Information Sheet
R1263
Cole Camp (Mo.).
Sesquicentennial booklet, 1989.
One item.
This is a souvenir booklet produced for the
sesquicentennial celebration of Cole Camp (Benton County, Mo.), held 8-10
September 1989. Shirley Cash edited the
booklet, which includes historical items by Leonard Brauer,
Jack Dieckman, Roy Donnell, and Evelyn Goosen, “then and now” illustrations of Cole Camp, and
advertisements of local businesses
Cole Camp dates its founding as 1839, when the post
office by that name was established by Ezekiel Williams. By then, the German settlement of the western
Ozarks, begun in the 1830s in Pettis County, had spread into northern Benton County. Large numbers of German Lutherans from
Hanover province settled around Cole Camp.
They employed the German dialect known as “Platt Deutsch” or “low
German,” a distinctive feature that could be heard in Cole Camp through the end
of the twentieth century and an item of local distinction mentioned in the
sesquicentennial program.
The sesquicentennial program coincided with the Cole
Camp Fair on 8-10 September 1989. The
celebration featured a vintage clothing contest, a parade with
historical-themed floats, and displays of historical photographs and ephemera. The souvenir program also reviewed the major
work undertaken for the sesquicentennial, a book on the “low German” heritage
of Cole Camp. That book, Hier Snackt Wi Pattdutsch Here We Speak Low
German, was published by the City of Cole Camp in 1989.
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