From the 3rd floor
of the Webb City Public Library
August 28, 2024
James L. Arnold, a conductor on the Southwest Missouri Railroad Co. streetcar line, was born Jan. 5, 1877, in Missouri.
In 1880, he lived in Preston Township near Jasper. He served as a private in the 2nd Missouri Infantry, Company C in the Spanish American War.
James married Florence Caroline Wedding in Carterville, on June 24, 1907.
Florence had been born Oct. 28, 1878, in Hancock County, Ill. Her family was also living in Preston Township in 1880.
In 1910, the couple were living in the Lakeside Precinct near Lakeside Park.
James was working as a Southwest Missouri Railroad Co. conductor. Many of his nearby neighbors were also working for the “Electric Line.”
James and Florence were the parents of three children, Louise, Albert and Gerald. By 1920, James had moved his family to La Habra, Orange County, Calif. to work in the oil fields there. The family returned to Jasper County by 1930 and resided in the city of Jasper where he was listed as a laborer, working on the highway.
James Arnold died on Dec. 15, 1949, in Los Angeles County, Calif. Florence Arnold died in 1962. They are buried at Valhalla Memorial Park in North Hollywood, Los Angeles County, Calif.
In the mining era, was Webb City fortunate in the long run because miners were drawn away to Picher, Okla., where the quantity of lead and zinc was much larger?
NPR station KOSU, of Stillwater, Okla., is reporting on how the Quapaw Nation is gradually cleaning up mine waste that turned Picher into a ghost town.
Read the story here.
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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