and Monroe (on the left, in this photo), was used as a gathering place for public entertainment before it became the city hall. It remained the city hall until 1983. Now, it’s the Cole County Abstract and Title Co. The building looks very different than it did in 1900, as in this image from the Illustrated Sketch Book (the view is looking west on High Street).

Above: The old Capitol Building, as shown in the 1900 Illustrated Sketch Book and Directory of Jefferson City and Cole County, p. 21.

Among the many residences he built were those of Fred Knaup (1877), 400 E. Capitol Ave., and Henry Ruwart (1886), 731 E. High St.

Binder’s reputation enabled him to secure state contracts for building the Engineering Building on the MU campus quadrangle (1893–95; contract for $200,000); state asylum (now hospital) at Fulton; reformatory school for girls at Chillicothe (1895) and for boys at Boonville (1888–89).

Binder served his city in many ways. He served on the City Council (1881–84) and was mayor (1884–85).

Zeisberg wrote: “Mr. Binder’s administration was an efficient one from a business standpoint, although he was accused of being too autocratic and dictatorial. . . . He was conceded to have always worked for the best interests of the city.”

He was on the school board (1878–83; 1903–11) and the Carnegie Library Board. Binder was president of Central German Evangelical Church for 29 years (1882–1911), during which he led it to become a mainstream English-speaking church. He brought from Germany the progressive idea of a nonprofit building and loan association, which enabled residents with modest incomes to own their own homes.

Emigrant Binder brought to Jefferson City the German closeness to nature, deeply rooted in the German psyche. For his own residence at 210 E. Dunklin St., built in 1873, he chose not a location among other achievers on prestigious Capitol Avenue, but an irenic, wooded quarter block with a small creek in Muenchberg on the Southside. According to the 1906 Missouri Volksfreund [German-language newspaper], Binder “has around his house the most luxuriant and most glorious yard of the city.”

Binder invested in real estate, like the lot he sold in the 1200 block of East McCarty Street to the Jewish congregation (1879) for its cemetery. He purchased a beautiful tract of mature oak and hickory woods (1895), called Binder’s Woods. After the Binder estate was settled in the 1940s it became the popular Memorial Park, “Memorial” referring to the Binder family. Today’s 644-acre Binder Park and Binder Lake (155 acres) are the chief legacies of the Binder name.

Binder, identified as a capitalist, died at his home on Sept. 27, 1911, of cancer and, Zeisberg said, from a broken heart from his son’s marital problems. [It was probably also a blow that the Missouri State Capitol building had been destroyed by fire in February of that year. –ed.] Binder died intestate, and difficulties with his only son’s marriage surfaced during litigation of his enormous estate, valued in today’s dollars at almost $3 million. His only son, Fred C., died soon afterward in 1918. Fred C.’s only child, Fred W., had died earlier, in 1916, from injuries sustained while playing football, sealing the fate of the Binder name.

Above, the Binder-Zeisberg plot at Riverview Cemetery, photographed in March 2024.

Zeisberg summarized his father-in-law: “He was a man of ambition and, if I may add, fastidious and a little vain. He had worked his way up from a very humble beginning, starting as a day carpenter and becoming a successful contractor and a man of influence and wealth. . . . While a strong church and lodge member, he could also entertain some broad and liberal views.”

Walter Schroeder grew up in Jefferson City’s historic German Southside now known as Old Munichburg. A retired professor of geography, he is devoted to preserving cultural history and is the author of five books on the history of the Old Munichburg neighborhood.

[This article first appeared in the Jefferson City News-Tribune’s “Cole County History” series on Saturday, July 24, 2021, p. B4. Slight editorial changes have been made, including adding several images and captions that didn't appear in the newpaper piece, and to update for 2024 the number of JC history books authored by Walter Schroeder. —ed.]

For more about Binder and other German progressives, see my previous post.

For more about Binder’s property on Dunklin Street—his home, the woods, and more—see my 9/4/2012 post about his son-in-law, Franz Josef Zeisberg.

For more information about Binder's Music Hall, see this post.

Copyright © Walter A. Schroeder, 2021

19th-Century German Progressives Made Mark in Jefferson City

By Walter A. Schroeder, for Historic City of Jefferson

German immigrants contributed to Jefferson City in many ways. The contribution of 19th-century German progressives has not received attention because they were not organized and had no name.

