Munichburg Memories: What Could Have Been: The Missouri State Capital in Sedalia

Monday, April 25, 2022

What Could Have Been: The Missouri State Capital in Sedalia

After American independence had been won, President Thomas Jefferson and associates used rationalism and geometry to plan how the trans-Appalachian west was to be occupied. To administer the new lands, they focused on the principle of centrality. Administrative centers were to be located in the center of the land being administered. County seats were to be in the center of counties. Schools were to be in the center of the township on a designated “school section.” State capitals were to be in the center of their states. Columbus, Ohio; Indianapolis, Indiana; and Springfield, Illinois, served as examples of centrally located capitals before Missouri.

State commissioners located the site of the Missouri capital in the center of the state, on the Missouri River, and named it Jefferson City. That choice was a real winner for “centrality,” because two centuries later (2010 census) the center of Missouri’s population was just outside Wardsville, or only seven miles south of the Capitol. The center of Missouri’s geographic area is just west of Etterville in Miller County, 21 miles southwest of Jefferson City.

Over the years some Missourians have questioned the suitability of Jefferson City as the location of the state capital, and all would-be rivals were in the state’s central part. In the early decades of state history, Columbia, Fayette, and Boonville were proposed as better locations. But it was Sedalia that mounted the most determined effort to remove the capital from Jefferson City.

Sedalia had grown rapidly in the post–Civil War years, thanks to its railroad connections and development of the surrounding rich farming and stock-raising lands. In contrast, river-located Jefferson City grew more slowly after railroads superseded steamboats as the primary transportation mode. By 1890, Sedalia had more than double the population of Jefferson City (14,068 to 6,742), and promoters of that booming railroad town mounted a vigorous campaign to relocate the state capital to their town.

The Commonwealth Land Development Company of Sedalia, composed of those promoters, proposed a “Capitol Addition” in the southwestern part of the city. It was an irregular polygon of 211 square blocks that lay between Broadway on the north, 32nd Street on the south, and west of Barnett Street.

A tract of six square blocks was reserved for the Capitol and surrounding grounds. Locations were also designated for a Governor’s Mansion, a Supreme Court building, and an armory. A divided lane parkway, named Capitol Avenue, connected the Capitol to Sedalia’s chief thoroughfare, Broadway. Laid out in the days of horses and carriages, it was designed to be a ceremonial esplanade.

Apparently the entire addition was to be residential, since the company provided no information about land for commercial, industrial, or even neighborhood parks and churches. Capitol Addition comprised approximately 9,000 lots of different sizes, sufficient for more than 25,000 people. Most lots were only 25 feet wide! That narrow width allowed the promoters to maximize the number of lots in the addition, and thus the promoters would maximize the amount of money they would raise from sales. It was necessary to raise as much money as possible from lot sales because money raised from sales was to pay for the retirement of bonds sold to finance the capital removal, which was estimated to be a whopping $3,810,000 ($114,300,000 in 2022 dollars). For comparison, construction of the new Capitol and expanded grounds in Jefferson City in 1915 cost Missouri taxpayers less, $3,500,000 ($94,800,000 in 2022 dollars).

By means of clever parliamentary maneuvering, Sedalia was successful in getting passed a concurrent resolution in the Missouri state legislature requiring the state to vote at the general election in November 1896 on removal of the state capital—the Capitol building and all associated state functions—to Sedalia. Eighteen ninety-six was also the year the Missouri River bridge was opened, which greatly enhanced Jefferson City’s position. Despite Sedalia’s efforts, the statewide vote went solidly against removal by a vote of 65 percent to 35 percent. The initiative won approval in only 19 counties, most of which were around Sedalia.

Fifteen years later, 1911, when fire destroyed the Capitol in Jefferson City, the issue of keeping the state’s capital at Jefferson City once again came up, but the legislature’s quick decision to rebuild the Capitol in Jefferson City effectively ended all questions as to whether the city would remain the capital of Missouri. Nevertheless, some Missouri government officials, politicians, and lobbyists continue to grumble about smallish Jefferson City as their capital city.

Missourians could have had a capitol on uninteresting topography overlooking nothing but flat land. Instead, Missourians today are proud of their magnificent state Capitol rising majestically on a high bluff in Jefferson City overlooking our state’s namesake Missouri River.

Map courtesy of the State Historical Society of Missouri

Text ©Walter A. Schroeder, 2022

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This is not a horror novel—far from it!

Following his popular memoir Buddy’s Stories, historian Walter A. Schroeder presents another warm and colorful collection of more than 90 essays about growing up in Jefferson City in the 1940s.

With humor and insight, Schroeder provides a personal glimpse into his family life and his experiences as a child growing up in Jefferson City’s Southside neighborhood—a Germantown district also called Old Munichburg. It’s a treasury of essays describing his childhood growing up under the same roof as his immigrant grandparents, parents, two brothers, and renters, and surrounded by a vibrant, supportive community.

In the title essay, Schroeder shares a whimsical story of the time when all the kids on the block saw the movie Revenge of the Zombies and spent the next week staggering around the neighborhood's sidewalks, arms outstretched, wearing vacant expressions—causing passing motorists to do double-takes!

Schroeder’s crisp details revive scenes of the past so we can better understand and imagine Jefferson City in the 1940s. 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.”

This new book by Schroeder, a beloved Missouri geographer and historian, is not to be missed!

