Forgotten mines, a grisly murder, and now
hope: The torrid history of Stotts City
The small town of less than 200 people has
no businesses and cannot afford to pay a police officer. Still, two nonprofits
focused on recovery and affordable housing are working to make life better for
residents
IN-DEPTH
Stotts City in neighboring Lawrence County was once a
thriving mining community with multiple grocery stores, churches, saloons, a
furniture store, hotel, four banks, a physician drug store and even a
newspaper.
Looking at the tiny town now, Stotts City in its
mining heyday is hard to imagine.
Though conveniently located about a mile off
Interstate 44, no businesses have existed within city limits in decades,
depriving the town of important tax revenue and its residents of many everyday
conveniences.
The remaining commercial buildings on the town’s main
street are well over 100 years old, vacant and in disrepair.
Many of the homes are dilapidated, with debris piled
in the yard. Some appear as though squatters may be living inside. The streets
are crumbling with deep potholes.
The town’s population peaked around 1900 with nearly
1,000 people calling Stotts City home.
It has since dropped to 167 in 2020.
A handful of those no longer part of the town’s
population are in prison due to their involvement in the murder
of Sarah Pasco, 27, of Aurora, on Aug. 16, 2020 — the notorious “well murder.”
With the five-year anniversary of the “well murder”
this month, the Springfield Daily Citizen visited Stotts City over the summer
and spoke with residents about the town’s history, how the murder impacted the
community and what changes are happening.
Eight people in prison for ‘well murder’
Pasco, along with a woman named Melissa Pugh, were
forced into an abandoned well and shot by Stotts City native Gary Hunter Jr.
Pugh survived by playing dead under Pasco’s
body.
Hunter believed the two women had set him up to be
robbed at knife point. He and seven co-defendants are currently serving
decades-long prison sentences.
Though the murder occurred on farmland just outside of
city limits, the crimes that led up to the fatal shooting started at the old
stone gazebo located in Stotts City’s historic Miners Park.
“It was devastating for the town,” resident Tyler
Hayes said. “For things like that to go on in such a small community and to
hear people talking about how they could hear gunshots (the night of the
murder).
“But I think there’s a lot changed since that
incident,” said Hayes, who serves as the director of a recovery home in Stotts
City. “There’s a strong thread of good people that really would like to see
Stotts City better and help people.”
Stotts City named after Civil War captain
Roger Schnake has lived and farmed in the area all his
life. He is a descendant of the Stotts family who first settled in Stotts City
in the 1850s and is well-versed on the town’s history.
“Stotts City was originally called Pax,” Schnake
explained. “A guy named Green
C. Stotts was a captain in the Civil War. After the war was over with,
he got elected as a state representative.”
That’s how this town measuring half a square mile
became known as Stotts City.
“In the late 1800s, and kind of what put the town on
the map, was the Stotts family discovered zinc and lead,” Schnake continued.
“That led to Stotts City being one of the major mining areas in the late 1800s
and early 1900s.”
During that mining heyday, Stotts City was home to
about three dozen mines, with veins running underground within two or three
miles of the town, Schnake said. The deepest mines ran about 200 feet deep.
Once known as ‘mining town of a high
class’
A 1911 Springfield News Leader and Press reporter
described Stotts City in the following terms:
“Located in a rich and beautiful country,
(Stotts City) has long been a mining town of a high class, has two banks, four
churches, a good school and many business firms. …
“There is not a more healthy locality in
the entire commonwealth than that in which this town is located. The town has a
very extensive drug store, conducted by a practicing physician, and,
complimenting him on his fine showing, he immediately remarked that there was
very small demand on account of the healthy condition of the county; that the
people live to a ripe old age without patent nostrums or very much medicine of
any kind.”
So what happened to the bustling, thriving mining town
with healthy residents living to a “ripe old age”?
The mines filled up with water around 1920 and folks
didn’t have the technology to get it pumped out. The townspeople tried to
revive the mining industry a few times through the 1940s, but were never
successful.
Agriculture was the only other viable industry for the
area, Schnake said.
He recalled back in the 1960s Stotts City still had a
grocery store, feed store and a hardware store, but businesses began
disappearing around that time and haven’t returned.
Without that tax revenue, Stotts City could not afford
to pay a police officer. And with no law enforcement, residents say drugs and
illegal activity flourished and city ordinances were often ignored.
“There’s only a couple of reasons that people live in
Stotts City,” Schnake said. “One, if you’re native to the area or to the
community. And the other thing is if you’re basically just trying to hide.”