Few in number, not more than 50, they were vastly outnumbered by other Germans. I call them “progressives” for being dissatisfied with the status quo and advocating often unpopular changes or “progress.” Many supported the Radical Republican Party that took over post–Civil War government.

Who were these early German progressives? Their core comprised immigrant refugees from the failed German revolutions of the first half of the 19th century in which the struggle for freedom from governmental and ecclesiastical autocracy was squashed by royalist armies. They subscribed to the humanism of Goethe and Schiller, which in America translated into elevating women’s status and treating African Americans as equals.

Prussian-born Arnold Krekel (1815–1888) was an abolitionist newspaper publisher, attorney, state representative, Union Army colonel, federal judge, and a founder of Lincoln University. He was one of several prominent German immigrant progressives in Jefferson City in the 1800s.

German progressives were well-educated, especially in the humanities, and expressed their ideas through oratory, drama, and poetry. City-oriented, they encouraged rapid learning of English and rapid integration into public life in contrast to the tradition-preserving German Catholics and Lutherans in their parish churches. Progressives advocated diversity and multiculturalism by bringing visitors to Jefferson City who offered different ideas. In 1892, progressive German Central Evangelical Church hosted Amen Hasi, Palestinian speaker and perhaps the first Muslim in Jefferson City, “to illustrate customs and practices of Mohammedans and oriental ways in general.”

Progressives made their mark in the beginnings of public education in Jefferson City. They established their own German-English School at 216–222 W. McCarty before the Civil War. Four of the six members of the first Board of Education (1867) were German immigrants. In her history of Jefferson City public schools, Jerena Giffen wrote “it was the German element . . . who were the main supporters of the earliest public school efforts.” That “German element” was more specifically German progressives.

Jefferson City’s German-English School, 216–222 W. McCarty (now demolished).

German Catholics and Lutherans maintained their parochial schools. Progressives insisted local taxation for schools include provisions for a Black school, which roiled voters just after the Civil War. Progressives brought from Germany the belief that school teaching was a profession and one not left to pedagogically untrained, unmarried women.

Progressives stood out for their religious views, sharpened by what they experienced in Germany as disallowing freedom of personal belief. While unquestioningly Christian, they dismissed the many denominations that Christianity had been divided into. They disdained adherence to a particular interpretation of scripture to the exclusion of others. They were sheltered throughout Missouri in the Protestant Evangelical church, which became the liberal United Church of Christ in 1957. Jefferson City’s Central Evangelical Church, born in 1858 as a “union” church for all, accepted different creeds and confessions and let members use their personal interpretation of scripture to reconcile differences.

Central Evangelical Church (1858), Parsonage (1860), and School (1871), photographed in 1881. The church was on the corner of Washington and Ashley, and the street in the foreground is Washington. This was the first church building of the congregation that, after denominational mergers, became Central United Church of Christ in 1957.

Progressives were outspoken in civic affairs well beyond what their small numbers would suggest in elective city offices like mayor, treasurer, assessor, and the City Council.

Notable Jefferson City progressives include:

Ernst Anton Zuendt, who gave up his German inherited title of baron to become a humanist author and journalist in America and doyen of German American poets. He was the first German teacher (1868) in local public schools and left an indelible mark in the character of early public education. He established the local Turners Club, center of German progressivism.

Ernst Anton Zuendt (1819–1897) was a Jefferson City progressive, humanist, poet, and educator.

Fred H. Binder, an architect, builder, mayor, councilman, and leader in many civic projects. He was president and builder of Central Evangelical Church. He brought from Germany the concept of a building and loan association—a progressive idea that enabled common people to acquire their homes affordably and avoid usurious interest rates of banks.

Fred H. Binder (1882–1911) was one of Jefferson City’s most prominent civic leaders in the 19th century. Binder Lake was named in his honor. (His German name is pronounced BINN-der.)

Theodore Schultz, a High Street grocer, city assessor, justice of the peace, and Civil War veteran, in whose back room progressives met for gemütlichkeit while discussing social and political issues.

Fred Knaup, who used his High Street City Hotel to be unofficial greeter of arriving German progressives and others; he was on the board of education for 23 years.

