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A feature of Midway Park, at St. Louis and Euclid avenues in Joplin, was Castle Rock.
Jeanne Newby
Back in February of 2000, changes started to take place at St. Louis and Euclid avenues in Joplin. The land had been for sale for quite some time, but I thought the remaining house would be there forever. Each week as I drove by that intersection, the thought came to me that I should do a story on that triangle piece of land. But reality hit home when they started clearing the land. There is a beautiful brick home on the location now, but it once looked so different.
I recall one greenhouse being there with the house, but according to this picture there were many more greenhouses. The land was originally owned by Harvey Hall, and the original address listed the Hall Green Houses in Midway Park, along the line of the Southwest Electric Railway that went along Euclid and Turkey Creek going from Carthage to Galena and Castle Rock was Midway. The highlight of Midway Park was Castle Rock. The Castle Rock baseball team played at Lakeside in the Trolley League.
The Castle Rock was a popular spot from the days of Native Americans up through the early settlers. There were dances, picnics, fireworks, etc. Schifferdecker, Lakeside and Midway competed with each other as they were entertainment reachable by streetcars.
Hall’s Greenhouse and Truck Gardens
Harvey A. Hall’s Greenhouse and Truck Gardens were listed in 1927 at Castle Rock. In 1906 the Midway Green Houses were listed near Midway Park, with H.A. Hall as proprietor. The greenhouses contained 25,000 feet of glass devoted to cut flowers.
Harvey A. Hall passed away in December of 1927.
Time does fly – as I thought that pretty brick house was built just a few years ago, not 22 years ago.
A Joplin Globe report on Midway, July 4, 1897:
Area residents took to the great outdoors to celebrate the Fourth of July, many of them invading two major resorts in the area, Midway Park and Lakeside Park. Midway was crowded all day. The attractions were more in the nature of a picnic than a celebration and everyone had a fine time who delights in music, dancing, or who loves to lie in the shade of a tree and commune with nature and his best girl. About 5 p.m. Prof. LeClaire, the balloon and parachute expert, made a successful ascension. He went up out of reach and still up. Then he let loose of everything except the parachute and came down as gently as a feather, alighting in a small tree a short distance from where he went up. [How did the balloon get back down?] The evening at the park was also devoted to dancing and there was a big crowd there until a late hour.
Jeanne’s new book, “The Zinc City, Webb City, Missouri” is now available at Webb City Chamber office and other local retailers, such at Maggie Jane’s Gifts, at 8 S. Main St.
The Webb City Sentinel isn’t a newspaper – but it used to be, serving Webb City, Missouri, in print from 1879-2020. This “newspaper” seeks to carry on that tradition as a nonprofit corporation.
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