Basic Information
- Type of Place
- Independent City or Town
- Metro Area
- Ozarks
- Politics c. 1860?
- Don’t Know
- Unions, Organized Labor?
- Don’t Know
Sundown Town Status
- Sundown Town in the Past?
- Probable
- Was there an ordinance?
- Don't Know
- Sign?
- Don’t Know
- Year of Greatest Interest
- Still Sundown?
- Probably
Census Information
| Total | White | Black | Asian | Native | Hispanic | Other | BHshld | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1860 | ||||||||
| 1870 | ||||||||
| 1880 | ||||||||
| 1890 | ||||||||
| 1900 | ||||||||
| 1910 | ||||||||
| 1920 | ||||||||
| 1930 | 1016 | 0 | ||||||
| 1940 | ||||||||
| 1950 | ||||||||
| 1960 | 1451 | 1 | ||||||
| 1970 | 1910 | 1 | ||||||
| 1980 | ||||||||
| 1990 | 2371 | 0 | ||||||
| 2000 | 2890 | 1 | ||||||
| 2010 | ||||||||
| 2020 |
Method of Exclusion
- Unknown
Main Ethnic Group(s)
- Unknown
Group(s) Excluded
- Black
Comments
email November 2007:
After I got back from the NAI conference I asked my grandma what she remembered about the sign that used to be at the Barry County line. She confirmed that there was a sign warning black people to be out of the county by sundown. I asked her when it was taken down, and she couldn’t remember. I asked her if it was up when she got married, and she said no. She was married at age 18 in 1949, so it was taken down before then. My grandfather, who passed away 3 years ago, knew more about it than my grandmother. She did say there was also a sign at Cassville, the county seat of Barry County.
When my stepfather heard me telling about your talk , he told me that the train station in Galena, MO (Stone County, just east of Barry County) used to have a sign warning blacks out of town. He got his information from his father, who passed away about 10 years ago. So unfortunately, most of my sources of information are no longer available.
I wish I had more detail than this to give you, but my grandma didn’t really remember much else. As a kid she lived in rural Barry County in a predominantly Irish community at Mineral Springs outside of Cassville.
I enjoyed your talk at the conference and look forward to reading your book.
***
“The people here hate Jews and Blacks. They think the Jews are the devil, and they say n*gger don’t be in town when the sun goes down.” Native Ozarker 40 year old resident of Cassville, Missouri, said this to us in 1995.
Another former resident confirms that no blacks were allowed in the 1950s.