Nicholas DeWyl and family, pharmacists; his daughter Frederika DeWyl Simonsen cast off the social status then expected of women to become Missouri’s first licensed female pharmacist. The DeWyls were members of the Evangelical Church.

George Wagner, Bavarian brewer who left the confessional Lutheran Church to join the open Evangelical Church. His sons Conrad, Lorenz, and William used their fortunes to help develop the city, like Wagner Place and Monroe House.

George Wagner (1821–1895) founded the Wagner brewery that ultimately became the Capital Brewery. He was one of the group of German progressives who championed public education and equal rights in the 19th century.

Federal judge Arnold Krekel, a leading figure in establishing Lincoln University, who relentlessly pushed for Black education. He and other progressives worked with veterans of the 62nd and 65th regiments of the USCI to establish Lincoln.

The Rev. Joseph Rieger, who lived with abolitionist Congregationalists in New England before becoming the first pastor of Central Evangelical Church in 1860. He spoke out for abolition and for education of Blacks at Lincoln University and in public schools.

Rev. Joseph Rieger (1811–1869) was the first pastor at Central Evangelical Church. A staunch abolitionist, he led the congregation that dared to fly the Union flag proudly in front of its church in the tense, politically mixed city during the Civil War. He ministered to Black and White inmates at the prison and was its only chaplain during the Civil War, and he married Black couples who had fled from slavery in Callaway County. After the war, he helped establish Lincoln University and served on its board until his death.

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Note: On June 13, 2021, Central Church, its progressive members having earlier left to organize The Oasis United Church of Christ, voted to leave the progressive United Church of Christ denomination.

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Walter Schroeder grew up in Jefferson City’s historic German Southside now known as Old Munichburg. A retired professor of geography, he is devoted to preserving cultural history and is the author of five books on the history of the Old Munichburg neighborhood.

[This article first appeared in the Jefferson City News-Tribune’s “Cole County History” series on Saturday, July 31, 2021, p. B4. Slight editorial changes have been made, including to add images and captions beyond the one picture (of A. E. Zuendt) that appeared in the paper, and to update for 2024 the number of JC history books authored by Walter Schroeder. —ed.]

Copyright © Walter A. Schroeder, 2021

Jefferson City’s Early German Clubs: Turners and Germania

By Walter A. Schroeder, for Historic City of Jefferson

There’s a saying that when three Germans get together, they will organize and form a club with bylaws. That was certainly true among immigrant Germans in Jefferson City in the 19th century, but the clubs faded away after 1900 and are little known today because their German-language records inhibit research. In their heyday, German social clubs promoted the businesses and trades of their members and provided socialization in their traditional German way of singing, drinking, and dancing. These selective clubs were for men only, and they lacked membership from laborers and common folk.

The first of the clubs was the Turners, or Turnverein, organized in 1868. It was founded by Ernst Anton Zuendt, a freethinker and the first German teacher at the new public school. The principle of the Turner movement was the Greek ideal of “a sound mind in a sound body.” “Turner” means “gymnast,” and gymnastics were its principal exercise.

The local Turners in 1869 established a Turnergarten on a hill in the 600 block of Madison Street, opposite what is now Central Dairy, in an emerging Munichburg. As described by Julius Conrath Jr., the sprawling Turner Garden had a brick meeting house and “a long, wooden building . . . where wine, beer, and sandwiches were sold. Great crowds would gather there, particularly on Sunday afternoons. . . . We had a turnmaster who put us through the various exercises, and on the grounds were bars, racks, horses, swings, rings, and other appliances on which we performed.” Among events at the Turner Garden was an 1872 “masked military ball” for the Franz Sigel battery, a unit of Missouri German immigrants that had fought for the Union in the just-ended Civil War. Several of the Sigel unit’s veterans were residents of Jefferson City.

Zuendt resigned his public school teaching position in 1876 and left Jefferson City. The Turner Club disbanded in the mid-1870s. Ernst Friemel acquired the Turner Garden site in 1881 and turned it into the popular Friemel’s Garden. [For more on Friemel’s Garden, a hilltop gathering place for cold beer, sandwiches, picnics, music concerts, and dancing, see Walter A. Schroeder, Breweries and Saloons in Jefferson City, Missouri, (Jefferson City: Old Munichburg Association, 2009), 28–30.]

