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THE PATH TOWARD FOUNDING THE DOGTOWN HISTORICAL SOCIETY

By Bob Corbett

March 30, 2002

The path toward forming the Dogtown Historical Society can best be described in five different stages. These are:

Stage 1: Bob Corbett's history project and building a Dogtown History Website.

I retuned to Dogtown in 1993 after having lived away for more than 30 years. I moved into an apartment up on Clayton Ave. primarily because my parents were very ill and I wanted to be with them in their last years. My mother did die in 1993 and my father in 1994. Shortly after I moved back into our family home at 1419 Tamm Ave. I wanted to get more involved in the neighborhood of Dogtown which I'd always loved, having been back constantly since not only my parents but my Aunt Catherine Corbett Moser and both my brothers lived here, but many friends. In considering how to get back into things I chose what fit my own talents and interests and decided upon Dogtown history.

I began to ask around as to who had done things in the past and began to create ideas of my own, including what has in fact become the singly most popular feature of my web site, the St. James School class photo project. And off it all went.

The two primary people I met who had done some Dogtown history and who moved me beyond point zero were Bob Mirielli and Louis Schmidt. Bob spent some quality time with me at Buder Branch library showing me tons of sources and Louis turned over to me for xeroxing a huge amount of material which he had written and collected. He also gave me a computer disc with a lot of his essays.

And off I was running.....

Stage 2: The opening of Bob Corbett's DOGTOWN HOME PAGE.

This occurred on September 6, 1999. My actual web site itself was put up (The Haiti section) on June 15, 1999, so the web site was about 3 months old when the Dogtown site appeared.

Stage 3: The history mailing list begins with 10 people.



Below is the very first note sent to 9 folks on Monday October 25, 1999

From Bob Corbett:
Subject: New mailing list on Dogtown history

Folks, this is a first message and going to 9 of you. You are people who have contacted me by e-mail and whom I have some reason might be interested in this project of Dogtown history. I started a list just like this on the country of Haiti back in 1994. That list now has over 800 subscribers and I send out more than 20-30 messages a day to that list.

I don't anticipate anything like that in numbers of folks or traffic. Rather, I expect a few messages from me from time to time to ask for information or help getting it, and a forum for others to share stories, inquires and so on. I think the load of messages will be quite light. I will happily take anyone off the list who doesn't want to be on, and I do understand not everyone is likely to be interested. Very briefly, since not all of you know -- this is a rough plan of some of what I have in mind for this history website:

  1. Improve the quality and quantity of what is already there.
  2. First and foremost: work on the St. James School photos and class lists. As I was at my cousin's wake last evening (3 years younger than me) I realize a good use of my time now is dealing with the living and put less emphasis on what is already there in books.
  3. I do want to put up material that will generate some interest in the neighborhood, thus more things like sports stories and so on.
  4. Eventually I want to bring to the attention of this community its 19th century beginnings in the land grant to Charles Gratiot, the founding of the subdivision of Cheltenham, the mining and brick making of the early years of economy, the transition with the 20th century, stimulated by both Scullin Steel and the World's Fair and much more.

    It will all take time. I have a zillion ideas, lots of energy, and absurdly little time in relation to either of the above. In Haiti, where patience is a necessary virtue of survival, we have a saying: "Petit, petit, zwazo fe niche li". Little by little the bird builds its nest.

    That's me. Day by day I follow this lead, am loaned that photo, gather this item of interest, and the nest will be the end product.
  5. A crazy and probably unimportant story that utterly grabs me in the small railroad that ran from Manchester to Forest Park (at about Childress) to off-load material for the World's Fair (and perhaps to have moved clay before that). I keep getting tiny bits added to that story. Just a few weeks ago I had never even heard of it. Then Louis Schmidt told me about it, but it was speculative. Bob Mirielli suggested that it was both small gage and may well have carried clay. He even had a map of a candidate for the track. Danny Liston sparked my interest with tales of digging up spikes in his back yard, and a cook at his restaurant has a newer home on lower West Park that has actual track there. A woman who lived on Nashville used to have track as her drive-way, and last night my own cousin, Raymond Essma, dropped a bomb on me suggesting that their house on Wise near Louisville, where I spent hundreds of hours as a kid, was purchased by their grandfather (at least the land) from Mo Pac, for whom he worked and it may well have been the path of the train. Louis Schmidt had heard of a wooden bridge over Clayton Ave.....and on it goes, bits and pieces add up.

    So, if you'd like to be on this e-mail list, just do nothing, you are on it. I took the liberty. However, if it's not your interest, or not a good time for it or whatever, just drop a note and I'll take you off in a flash. On the other hand, if you have memories, questions, comments, stories, MATERIALS LIKE PHOTOS.... please let us hear from you. Mail comments to me and I'll re-post them to the group. Hope the timing for such a list and content is right for you. But if not, please don't hesitate to let me know.

    Thanks, Bob Corbett


The 10 of us who received this note were: (I think, but am not fully sure)
  1. Bob Corbett (of this I am sure!)
  2. Henry Herbst. (I'm sure here too since Henry has the note.)
  3. Mike Hefele
  4. John Corbett (He and I both think so, but are not fully sure).
  5. Aaron Holowiak
  6. Joe Boman
  7. Bob Mirielli
  8. 8, 9, 10, Hmmmm, any help with this?

