Simple requests sometimes lead to weird tales from the past in the Lafayette Square neighborhood. Here is a recent case in point.
While trying to research both 1300 and 1302 South 18th Street, I found an 1899 newspaper article about the homeowner at 1300.
The hypnotic corn doctor and the dentist
L.S. Goodner was a 30 year old chiropodist, living in the Square. A man in his profession was also known as a ‘corn doctor.’ He made his living by removing heavily calloused skin from clients’ feet. By 1899, in the aftermath of the great tornado three years earlier, the Square was “not so fashionable a locality, but eminently respectable.”
Goodner shared office space in a downtown building on Pine Street with David F. Reese, aged 50 and “a dentist of good reputation.” The two men practiced their trades at opposite ends of their clientele, and it seemed a good partnership.
Character is sometimes awfully hard to judge. As the story opens, corn doctor Goodner occupies a cell at the Four Courts jail downtown, and “gray-haired feeble minded dentist” Reese is “at the threshold of insanity,” confined to the observation ward at City Hospital.
From the jail, Goodner, “crafty in appearance and conversation” denies guilt and “shifted his grey eyes uneasily… these same grey eyes, large and piercing, play an important part in the counterfeiting case.”
“Old man Reese” (again, 50 years old), declared that he only participated in a crime perpetrated by the two under hypnotism by Goodner. Those eyes held him in thrall, and he struggled to break their effect, but failed.
Back in the days of nickel beer
Nine months earlier, the two men combined their talents to manufacture fake nickels. The dentist made the plaster molds and shaping tools. The corn doctor furnished the metal and supervised casting of the coins.
They had their counterfeits in circulation for about a year, generally floating them out at the city’s bars and beer gardens.
Speaking of beer gardens – in the 1870s there were plenty of them, satisfying a working population’s thirst in the summers. By the 1890s, more family-friendly picnic, garden and entertainment areas developed. They were generally out near the rail ends, a proper escape from the heat, noise and pollution of the city.
A suburban retreat in North County
At the terminus of the Wellston and Hodiamont railway line, a Greek immigrant who made his fortune in the tent and awning business bought land in Wellston. This developed into a popular attraction known as Suburban Gardens. It featured a roller coaster (aka Scenic Railway, photo below), swimming pool, merry-go-round, two theaters, a restaurant and lots of cheap beer. Vaudeville was the latest rage, and revues of the day rotated through Suburban Gardens.
During early September 1899, Reese travelled to Suburban Gardens. The highlight of the current vaudeville show was escape artist Harry Houdini. With a big crowd keeping the staff busy, it seemed an opportune time to pass a few bad nickels.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch; September 9,1899
The plan falls apart
A Gardens employee spotted a phony nickel, and complained to the police. Two detectives were assigned to locate and arrest the counterfeiters. After several nights, Dr. Reese was nabbed in the act of handing a waiter two bad nickels for a pint of beer, and detectives ran him in. The Post-Dispatch stated that police applied “the sweating process” at the station, and secured a confession.1
Reese ratted out Goodner, claiming to have been under the corn doctor’s hypnotic powers. He saw Goodner’s eyes wherever he went and claimed those eyes, “pry into his very soul and dictate the workings thereof.” A direct command from Goodner that they must make fake money gave Reese no alternative but to obey.
It seems absurd that someone should take the trouble to simulate such a small amount of false currency, but their plan was to start small and “work upwards through the denominations to a dollar.” The nickels were a low risk way to build expertise in fakery. Reese said they were just about to make their move to dimes when he was pinched.
This crime would never pay
They made ten to fifteen nickels per day, except on Sunday. Reese mourned living a life of “indescribable misery” under the influence of the corn doctor. He began to see pursuers in every shadow. The dentist became afraid of his own patients, convinced that everyone could see through his scheme.
Reese claimed that he once started off for the Four Courts building to confess, but met the corn doctor on the way. Within an hour, he was back molding nickels.
Following his confession, Reese grew hysterical and reached “so serious a condition mentally that police hastened him to City Hospital in an ambulance.”
The men each posted a $600 bond, and a grand jury was to convene sometime to hear the case. The newspaper record doesn’t indicate what became of the pair. Perhaps it doesn’t matter. Crime doesn’t pay, and if it paid in nickels it wouldn’t seem worth the hassle.
Sources
A full accounting appears in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch of September 5, 1899
Background on Suburban Gardens from the Street Railway Review of 1902.
A feature article about Houdini and his stay in St.Louis is related in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch of September 10, 1899.
A short treatment of the end of the line for streetcars in St.Louis appears at Urban Review Saint Louis; May 20, 2016. http://www.urbanreviewstl.com/2016/05/st-louis-last-streetcar-line-ended-50-years-ago-tomorrow/
- The “sweating process” was a term for rigorous cross-examination by police. It was designed to extract a confession without exactly torturing a suspect. A step beyond that would be to receive “the third degree,” where one might be roughed up a bit along the way.
Note: The Hodiamont line eventually became the last active city railway route. When Bi-State discontinued the line in 1966, it ended 107 unbroken years of rail service within the city. An earlier essay of mine dealt with the streetcars of Lafayette Square: https://lafayettesquarearchives.com/?p=502
Scandals and other nefarious behaviors fall out of the woodwork, don’t they? If one only shakes it a little. Good job, Sherlock.
What a weird kind of counterfeiting. How many beers can you buy for a nickel?