Though math was my worst subject in school, I’ve always been fascinated by the stories numbers tell about our past.
As a farm writer for our local newspaper, I often turned to various farm census records and histories to contrast our culture with that of our forebearers. Among those records was a pamphlet produced by the Missouri Bureau of Labor Statistics, the “1913 Red Book” for Dallas County.
To put the numbers in context, both of my grandfathers were living in Missouri at the time the Red Book was published. Grandpa Hamilton was a small boy, brought to the Ozarks when my great-grandpa moved the family from a farm in Indiana. My Grandpa Daly was a mite older. Born in 1881 in Canada he had relocated to Springfield and was working as a sign painter and market owner. I knew both of my grandfathers, which makes 1913 seem not so long ago
Dallas County in 1913, had a population of 13,181 people – more than double that of the county when we moved there in 1957, but short of today’s count of more than 17,000.
The Red Book noted more ancestral diversity than might have been imagined in an area that seems an extension of the Appalachian Scots-Irish culture.
Families of German ancestry numbered 31, with English less than half that at 14. In third place was Sweden at nine, but less of surprise because of the prominence of “Swede” Johnson in the county’s ill-fated railroad history. Other ancestral nationalities were Austrian, Belgian, Canadian, Danish, French, Dutch, Irish, Russian, Scottish, Welsh and others. That diversity was likely common to many Ozarks counties, evidence we are not necessarily who we think we are.
Most of those families lived and worked on small parcels of the county’s 264,831 acres of farmland, more than half of which was actually woodland. The county boasted a count of 17,247 head of cattle in 1913. The 2024 US Farm Census gives us around 55,000 head of cattle.
As would be expected before the dawn of automobiles, horses numbered 7,313 and mules 1,923.
Th county’s 5,516 cows produced more than 1.2 million gallons of milk a year, most of which went into butter and cheese. The county also had large inventories of hogs, chickens and sheep, as well a diverse fruit and vegetable industry that produced 60,000 bushels of apples, more than 11,000 quarts of strawberries and 22,000 quarts of blackberries.
The cane crop also resulted in 3,700 gallons of cane syrup.
When I put all of these and other numbers together, I picture a bustling agrarian society in which everyone grew something. They had to. There was no Walmart, Cash Saver or Dollar General just down the road.
That was our grandparents’ world — not necessarily the “good old days,” but not so bad if they knew nothing better.
Oh, I almost forgot. Dallas County had 81 school districts in 1913, with 94 teachers and an annual teacher salary budget just shy of $25,000.
You can do the math. I come up with $265 a year.
A former feature writer for Ozarks Farm and Neighbor, Jim Hamilton is a retired newspaper editor/publisher. Hamilton was reared on a small dairy farm in Dallas County, Mo. Contact Jim at [email protected].