Published in 2023 by the Old Munichburg Association

304 pages; 85 photographs and illustrations; index

$25

Available at Downtown Book and Toy, J Street Vintage, and ECCO Lounge

Everyone has a story. This is Buddy’s.

Meet Buddy: a bike-riding, towheaded, everyday kid growing up on Elm Street during World War II. Everyone he knows is a proud American, including his German-immigrant grandparents. Life on the Southside isn’t rosy, but people do what they can to get by—and Buddy and his friends grow up learning to reduce, reuse, and recycle . . . to be self-sufficient . . . and to help others.

Generous with details, the geographer and historian Walter A. Schroeder—nicknamed “Buddy” in his youth—shares his personal memories of growing up in Jefferson City, Missouri. His descriptions will resonate with people who remember those simpler times, and they will cause others to reflect on what we lost as the years went by.

These 42 brief essays cover an array of topics about Jefferson City places, everyday life, the effects of World War II, and expressions of patriotism. How did families make ends meet? How did kids participate in the war effort? What was it like to have bread, eggs, milk, and coal delivered, to make sauerkraut in the basement, to be fitted for shoes with commercial X-ray machines? What did kids do for fun? How did the old Missouri River Bridge rotate, and what was it like to go to the dime store?

Engagingly written, enhanced by the judgment of a professional historian, and illustrated with 72 photos, maps, and scrapbook mementos, Buddy’s Stories is a vibrant perspective on Jefferson City history . . . and a fond commemoration of the way things used to be.

“I helped my grandfather make beer while Doctor Hill came to our house and brought my brother Walter Albert Schroeder into the world. He cost twenty-five dollars. My parents got a bargain, and I got a ‘buddy.’”

—Richard A. Schroeder, older brother

“This book is a real treasure. Buddy treats us to recollections of our community. It is as if he, Richard, and I are sitting together talking about the old days.”
—Thomas K. Schroeder, younger brother

Published in 2018 by the Old Munichburg Association

200 pages; 70 photographs, maps, and illustrations

$15

Available at Downtown Book and Toy, ECCO Lounge, Samuel's Tuxedo, Schaefer House, and Central UCC

Read the Book!

Southside Sketches: Essays on Jefferson City’s Old Munichburg
by Walter A. Schroeder

During his tenure as secretary of the Old Munichburg Association, Walter Schroeder “spiced up” his monthly mailings of the group’s minutes with brief essays on the district’s history. What began as a side project became a collection of essays illuminating the Southside’s history of organizations and people, and of its very environment. At turns humorous, nostalgic, poignant, questioning—but always keenly insightful—these “sketches” draw upon personal memories as well as archival research.

Schroeder shares detailed recollections about life before air-conditioning, shopping at mom-and-pop groceries, using sales-tax tokens, and many other memories of his youth. Other stories came from interviews with his mother and other old-time Southside residents, who spoke of visits by gypsies, the time a steamboat managed to dock some six blocks south of the Missouri River, and explorations of the area’s legendary tunnels and caves. Schroeder gleaned several other interesting tales from archival sources, including the German-language newspapers favored by the Southside immigrants—yet read by few today.

200 pages, paperback
OUT OF PRINT

Also by Walter Schroeder

Breweries and Saloons in Jefferson City, Missouri
by Walter A. Schroeder

Got Gemütlichkeit? The German immigrants to Jefferson City certainly did, and from the time they started arriving in the area in the 1840s to the present day, good-natured beer drinking among friends has fostered social connections, spurred economic growth, fed the city’s hospitality industry, and nourished a sense of ethnic identity.

Historian, geographer, and native Southsider Walter Schroeder grew up in the shadow of Capitol Brewery, a grandson of German immigrants and an enthusiastic supporter of Munichburg’s history and future. After exploring the written record, including old German-language local newspapers, as well as collecting oral histories from local residents, he relates what he has learned about the city’s breweries, saloons, beer gardens, and other beer-related history.

From the earliest years of Jefferson City, its ethnic Germans have run breweries, gathered in beer gardens, and established saloons, taprooms, and taverns. In these pages you will learn about the following and much more:

—The George Wagner Brewery, which started in the Southside of Jefferson City in 1870, produced an impressive seventy barrels a day, and was one of the first companies to freeze its own ice.
—The Capitol Brewery, which offered authentic Bavarian beer and dominated the region’s beer sales from the 1890s through the end of World War II, grew to become the city’s Coca-Cola bottler.
—The Franz beer garden in the 1870s occupied the hilltop that is today the home of St. Mary’s Health Center. It was a grassy, breezy gathering place for relaxing, dancing, and singing, offering a tremendous view of the young town—plus sausage, cheese, crackers, and freshly made Franz beer.
—The ECCO Lounge, the city’s longest-running taproom and restaurant, has roots going back to 1860, when it offered food, libation, and lodging to out-of-town farmers who had carted their goods for sale in the capital city.

Although “having a beer with one’s friends” is certainly no longer a way to profile someone as “German” in Missouri’s capital city, everyone with an interest in the art and history of brewing, the many stories of the city, or German heritage will enjoy this celebration of the city’s German immigrants, their ethnic beverage, and its magical capacity for bringing people together.

Published by the Old Munichburg Association.
Paperback, 50 pp., 38 illustrations, 6 x 9"
$8, plus $3 shipping and handling (please include $1.50 s&h for each additional book sent to the same address).

Note: The Breweries and Saloons book is available at the ECCO Lounge.