'Soldier's Newspaper' marches on

BLOOMFIELD, Mo. -- A 140-year-old newspaper and a veteran's ashes.

Jim Mayo prizes many things inside the Stars and Stripes Museum and Library, a small spot in Southeast Missouri dedicated to the famous "Soldier's Newspaper." But to him, it's those two things tucked inside the museum's safe that tell the story best.

The newspaper -- the first Stars and Stripes, published here by Union troops during the Civil War's infancy -- defines the past. The ashes are its future, what's left of a man who visited the museum before dying of Lou Gehrig's disease. On that trip, he was shown what is to become a veterans' graveyard next door.

So he made a death wish: Put me there. He'll be the cemetery's first soul, if Mayo gets his way.

"That's what we're pulling for," said Mayo, president of the museum and library association's board.

To those running it, the 4-year-old private museum and library along Highway 25 is a rural oasis for anyone seeking patriotism and historical perspective. They insist the importance of such a place would be lost in the Smithsonian Institution's complexity or New York City's diverse cultural amenities.

Displays exhibit artifacts from the Civil War through all of America's major conflicts in the last century, right up to Desert Storm. They feature donated uniforms, vintage gas masks and original Stars and Stripes photos and artwork, including Bill Mauldin's famous, often-unshaven "Willie" and "Joe," the cartoon characters who expressed the sentiments and frustrations of the average soldier.

Civil War starting point

It was late 1861, the Civil War's first year, when Union forces sent by Brig. Gen. Ulysses. S. Grant swept rebel troops from this Stoddard County town. As the soldiers looted, 10 found the abandoned office of the Bloomfield Herald and its printing press.

On Nov. 9, 1861, they published the first edition of the Stars and Stripes, distributing the paper among the area's 2,000-plus Union troops.

Only three original copies are known to exist. The Library of Congress has one, as does the University of Michigan. The museum's copy -- restored and Mylar-encased for protection -- is on permanent loan from the county's historical society, which bought it more than two decades ago for $250 from an Indiana man who found it while rummaging through old family heirlooms.

Gen. John J. Pershing, Missouri's own and commander of U.S. forces in Europe during World War I, considered Stars and Stripes a morale builder. In World War II, Gen. George C. Marshall called it "a symbol of the things we are fighting to preserve ... free thought and free expression of a free people."

In war and peace, Mayo said, the newspaper carried the latest U.S. news, sports and commentary, as well as poems, stories, articles and cartoons produced by U.S. servicemen. At times, pinup girls graced its pages.

Still published in Europe and the Pacific, the Stars and Stripes remains a link between service men and women posted overseas and the happenings in the country they are defending.

The museum hopes to collect a copy of every edition, more than 40,000 at last count. It already has about 9,000 editions and is working to build on the minuscule two dozen issues it has from the Vietnam years, said Delilah Tayloe, the museum's curator and exhibit chief.

Eventually, bound volumes will be put on microfilm, an effort Tayloe estimates would cost $30,000, a "considerable" sum for the shoestring-budget museum in this 2,000-resident town.

Much of the museum's archive was donated by former Stars and Stripes staffers, including Andy Rooney and Steve Kroft of CBS' "60 Minutes" fame, who often lugged the papers home with them from overseas.

Since opening in 1998, Tayloe said, the museum and library has drawn 15,000 visitors -- tiny by big-money, big-city museum standards. But people at the museum think a little marketing, such as a freeway billboard they can't now afford, would help immeasurably.

Mayo also has hopes for the neighboring veterans' cemetery, scheduled to open sometime next year, and for a 3,700-square-foot addition he expects to be finished by year's end. It will double space at the museum, which charges no admission and gets by on donations.

"So it's an every-man's museum, more of a grassroots museum," Tayloe said.

Ralph Thorpe discovered it only recently and drove in from Cuba, Mo. He is a Korean War veteran and was looking for the Stars and Stripes story about his unforgettable day on the front lines.

For two hours, Thorpe thumbed through bound volumes of old editions, looking for a story on how he and another Army man hustled needed munitions to U.S. troops fighting thick Chinese forces at what soldiers called "Jane Russell Hill."

While racing back -- mission accomplished -- Thorpe and his pal were met by three Chinese tanks that "pretty well shot us up." An exploding shell from one temporarily blinded Thorpe and forever cost him some hearing.

Months later, Thorpe balked when someone offered to show him the Stars and Stripes piece about the day. "I lived it and didn't want to read it."

That was until curiosity led him to the museum. Thorpe didn't find the story, but he did read up on accounts from the war and pledged to return to resume his hunt.

"I had no idea it was there," Thorpe said. "It's a wonderful place."