[St. Charles Cosmos/St. Charles Monitor, April 10, 1941]
FARMERS WILL SELECT
COUNSEL IN LAND CASE
Private Meeting Will
Be Held Saturday Night at Weldon Spring for Unpaid Owners
VALIDITY DEFENSE
Amounts Being Paid
Into Court Amount To About One-Fourth of Option Price of Land
With
forty-five more “declarations of taking” being filed in the St. Louis Federal
Court Wednesday, bringing the total to 79, farmers in the TNT area who have not
been paid for their land, plan to hold a private meeting Saturday night at
which counsel to defend them will be selected.
The defense
will be based on the validity of the contract and if the court rules against
the property owners then the value of the land would be decided. However the
contracts are expected by many to stand up in court and the Government, in that
case, would have to pay off the full option price.
The amount
deposited in Federal Court for the land runs about one-fourth of the amount the
tracts were optioned for. The prices are too low and do not represent a fair
value.
Following
are the owners of the land, acreage and prices deposited:
Vincent
Lonergan, 5.22 acres, $1040.
Q. W. S. S.
Realty Co., 365.51 acres, $15,280.
Sam P.
Hall, 9 acres, $720.
Cecil
Stewart .42 acre, $2400.
John T.
Beatty, .98 acre, $100.
Marvin
Howell, 142.13 acres, $7,220
Chiles F.
Stewart, 220.48 acres, $10,140.
Grace Watson,
2 acres, $1560.
James K.
Muschany 33.33 acres, $950.
Daniel
McDonald, 40 acres, $860.
Mary
Atterberry, 40 acres, $600.
Clyde
Tiedemann, .36 acre, $40.
Theo.
Lammert and others, 50.19 acres, $1280.
Eltin
Pitman, 12 acres, $3620.
Richard and
Hillary Shewmaker, no acreage stated, $1700.
John
Dieckmann, 122.97 acres, $8092.
John
Bowlin, 19.40 acres, $800.
Anna
Gerdiman and others, 61.44 acres, $2240.
Sam Watson
and others, 56.04 acres, $2560.
Lydia
Bechtold and others, 4.56 acres, $120.
Wm. Kohler,
8 acres, $288.
Sarah
Bigelow, 10.36 acres, $800.
Elizabeth
Teeters and others, no acreage stated,
$320.
Harold
White and others, 40 acres, $2600. [?]
Hodgen
Bates and others, 28.23 acres, $1800.
Iva Fox and
others, 69 acres, $2880.
Henry
Keiser and others, 105.40 acres, $5640.
Earl R.
Sutton and others, 63.40 acres, $1480.
John F.
Johnson and others, 56 acres, $1680.
Elsie
Knippenberg, 2 lots in Howell, $560.
Earl R.
Sutton and others, 2 lots in Howell,
$3140.
Sam
Cunningham, 33.33 acres, $920.
Geo.
Stevenson and others, 8 acres, $4980.
Gilbert
McKenney, 55.65 acres, $1400.
Geo. Dugan
and others, no acreage stated, $3380.
T. M.
Livergood, 40 acres, $615.
J. G.
Jones, Jr., 19.75 acres, $800.
C. R. and
Otto Karrenbrock, 80.8 acres, $3360.
Members of
the landowners committee met Wednesday night at the court house here and
discussed conditions in general concerning the Governments actions.
The
committee was particularly appreciative of the support given the cause by the
press and moved that the editorial published in Wednesday’s issue of the
Cosmos-Monitor be placed in the hands of the Committee of Military Affairs and
the Missouri representatives in Washington.