Stage 4: Two preliminary meetings.

January 19, 2002

From October 25, 1999 until January 19, 2002 the main growth in the history project was two-fold: dramatic growth of the web site and growth of the mailing list from 10 of us to just over 130 of us. However, a number of us had talked about doing something more formal concerning Dogtown history and to open it much wider than just the world of Bob Corbett and a few folks working in conjunction with him. I had spent the year of 2001 in Vienna, Austria, but continued to run the mailing list and build the web site.

However, I called a meeting for January 19, 2002 which met (as all the preliminary and founding meeting did), at 1223 Tamm Ave., the office of the Missouri Council of Firefighters' Office, the office of my brother, John Corbett.

Those in attendance:

Note which I sent to the e-mail list about the meeting:

The conversation was rich but all over the place and I think we were all so stunned about seeing the faces behind the names and getting to chat that it was all a jumble of lots of fascinating talk.

Henry Herbst did update us on his research on the Taylor City Belt Line railroad, which served the World's Fair from Manchester, and he will be rewriting and enriching the existing story on my web site.

There was a wide spread interest in forming some sort of an historical club or association or preservation society for history or whatever it would be. I will soon call a second meeting at which this will be a specific topic we will address in a more orderly fashion.

But today was not meant to be a formal occasion. We just met, met one another, had a simply great time and talked, talked, talked.

More of us than last night are planning to gather on Friday night Feb. 1st at Corky's at Manchester and Kraft to once again hear the marvelous music of Pat Liston. That is a late start at 11 PM.

The late start is occasioned by the fact that Corky's is a rather up scale restaurant with excellent food and the kitchen doesn't close until 11 PM. Last night most of us were there listening and enjoying one another's company until nearly 1:30 AM.

We missed many others of you and hope that you will make an effort to join our next meeting at which we hope to make some progress on organizing some sort of organization which will allow us to have a long-term holding place and organization for historical material and the possibilities of organizing activities which will enhance the neighborhood of Dogtown via its history, and enhance the quantity and quality of the Dogtown history information available.

It was a great afternoon and I walked away with a trunk full of bricks for my brick collection and a bottle of very exciting Irish Poteen whiskey which Ed Cody presented me with for calling the meeting and encouraging the founding of a society!!!!!

Bob Corbett

The second preliminary meeting was on February 23, 2002.

My current list of who attended includes:

This past Saturday a group of 12 of us gathered and came to an agreement that we will try to form a Dogtown Historical Association. We have planned a meeting which we hope will be the founding meeting for Saturday, March 16th at 1 PM, once again at the Fire Fighters Union Office at 1223 Tamm Ave.

Our current plan is have a quite general mission statement, copied almost entirely from one which Henry Herbst gave us to look at from Wildwood History Society in the county.

The general plan will be to gather, collect and display materials related to Dogtown history and to do what we can to educate the public about this history. Obviously this includes CREATING the historical materials to do this.

We did specifically discuss what we meant by "Dogtown" and chose to use the term without any definition in our mission statement and founding documents so that we have the maximum freedom in the understanding and interpretation of the term.

Lastly, and I think rather ominously, we didn't discuss PEOPLE at all in terms of who will be the officers and leaders of this organization. No one seemed to be leaping off his or her chair to suggest him or herself for such a leadership position, though we all were happy about there being such an organization in existence and most seemed to want to have .

Stage 5: The founding meeting: March 16, 2002

My current list of who attended includes:

There was relatively little discussion. All were agreed to found THE DOGTOWN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. Ed Cody again explained the legal ramifications, and had prepared the legal documents to become such an organization in the state of Missouri. He passed those documents around and a group of us signed for the organization. When we get a copy back I will include the names of who signed that document.

Ed then agreed to prepare a draft of the much more complicated legal procedure of applying to the federal government for 5019(c)(3) tax exempt status. This will be presented at our first meeting on April 13, 2002.

There was an election of board members and officers and they are:

We adopted a mission statement which is:

Stolen generously from the mission statement of the Wildwood Historical Society

THE DOGTOWN HISTORICAL SOCIETY

The Society's Mission Statement

The purpose of the Dogtown Historical Society is to discover, memorialize and disseminate the prehistory and history of Dogtown by:

  1. Searching for and procuring written or photographic documentation (including but not limited to personal writings or photographs, newspaper articles, blueprints, maps, journals, cemetery records, and genealogical records), artifacts, relics, memorabilia, and/other other similar documents, items, or objects relating to the prehistory and history of Dogtown.
  2. Preserving, displaying, and making available to the public these documents, items and objects by placing them in a museum/library/research center and in exhibits strategically located throughout Dogtown.
  3. Identifying historic and prehistoric homes, buildings and/or other significant structure and/or sites.
  4. Maintaining an active outreach and education program for Society members and the general public.
  5. Accepting donations of money to accomplish the above.

FINAL RESULT:

As of March 16, 2002 THE DOGTOWN HISTORICAL SOCIETY officially exists.

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Bob Corbett corbetre@webster.edu