Stotts City can’t afford a police officer
Schnake explained what he meant by residents who are
“just trying to hide.”
“People using drugs and just basically doing anything
they want,” he said. “It’s 20 minutes from a law enforcement officer being
there. There’s no law enforcement in town. So if you call 911, it’s either you
take care of it yourself or you’ve got 20 minutes before they’re going to be
there.”
Schnake is not alone in his concerns about law
enforcement. When residents are asked about challenges their community
faces, the topic of law enforcement — or lack thereof — always comes up.
Stotts City hasn’t been able to pay a police officer’s
salary in decades. And the reason is sort of a “chicken or the egg” scenario,
according to Jason Robbins, founder of the Whosoever recovery
organization.
Whosoever is a faith-based nonprofit that purchased
Stotts City’s old schoolhouse and turned it into a men’s recovery home back in
2020 — a few months before Pasco’s murder.
Robbins would love to see businesses come to Stotts
City, which would make life more convenient for the men as well as provide
employment opportunities for them without having to worry about transportation.
But in his view, no businesses will come to Stotts
City as long as there is no one to enforce the law and keep businesses safe.
“Because the people here, for good or bad, understand
when they make a (911) call, it’s 20 minutes for the police to get here,”
Robbins said. “There was a time when they had a single police officer here. I’d
like to see them get to the point where they could actually afford that again.
And that would involve some kind of business or some kind of revenue that would
have to come into town to make that happen.”
Nicki Perriman, the city collector and a staffer with
Whosoever, agreed. A few days prior to her speaking with the Daily Citizen in
July, Perriman said one of the recovery house men was bitten by a dog running
loose. Perriman said she called the Lawrence County Sheriff’s Office, but no
officer ever came.
“I want to be able to know that my child can walk down
the street and there’s no dog, there’s no drugs, there’s a cop paying
attention,” she said.
“Until we get a cop, we aren’t going to get businesses
here,” she said. “There’s break-ins constantly. Theft constantly. If you leave
your property unattended, it’s guaranteed. If you don’t have cameras, someone
is taking something.”
Detective disagrees, says crime is down
Lt. Chris Berry, a detective with the Lawrence County
Sheriff’s Office, disputed what the numerous residents said about law
enforcement in Stotts City.
Berry said the sheriff’s office routinely has a deputy
patrolling through the town and responds to calls for service within 10
to 20 minutes.
Berry has been with the department for more than 30
years and helped investigate Pasco’s murder.
In his view, Stotts City has experienced a decrease in
crime over the past five years thanks to the incarceration of those
involved in the “well murder.”
“Anytime you arrest a half a percent of the population
for their involvement — because that town population was only 200 at the time
and we arrested nine people,” Berry said. “That’s a good amount of people. I
think it made an impact on the crime that was occurring.
“I believe it made an impact on drug usage, drug
sales,” he continued, “just because those people that were put in jail were
people that were involved in active addiction.”
Recovery homes bring hope to Stotts
City
Addiction recovery has now become a big part of Stotts
City’s culture.
Since turning the old school house
into a recovery home five years ago, Whosoever has since purchased two
more homes in Stotts City and has a total combined capacity for 30 men.
Robbins, the founder, spoke with the Daily Citizen
during the recovery home’s annual Fourth of July celebration. They first held
the event in 2020 soon after Whosoever opened in Stotts City. The event has
grown to be possibly the largest Fourth of July event in Lawrence County,
drawing over 200 people (more than Stotts City’s current population).
Robbins, who is from Aurora, described Stotts City in
2020 as “a place for outlaws.” When the recovery home first opened, Robbins
said they received a lot of pushback from residents and neighbors.
“The folks across the street threatened me as I was
building this that if my people ever set foot on his property, he’d kill them,”
Robbins said. “And within a year’s time, our guys were cleaning their limbs,
mowing their yard.
“Him and his wife both came over here and addressed
the whole crowd of people, ‘We are so sorry for the attitude we had towards
you,’” Robbins said. “And when they passed away, their kids asked our people to
do the funeral.”
‘The town’s getting better’
It’s not just their neighbors’ attitudes that have
changed in recent years, Robbins said. Most of the community now appreciates
what the groups are trying to accomplish and supports their efforts, he
said.
“Even the people that sell drugs in town understand
that people need a place to get better,” Robbins said. “And the town’s getting
better. It’s still a mess. It’s a slow process. I can only buy so much of it.
