Information Sheet

 

 

R         Bellevue Valley Community Association (Mo.).

347                  Records, 1927‑1950.

                                    Ten folders.

 

 

 

These are minute books and miscellaneous papers of the Bellevue Valley Community Asso­ciation.  The Association was formed at Caledonia, Washington County, Missouri, in 1926 to pro­mote civic and social improvement.  The minutes are complete from 13 January 1927 to the dis­solution of the Association in 1950.

 

One hundred fifty residents of the Bellevue Valley met in Caledonia to organize the Belle­vue Valley Community Association in April 1926.  S. M. Rathbun was elected president.  It was one of several similar clubs which were organized in the 1920s and 1930s in Washington and Iron coun­ties, many of which were sponsored by the University of Missouri Agricultural Exten­sion Service.  Although it was not an extension club, the Bellevue Valley Community As­sociation cooperated with other county groups.  At the organization’s peak in the 1930s, atten­dance by nearly 300 hun­dred people at the monthly meetings was not uncommon.  The asso­ciation dwin­dled in the late 1940s and held its last meeting in October 1950.

 

The association was operated through standing committees on agri­culture, civics, home eco­nomics, education, and social affairs.  The committees promoted 4‑H clubs, home and ag­ricul­tural improvements, the electrification of the Bellevue Valley, and school construction.  The As­socia­tion also sponsored picnics, talent shows, and the community band.  Two groups founded by the association, the Caledonia and Cedar Lodge home economics clubs, continued through the 1970s.

 

The records of the Bellevue Community Association consist of minutes of meetings and mis­cellaneous notes and papers.  With the ex­ception of 1926, for which no records are avail­able, the minutes are complete for 13 January 1927 through 14 October 1950.  The minutes of the lat­ter date end without any discussion of the association’s impend­ing demise. Among the miscella­neous pa­pers are original notes from which minutes of meetings were transcribed, committee re­ports, and a few financial records.

 

 

 

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