My darkest day!

That title comes from a 1980 television show, "Flamingo Road." One of the characters in that "Dallas" type genre show, was a man named, Claude Weldon. He repeated that line time after time, following one of his failed ventures. A few years later, Nevada could have collectively spoken that same line, when we received some of the worst news in our history.

People often ask me how I come up with the ideas for this column. My reply to that query can be as diverse as the topics themselves. The subjects I enjoy the most are nostalgic reflections from the past. For the most part, these are generally fond recollections of our history, but at other times, the subjects can reflect more dire memories. Such is the case for this story.

I like to find topics that are date sensitive. Since we are in the middle of July and summer, I wanted some presentation that would coincide with that period. Google and several other cyber source companies have been hard at work collecting every class of information possible. One of these jobs includes collecting historical copies of the Nevada Daily Mail.

When I opened the 25-year old online paper from July 16, 1991, the "BOLD" headlines read: "Committee talks to governor" and "While layoffs announced!" Immediately, I was once again overwhelmed with emotion, as I recalled that period of local despair.

That was when the state of Missouri, the governor, and the Division of Mental Health, had suddenly announced that the 105-year-old Nevada State Hospital, was for all intents and purposes, going to close. If ever there was a time that we all felt like Claude Weldon, this was most certainly, "our darkest day!"

The Nevada State Hospital No. 3 was a huge facility. Back in the 1880s, there were many Missouri towns that tried to garner the location of that hospital, in their communities. When Nevada was selected as a site, it was considered to be one of the greatest economic boons for a town that could be received. For the next century, there was no entity that had a greater impact on our local area.

My first memories of the hospital were associated with Lyons Stadium. All youth baseball was played at Lyons Stadium in those days. From morning till late at night, kids of all ages and their teams, played there.

In the late '50s through the early '60s, the hospital housed more than 2,000 patients. The ranges of their mental illnesses varied greatly. Many of the patients had to be cared for in closely guarded locked wards. There were also a significant number of residents, who were considered so harmless, that they were allowed to freely roam the grounds near the hospital and the ballpark.

I have written about one of those patients several times in the past. "George" was an older gentleman who was known to just about every kid who ever visited Lyons Stadium. His eccentric but humorous behaviors made him a favorite of all the kids.

George sometimes carried a broom with him. He would mysteriously sweep the graveled foot placement areas, between the wooden benches at the stadium. All the while he would produce this warm gentle smile, and he was never silent. We loved to ask him questions, to which he would regularly respond with rhyming sentences. One time, George showed up with a 3-foot tall plastic ice cream cone. One of the local ice cream parlors had apparently discarded their sign, and George had gathered it as a trophy.

Growing up in the Nevada of that time, we all knew that there were lots of mental patients at that hospital. We also knew, that there were some patients who could be dangerous. Even so, most of us had few if any misgivings or fears. It was a part of our community that we had known and accepted, all our lives.

The economic impact of the Nevada State Hospital was tremendous. In its heyday, there were well over a thousand employees. Just imagine how many paychecks that provided each month. There were few people in our area who didn't have a connection to that facility in some manner.

It is hard to describe to anyone who was not a member of our community in 1991, just how devastating the news of the proposed closing was. There was almost a sense of panic that gripped the town.

More than one family had both breadwinners in the household employed at the State Hospital. They fearfully wondered, how would they make their home and car payments? How would they feed their families?

I have visited with local business owners from that time. Several told me, that their business immediately dropped, almost in half. It was as if Nevada and Vernon County, was experiencing a "Great Depression," all our own.

This all came at a time, when many other employers in our area were making changes too. The railroads, which had once been a huge segment of our economy, were beginning to go into decline. The Fram Plant began a process of closing down, just a few short years after the hospital's announcement.

Nevada has been what sociologists would refer to as a "factory town," for most of its history. Whether it was the State Hospital, railroads, Norman Sheet Metal, Fram, Crane, or 3M, our citizens have come to depend on those jobs, for the very survival of our community.

If there is a lesson to learn from that 25-year-old newspaper, it is simply that a "darkest day," can come suddenly with little if any warning. Just stop and think, what would happen if 3M were to make such an announcement.

The best thing we can do as a community is to never stand pat. We must always be seeking to gain new economic opportunities. Our history tells us that a "darkest day" not only will come, it is almost a certainty!