GALE
Alexander County/Illinois Genealogy Trails
Picture and information contributed by: Kevin Snell
Gale is a small village located just off Route 3 between Thebes and McClure. A Post Office was established at Gale in 1902.
Kevin Snell sent this history of Gale as told to him by his grandfathers, William Albert Holshouser (1902-1980) and Woodrow Wilson Snell (1915-2003), and as he grew up in Gale. "Illinois Highway Route 3 ran along side of Gale. The curved highway bridge on Route 3 which is still in use today was the first bridge ever constructed with a curve in it. I don't know if that meant the first bridge in Illinois or nationwide. When I was a child growing up in Gale there was one store and a post office. The store was called Stouts Store and I have pictures showing that a store was there around 1920 at least. The school was called Gale School. By the time I was born the school was then being used as a church, which was named the Church of God. Back in the 1940s there was at least one tavern there because my great uncle was shot and killed in it. Just north of Gale about two miles up the gravel road there was a stockyard near the railroad tracks. This is where they would get the cattle and other livestock off and feed them. In this same area there was a Roundhouse where they turned locomotives around. I don't really know what the largest population was in Gale. I assume it may have been a couple of hundred at one time, if not a bit more with the railroad business. Now it may be 25-50 at the most inside of Gale proper and another 25-50 living along the road between Gale and McClure. I believe the town got it's name from the Gale family who moved into the area first. They are buried in a family graveyard east of town."
Additional information contributed by: Evelyn Caldwell
Gale, Illinois is named for the Gale Brothers who owned many acres in the area in 1899. The town was located alongside the Missouri Pacific Railroad and Sexton Creek. A post office was established on August 1, 1902, where a rural delivery from there served North Junction. The “Beanery“ was located in the North Junction area.. It was established for the railroad crews as a place to eat meals and stay overnight in the early years. Local residents could also eat at the “Beanery”. It was a very popular place. The steam engines took on water at these locations. The next one north was at Dupo. Henry Patrick Adams was a pumper for the railroad. He pumped water out of Sexton Creek into tanks, later to be transferred into the steam engines. The small town had at one time a school. Fred Weymeyer had a sawmill located outside the town. One of the major businesses located in the small town, in 1900’s, was C.E. Stout’s general store. He had keen cutter tools in high tall wooden cabinets with Keen Cutter written on the cabinets. He sold logging tools, inserts for circle saws, gasoline and anything that was needed for the home or the farm. Even in later years, he still had high top shoes, etc. He had all sorts of canned goods, clothing, all styles of shoes, anything you needed. It was a great place for the kids to buy candy and soda pop. People came from all around to buy this merchandise in later years because the merchandise had became collectible. Mr. Stout sold many times to people on credit. Payments were made once a month. He was known to everyone as a kind gentleman. He had a huge pot bellied store, he heated the store with coal or wood. Mr. Stout’s dad was known to everyone as “Grandpa Stout“. He would sit sleeping on boxes of canned goods along side the pot bellied stove with numerous cats. There was a spit and whittler’s bench in front of the store. It was a two by twelve inch rough oak eight foot plank. It was worn smooth by all of the whittlers that used to come and congregate there to gossip, chew tobacco, spit and whittle. Notches and initials were carved in the bench. Steve Jackson, Bad-eye Pruitt, Roy Simmons, Pink Callens, Scrappy Haskenknoff and Cleve Knight were just a few of those that set on the bench. Bob Prater and Sid Phillips would come by occasionally. One day, the whittlers’ bench was gone. When questioned about the board, Mr. Stout replied, “tourists had stopped to look at the store“. They ask if the bench was for sale, and Mr. Stout sold the whittlers’ bench to them. Of course, Mr. Stout replaced the bench with another rough sawmill board from Fred Wehmeyer’s sawmill. Mr. Stout was a Veteran of World War One. We have a faded picture of him in his uniform. He was a very conservative person, living in quarters above the store. His wife was a Lorberg from Cape Girardeau. Very little of the town remains today, only a few of the houses remain at the location on Sexton‘s Creek. The old “Stout General Merchandise” store stands as a reminder of the old days.
2005-2007 Anna
Newell, Illinois Genealogy Trails
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