The story of a self-made man

The Poplar Bluff Museum has tales about us, our family and our history. I want to tell you some of those tales found within the museum walls.

“Remember the Maine” was the battle cry! Besides hunting rebel tribesmen in the jungle, young John Henry Wolpers was fighting ravenous insects, carnivorous animals, venomous snakes, poisonous plants, malaria and dysentery. After leaving home in the backwoods of the Zalma, Missouri area at age 16, Wolpers enlisted in the U.S. Army three years later in 1899 to fight in the Spanish American War. He was assigned to the 32nd Infantry Regiment and sent to the Philippines as an infantry squad leader. They were to put down the insurrection of the fierce Moro warriors. After two years of guerrilla fighting, rebel General Aguinaldo was captured, ending the brutal conflict.

What John Wolpers experienced as a young man could have crippled anyone, but not him. How did he recover to become one of the leading citizens of Poplar Bluff and the state of Missouri?

Wolpers stayed overseas to help form the new Manila Police Force to help guard the governor’s palace. His fine penmanship landed him a position as a stenographer/secretary to the new Governor of the Philippines, William Howard Taft, who later would become our 27th president.

Wolpers saved all his money and returned to America in 1903. He enrolled in the then Cape Girardeau State Normal School, now Southeast Missouri State University. Upon graduation, Wolpers took several teaching jobs and later became principal of Bonne Terre, Missouri’s high school.

In 1911, John Wolpers began his newspaper career. He first bought the weekly Bonne Terre Register. In 1916, five Republican Poplar Bluff businessmen approached him. They were anxious to preserve their nearly defunct Poplar Bluff Weekly Republican. They wanted a professional journalist to save the paper to compete with the thriving Citizen Democrat, which represented the opposing party editorially.

The five men loaned Wolpers $100 each so he could buy the newspaper for $500. He moved his wife and five children under the age of six to Poplar Bluff and rescued the publication. He later described the purchase as “a shirttail of type and a short subscription list.”

Wolpers made it a daily newspaper in 1923, calling it the Daily Republican. In 1928 he then took the boldest step yet. Wolpers purchased his two competitors, the jointly owned the daily Interstate American and the Citizen Democrat. He combined the three newspapers into one publication and called it the Daily American Republic. Wolpers committed himself to making it a non-partisan publication. Previously, newspapers furnished editorial viewpoints for political parties.

The success of the Daily American Republic came at a price. In the 1920s the Ku Klux Klan had formed a chapter in Poplar Bluff. Wolpers took a stand against them in numerous editorials. The Klan responded with threats to Wolpers, his family and his advertisers. All but one advertiser, Mr. H.J. Morrison, dropped their ads. Mr. Morrison was described as a feisty little Irishman. Both Wolpers and Morrison began carrying guns. Wolpers ultimately foiled the Klan’s attempt to take over the school board and various other schemes.

The newspaper, then in the 300 block of South Main Street, was heavily damaged by the 1927 tornado. Despite that, the Daily American Republic was in print the next day. Those copies are on display in the Poplar Bluff Museum.

Besides being the editor, publisher and owner of the Daily American Republic, John Wolpers made enormous contributions to Poplar Bluff. He helped establish the modern Chamber of Commerce, served as president of the Board of Education, was elected as the Butler County Public Administrator, served on the Board of Directors of the Poplar Bluff Loan and Building Association (now Southern Bank) and the State Bank of Poplar Bluff (now Commerce Bank), became a member of the Masonic, Pythias and Odd Fellows lodges, Kiwanis Club, Butler County Fair Association, Ozarks Jubilee, Flood Control District, First United Methodist Church and Commander of the Spanish American War Veterans Post.

John Wolpers served on the Board of Curators of the University of Missouri for 16 years, holding the office of board president when he died unexpectedly in 1951. The University dedicated “Wolpers Hall” to his memory on their main campus in Columbia.

He was posthumously inducted into the Missouri Newspaper Hall of Fame. Even though this young jungle fighter suffered from the scars of war including dysentery for the rest of his life, he has left the legacy of a giant.

John Wolpers was a true self-made man.

John Wolpers is honored in the Kanell Hall Veterans Museum and the Peoples Room of the Poplar Bluff Museum. His legacy lives on in many forms, especially in education and publishing. The Museum is open every Sunday free of charge from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at 1010 Main Street, Poplar Bluff (Formerly the Old Mark Twain School). Tell them Mike sent you!

Mike Shane is a veteran, Poplar Bluff resident and board member for the Poplar Bluff Museum.