As the Turners faded, immigrants formed the Harmonie Club, or Harmonie Gesellschaft, primarily for singing. It was formally organized May 26, 1873, with 73 members. In 1873, it opened its own building, Harmonie Hall, in the 300 block of Madison Street. Harmonie dissolved about 1880 but reformed as the Germania Club.

On Feb. 8, 1883, German-speaking residents organized the Germania Club. “Germania” is the personification of the German nation—counterpart to Britannia for the United Kingdom and Columbia for the United States—and was associated with the drive in Germany to unify the German people. Germania clubs were established in many American cities.

In 1884, founding member Fred Binder [pronounced BINN-der], prominent local builder, built the Music Hall building, 236 E. High St., next to Bragg Hall (city hall), specifically for the Germania Club. At that time, the club had 55 members in business and the trades. The second-floor “Music Hall” was one single room, 90 by 30 feet, with 140 chairs, a stage, and dressing rooms.

Photo: The Music Hall, built in 1884 by Fred Binder for the Germania Club, was at 236 E. High St. next to Bragg Hall, the city hall. The distinctive, large plate glass windows were to allow the maximum of natural light into the hall before electricity. The Music Hall has been replaced by the current building that houses Samuel’s Menswear. (Source: 1900 Illustrated Sketch Book of Cole County, p. 231.)

The Germania Club held its grand opening on its first anniversary, Feb. 8, 1884, and met weekly thereafter. The club hosted visiting lecturers, presented dramas in German and English, and provided frequent musical entertainment by visitors and local groups. It was a cultural center for the growing city. The Music Hall building is no longer standing. The site is now occupied by Samuel’s Menswear.

The Germania Club served as a chamber of commerce to promote members’ businesses and provide a networking forum. Among its nearly 100 members were Binder, Dallmeyer, Priesmeyer, Brandenburger, Porth, Stampfli, Wagner, Knaup, Obermeyer, Bruns, Heinrichs, Fischer, Meyer, Monnig, and others who had High Street businesses. Wives attended its elegant social events. The club held weekly dances and masked balls and hosted parties for visitors from Germany. A local orchestra or cornet band provided music for the club’s activities. Germania gave annual Christmas parties for children, one of which in 1893 was attended by 250 children who sang, danced, and received gifts.

The Germania Club was the high point of German socialization in Jefferson City. It was the largest, most prestigious, and most active social club for German businessmen and civic leaders. It reached its peak in the 1890s, which marked the decade of greatest prominence of German-American identification and influence in Jefferson City.

By 1900, these businessmen and civic leaders were fluent English speakers and were fast losing their identity as a separate ethnic group. They also were members of other civic groups that provided larger forums for intercourse like the Commercial Club/Chamber of Commerce. They were serving in elected city offices and on the public school board. Assimilation was nearing completion. Thus, there was no longer a need for separate German social groups.

Walter Schroeder grew up in Jefferson City’s historic German Southside now known as Old Munichburg. A retired professor of geography, he is devoted to preserving cultural history and is the author of five books on the history of the Old Munichburg neighborhood.

Copyright © Walter A. Schroeder, 2021

[This article first appeared in the Jefferson City News-Tribune’s “Cole County History” series on Saturday, March 6, 2021. Slight editorial changes have been made in square brackets and to update for 2024 the name of Samuel’s Tuxedos and Gifts and the number of JC history books authored by Walter Schroeder. —ed.]

For more on the history of German Turner gymnastic societies, including the club swinging those societies are associated with, enjoy this YouTube video by Oliver Janseps.

Zombies Invade the Southside! New Book by Walter A. Schroeder

Hi, everyone, it's Julie, the daughter of Walter. He's the author of this blog, but I'm the one who posts his essays here online. I'm also the editor of his publications for the Old Munichburg Association, and I wanted to let you know he has a new collection of memoirs!

We just picked up the books from the printer a few days ago. Are we in time for Christmas? Not quite, but Downtown Book & Toy and J Street Vintage will soon have copies for sale. I'm sure there will be other places, as well. We are also anticipating some booksignings and perhaps some public author talks, too.

