HISTORY OF GUTHRIE

by Kathryn Holt

Samuel T. Guthrie was born in Madison County, Kentucky, in 1793. His wife, Sally Phillips, was born in Casey County, Kentucky, in 1804. Samuel T. Guthrie came to Callaway County in 1819, and he was married to Sally Phillips on December 27, 1821. They settled on the present site of the town of Guthrie. Samuel T. was the first coroner of Callaway county, in the year 1821. He died April 24, 1872, at the age of 79, less than two months before the town was founded.

John Guthrie and Samuel N. Guthrie, sons of Samuel T. Guthrie, laid out the town of Guthrie, on June 10, 1872.

The first census shows Guthrie with a population of one hundred. The population has fluctuated very little until this present time. J. W. Bruton was the first postmaster, express agent, notary public and lumber -dealer. The railroad was built in 1872 at a cost of $640,000, running from Mexico, Missouri, to Cedar City, Missouri.

Ben Bigbee, a wealthy man who furnished the money to build the railroad and went broke due to this venture, no doubt was unable to underwrite the huge cost of building the railroad. The town was originally named Bigbee for this man. He was an aristrocrat, influential, and no doubt, wealthy. This may have been reason for the town being named for him. The old survey maps still show the east part of Guthrie as Bigbee. The old house on the John Reynold's farm, one mile south of Guthrie, had the air of a southern mansion, and may have been built by Ben Bigbee since at this time he lived in the area.

Martin Butler at one time owned all the land south and west of Guthrie. It was known as the Guthrie land and was approximately 640 acres. Matt Guthrie married a Butler and became heir to this land. The grave stones in Dry Fork Cemetery for the Butlers and Guthries came from the old cemtery. They are the most outstanding stones in the cemetery. Emerine Butler left an endowment fund for upkeep of the cemetery.

The Matt Guthrie home on the south central part of the farm was, and is to me still, my idea of heaven with a fireplace and little upper windows on each side with deep window casings, a winding corner stair case, a puncheon door with a latch string, a south window with a couch beneath, a shed kitchen with a door to the east, grapevines on a trellis over the well, a garden gate where holly hocks grew, a four-rail fence on either side of the walk, a fire bush and hugh oak trees on the lawn.

Mr. and Mrs. Guthrie were highly respected neighbors and were the parents of Logan, Campbell, Cordie, Sally and Pattie Guthrie.

Ewing Guthrie was the father of George and Jim Guthrie. Jim Guthrie was the father of Leslie and Orlean Guthrie Craighead. Frank Guthrie was the father of Baxter, Lou Gray, and Sallie Houston. They lived at the old Guthrie home, where Tonanzio's now stands. I remember, probably seventy years ago, the morning the old house burned; we stopped by on the way to school. Nellie, a girl who lived with Sallie, Lou and Bax, was sitting on a big rock crying. I presume this was the original house.

My father, "Bill Jack" Wilkerson, farmed the Guthrie land, approximately 640 acres. This was the Matt Guthrie farm located south and west of Guthrie. He raised wheat mostly on this land. There was not a single gully then. I was a very young child at that time. My husband J. C. (Tots) Holt told me Dad shipped as much as two car loads of wheat a year from Guthrie that he raised on this farm. It was very good land, and Dad, who was a good wheat farmer, took care of the land. It was quite a feat to sow and harvest three to four hundred acres of wheat with a horse drawn grain drill and grain binder and then to thresh with steam engine threshing machine and horse drawn bundle wagons and grain wagons. It took twelve to fourteen bundle wagons, six to eight men pitching bundles onto the wagons, three to four grain wagons, three machine men and several boys. The threshers spent several days, and the women spent many hours preparing and cooking the meals for possibly thirty men with farm hand appetites.

History records a beginning for this area at the time Samuel T. Guthrie and many other settlers came in 1817-1819. The first church in Guthrie was founded on October 4, 1823; it was the Cumberland Presbyterian. It was the third church organized in the county. It was a small log cabin daubed with clay, known as Log Providence. The church was built on what was known as Picayune Prairie. The location is south of what we called Graveyard Hill.

The pastor and members are listed in a former Callaway history book. Later, Brother Buchanan and Brother Russell served as pastors, and a frame building was built in Guthrie which stands today, but it is no longer a church building. What a shame that we lost such a great heritage! My mother and father, Eva and William H. Wilkerson, took their family to services there as well as to Dry Fork, where they were members as we were growing up. I have pleasant memories of this old church and its members.

Grandpa and Grandma, Robert and Nancy Criswell, lived in a house across the present road from the cemetery. A legend of their home told me by "Tots" was that a little colored girl was drawing water from the well with a bucket, and it was storming, lightning, and thundering. Either she was struck by lightning or was frightened and fell into the well and drowned. A depression in the ground and the rocks to the well are still visible.

Guthrie residents in 1974-75 were researching the beginning of the Guthrie School. My sister-in-law, Maude Holt Bedsworth, who reached 90 in 1979, and I thought that possibly the first school was held in the church building. Mr. Peru and Lark Fleshman were the first two teachers in the township.

Trains played a big role in Guthrie life and welfare. The north and south bound trains met in Guthrie at 10:00 o'clock in the morning. The south bound train was on the siding which ran from the east-west road to the school house. The north bound passenger train returned at 2:00 p.m., and the south bound train at 5:30 p.m. One could go to Fulton for a quick shopping trip on the afternoon trains. Everyone except the store keepers met the morning trains to see who was going north or south and who got what from the freight train. Horses, mules, cattle, sheep, hogs and grain were shipped to St. Louis and Chicago. The branch line was the Chicago and Alton line. My dad sold John Deere machinery and also Minneapo-lis-Moline. The machinery came unassembled and Dad had to set it up and get it into operation.

The first rural telephone in the county and possibly the state was from Guthrie to Ashland. Charles Birkhead was in charge of building the line and installing the phones. The phone in each home had a call of long or short rings or a combination of both. There was no privacy on these lines and this was not at all appreciated by the patrons. Mr. Birkhead told the women how to use the phones, not to be too close to the transmitter etc. Odga, Church, and Herbert Clatterbuck raised hound dogs and as typical boys, they got the old dogs to howl so the women could not hear each other. Much complaint got poor results. Boys will be boys! My father and mother were on this first rural line and I remember a call from Texas telling my father of the death of his mother. This impressed me since Mother and Dad were crying. At the time of this message we lived at the house of my birth, and by checking ages, I think the line was built in 1911-1912.

My husband "Tots" told me of a Mr. Jamison who kept stallions and jacks for breeding purposes. When he made a phone call, he announced "If any women are on the line, they had best hang up because of what I might say to my client." Naturally all the women listened in.