[no source, handwritten date: Oct. 26, 1940]
WOULD ASSIST MOVING
FAMILIES FROM TNT AREA
State Land Use
Planning Committee Will Make House To House Survey In Proposed Tract
DETERMINE PLANS
Representative of
State Agriculture Department Spent Thursday With County Agent
County
Agricultural Agent R. A. Langenbacher, is arranging to render all service
possible to the farm families of the Weldon Spring Ordinance area if the
proposed plan of building a munition plant materialized as indicated by the
press. Mr. Langenbacher emphasized that farmers and their families should not
become unduly alarmed and should act only after advised from leaders within
their community and information that will be secured from authentic sources.
Representatives
of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics and Land Use Planning spent Thursday of
this week with the County Home Economics Agent’s Staff, planning action that
would assist the farm families if necessary.
The
proposed plan is to select a committee of leading farmers from the Weldon
Spring Area to work with the County Land Use Planning Committee of which John
W. Schaefer of Foristell is president, Rud Kessler of Augusta is vice
president, and Community Chairmen of each of the Land Use Planning Areas of St.
Charles County will take part. The County Agent Staffs including the Home
Economics Agents will have the fullest cooperation of the College of
Agriculture Departments that can render assistance in such matters as
rehabilitation, loans, employment, and other problems that will arise for farm
families having to make any change.
It is
proposed to ask the State Land Use Planning Committee to furnish men to make
house to house surveys of farm families in the area to learn what they would
like to do, what help they may need, and give them the assistance of such
agencies that are available in the county and that they may be relocated as
conveniently as possible.
[Typewritten note dated June 15, 19xx]
This State Land Use Planning Committee did nothing to assist
the farmers. The farmers were required to move from the area on such short
notice. The War Department used every strategy to dispossess the land owners as
quickly as possible. To date 14x landowners have not received one cent for
their property. Cases at the present time are pending in the St. Louis District
Federal Court.
Families were required to move in houses which were
absolutely unfit for human habitation. Other families moved in with relatives,
and are still living in one room. “Horse fly” Schulte moved into a brooder
house with his two dogs to attend the Francis Howell High School.
Strong men wept when they were forced to leave their homes,
with no funds to purchase another.
Several people living in the area, through worry and
excitement lost their minds and were taken to the insane asylum at Fulton, Mo.
When the news of the Government taking over this area reached
one man past 80 [years] old, Calvin Castilo, he fainted in the Muschany Bros.
store.