Why is it called “Zombies”? you may ask. Well, this is collection of essays about a number of different topics. Would people pay attention if it was titled “More Essays by Walter”? We went with a title that grabs your attention. So: the title comes from a whimsical story about the time when all the kids on the block saw the 1943 comic-horror movie Revenge of the Zombies . . . and then spent the next week staggering around the neighborhood's sidewalks, arms outstretched, wearing vacant expressions—causing passing motorists to do double-takes! Worse, as they muttered "I will do thy bidding. . ." their mothers caught on to the trick and told them to clean their rooms, or do the dishes!

But perhaps more to the point, it has to do with the magic of details. In his introduction, my dad talks about how “history” comes to us as a collection of facts, but we all have a hard time picturing how things really “were.” His goal in Zombies is to revive scenes of the past so we can better understand and imagine what Jefferson City was like (at least for him) in the 1940s. (Was his experience “representative”? Well, if not his, whose would be?) As he explains, “In every generation . . . young people learn only the skeleton of the past. I want to put meat on the skeleton’s bones.”

In other news:

• Dad's book Buddy's Stories, published in 2018 by the Old Munichburg Association, sold out this year, so we reprinted it. So it's still available, too!
• His Breweries and Saloons book is also available. It's a relatively small book, but it's packed full of interesting information about the early breweries and saloons/taverns in Jefferson City. Sure, it's got lots of cool photos, old ads from the local German newspapers, and other illustrations, but it's also got a lot of colorful information in the text—the text is substantial, so don't let its compactness fool you. Be sure to check it out!
• Dad's book Southside Sketches, published in 2016, is now out of print and unavailable.

One more note: Zombies, Buddy's Stories, and Breweries and Saloons are all published by the Old Munichburg Association, which is a nonprofit neighborhood association dedicated to the revitalization of Jefferson City's historic Southside. We are a group of homeowners, business owners, and others who share a love of the district and a desire to promote, preserve, and protect it. Proceeds from the sales go to OMA.

New Publication: Broadway School in the 1940s

It’s a fact: a school is more than a building, more than books, more than the teachers and students within—and the farther you get from your school days, the more you appreciate the impact of school on you and your community.

The building on the northeast corner of Dunklin and Broadway was a public school from 1904 to 1955. Today, most people know it as the Carpenters Hall, since the local Carpenters union operated it as an office building longer than it was a school. Now, it has been remodeled into private apartments. Schroeder breathes life into the history we sense as we ponder this historic building.

Reflecting in his eighties, historian Walter A. Schroeder shares his personal experiences of attending Jefferson City’s Broadway Elementary School in the 1940s. It was a much different learning environment than what today’s schoolchildren experience. While public documents and newspaper accounts can present a basic outline of what public elementary schools were like in the past, only accounts like these—of personal experiences—can make history come to life.

A slim volume packed with information, Broadway School in the 1940s offers details like these:

• All boys wore long pants; all girls wore dresses. All shoes were made of leather.
• Class size was 30–35 children, and all the teachers were unmarried women.
• All pupils had their weight and height recorded every six weeks.
• Student desks had a round hole originally meant to hold an ink bottle, but the ink bottles used in the 1940s didn’t fit the holes. So kids dropped paper wads down the holes: “Bombs away!”
• Students learned to write in cursive using the Palmer method.
• Washington’s and Lincoln’s birthdays were observed separately, on different days.
• The playground had separate sides for boys and girls, with the same playground equipment on both sides.
• The hand-held, brass school bell was wielded by the principal or by the janitor.
• Report cards included notes on deportment, study habits, and attitudes.
• Cloakrooms held coats, caps, gloves, scarves, and galoshes—but no actual cloaks!
• All the students, and nearly all of the teachers, walked to school every day. School was never closed for inclement weather.

In addition to his detailed accounts of what Broadway School was like in the 1940s, Schroeder offers his reflections on the changes he’s observed after seventy years: decorum in the classroom, changing technology, evolving public educational policy, diversity, and more.

“I want people to have a detailed description,” Schroeder says. “Over a thousand kids were educated in that building. Early education leaves an indelible imprint in our lives. Elementary education was so different in the past. And there are few people left who have memories of Broadway School as it was.”

An entertaining, authentic collection of memories of a wartime schoolchild, Broadway School in the 1940s paints vivid scenes of a historic elementary school, inspiring readers of all ages to make comparisons to their own school memories.

Broadway School in the 1940s, by Walter A. Schroeder
Published in 2023 by the Historic City of Jefferson, Inc.
58 pp.; 28 photographs and illustrations