Bald Knobbers
An article in the October 5, 1898 issue of Springfield, Missouri's The Leader-Democrat states: Henry Westmoreland is in from Beaver County, Oklahoma, which was formerly a part of the strip known as No-Man's-Land.
The venerable gentleman owned a ranch in Taney County at the time of the Bald Knob uprising, and was the man who gave that organization its name.The Bald Knobbers, who for the most part had sided with the Union in the American Civil War, were opposed by the Anti-Bald Knobbers, who for the most part had sided with the Confederates.
Hernando summarizes their political role: They began as a group dedicated to protecting life and property, aiding law enforcement officials in the apprehension of criminals, opposing corruption in local government, and punishing those who violated the social and religious mores of their community.
Authorities had a difficult time bringing the criminal fighting under control because both sides still held strong partisan supporters.
In 1883, thirteen men led by Nat N. Kinney formed the group, in retaliation against the hordes of invading marauders that had plagued the area since the start of the Reconstruction Era.
Coggburn hated Kinney, a very persuasive individual with a mysterious past, who had moved into the area with his family two years before the Bald Knobbers came into being.
In 1886, after gaining national notoriety from their exploits, and embarrassing state leaders, Missouri Governor John S. Marmaduke sent Adjutant General J. C. Jamison to Forsyth to investigate the situation.
[4] Upon arrival, although the representative was pleased to see the atmosphere of order that prevailed, he recommended to Kinney that an official dissolution of the Bald Knobbers would be in the best interest of the county.
That next day a formal dissolution ceremony was held in the town square where the Bald Knobbers were publicly disbanded, having served their original purpose.
However, Chadwick's design as a "railroad town" meant that saloons and brothels dominated the area, and led many men to gamble, drink, and whore away their week's earnings.
Though Dave Walker had attempted to prevent the men in his group from letting their actions escalate, his very presence in the nearby road at the time of the attack ultimately doomed him.
A group of Anti-Bald Knobbers, still unsatisfied with the outsider Kinney's intrusion into their community, met together and selected an assassin for their cause.
In August 1888, farmer Billy Miles entered a store where Kinney was inventorying for the courts, and killed the ex-Bald Knobber leader with three shots from his pistol.
After a late night of prayer services and repentance, the next morning the three men were led out into an enclosed area and onto a scaffolding the sheriff built himself, despite not having any prior hanging experience in executing prisoners.
Taney County's loose Bald Knobber threads were being tied together at long last as well, as the law officially sought vengeance for Nat Kinney's untimely assassination.
After visiting several Independence Day celebrations, they finally found him at a spring with a group of men on the edge of the Kirbyville Picnic.
[1] The start of Branson-area and Taney County tourism began with the 1907 publication of Harold Bell Wright's The Shepherd of the Hills, which features generic Bald Knobbers as the story's villains.
A documentary produced about the vigilantes, featuring several reenactments, original locations, and descendants of either side, entitled Fire on the Mountain: Bald Knobbers as Heroes or Villains of the Ozarks Frontier?, premiered at several film festivals beginning in the spring of 2007 (winning the Gold Remi Award at Worldfest in Houston, Texas), and had its television premiere on January 13, 2011, on the OPT Missouri PBS station as part of their Ozarks Reflections series.
