MISSOURI STATE ARCHIVES
Blood River Rising: The Thompson-Crismon Feud of the 1920s

Presented by:
Victoria Hubbell

Publish Date:
Thursday, April 12, 2018, 7 p.m

Presentation Length:
42 minutes 40 seconds (42:40)

Description:
When 86-year-old Hadley Thompson insisted rural historian Victoria Hubbell look into why two Miller County citizens were murdered back in 1924, she was skeptical at first. Not only had the murders taken place nearly a century before, but the culprit was never in question. What difference could a motive make now? That opinion changed over time, however, with Thompson’s insistence that an active Ku Klux Klan group in the Missouri Ozarks fueled a feud between his family and their neighbors, the Crismons. “The Klan [in the area] weren’t never about race. It were always about power and greed.” The unlikely duo of Thompson and Hubbell tramped through fields, combed old newspapers and traveled down dusty gravel roads to uncover what made friends and neighbors turn against each other during the turmoil filled years following World War I. Using extensive interviews and primary source materials, Hubbell pieces together a picture of this shadowy part of Missouri’s past in her book, Blood River Rising: The Thompson-Crismon Feud of the 1920s. Join us as Dr. Victoria Hubbell presents this fascinating case study examining power and influence in the Ozarks during the 1920s.