If I had an unlimited budget, I could buy it all. But it’s a process.”
Tyler Hayes graduated from Whosoever’s recovery
program and now serves as the director of the Stotts City homes. He spearheads
many projects to improve the community and encourages the men in the house to
help their neighbors and become part of the town.
“We have made some waves,” he said. “We’re really
trying to get the town cleaned up.”
Fourth of July event grows every year
Every year, the Fourth of July Celebration gets bigger
and better, Hayes said. The recovery home men created a food pantry housed at
the church next door and spent the summer working to create a community garden
on a lot near the house.
“It will give people an opportunity to come out and
work and learn how to grow their own food and teach my guys how to grow their
own food,” Hayes said. “There’s been a movement. We’ve been able to see a whole
movement of lives changed. Just getting to witness it has been really, really
cool.”
Hayes is proud of the improvements Stotts City has
made over the past five years, but also sees how so much of the town is
deteriorating.
“To drive through the town and just see the
devastation from drugs and poverty and a lack of spirituality, it’s sad,” Hayes
said. “You’ll see people living in campers, trash piled up.
“There’s a whole bunch of people without water and
sewer, people squatting. It’s like the armpit of Lawrence County,” he said.
“There’s not really any resources there. You can’t really get the law out there
unless they’re looking to capture somebody. And it takes forever to get (law
enforcement) out if you need assistance.”
Amish store a blessing to Stotts City
While there are plenty of negatives one can point to
in and around Stotts City, Schnake and all of the residents who spoke to the
Daily Citizen are excited about the positive things happening in Stotts City,
one being the Amish-owned Kuntry
Store.
Kuntry Store owner Andrew Herschberger said he opened
the store just outside of city limits in 2019.
The welcome he and his family have felt from the
residents of Stotts City “surpassed my expectations,” he said.
“All the community support, I didn’t think it was
going to be quite this overwhelming,” Herschberger said. “They definitely have
accepted us, and we appreciate it a lot.”
While the town misses out on some tax revenue due to
the store being outside of city limits, the Kuntry Store offers a wide range of
products including housewares, cleaning products and mainstream groceries. It
also sells fresh produce, meats, cheeses, canned goods, deli sandwiches and
baked goodies.
The Kuntry Store sells Amish-made chicken coops, sheds
and outdoor furniture, as well as many products intended for the Amish
community that moved to the area about eight yeas ago, like straw hats and
fabric to make clothes.
Prior to the store opening, Schnake said townsfolk
went decades without being able to purchase such supplies near Stotts City.
“Imagine that town for 20 years without (the Kuntry
Store) there? I mean, who would want to live there?” he said. “No gas station.
No store. The only thing that’s there is a post office. Besides that, you might
as well have been living out in the country someplace.”
Neighbor heard shots, didn’t call the law
Perriman, the city collector, moved to Stotts City in
2015.
She lives next door to the property where Hunter
brought Pasco and Pugh and forced them to attempt to dig their own graves. The
women were then taken to the well outside of town and shot.
Perriman remembers hearing a gun shot on that night in
August 2020, presumably when Hunter shot the truck the women were in and
demanded they get out.
She said she didn’t call law enforcement because she
didn’t think anything unusual — by Stotts City standards — was happening. It’s
not uncommon to hear gunshots, she said, and residents often don’t report
“suspicious activity” because they don’t expect deputies to show up.
“Me and my husband were sitting on the steps of our
back porch and heard the gunshots, the first round, the warning shots,” she
said. “You get to that point where Lawrence County isn’t going to do nothing.
We didn’t call. I even made that statement to the cops: ‘I didn’t call you. I
heard it. I didn’t call you. What’s the point?’”
Residents knew ‘someone was going to die’
Perriman knew many of the people who were charged in
the kidnapping and murder, including Hunter, and said tensions and division in
Stotts City were at an all-time high back in 2020.
There had been a contentious mayoral race that year,
and Whosoever had just opened the first recovery home, which didn’t sit well
with many residents, she said.
“There was so much hatred and drama through it. And
there was the massive drugs,” Perriman said, referring to Stotts City in 2020.
“There was so much anger, hatred and bitterness that we all kept telling
Lawrence County that someone was going to die.
“So I was not surprised when the phone call came at 10
o’clock that evening,” she said. “It unfortunately wasn’t shocking.”
Schnake, the farmer and lifelong resident, echoed
that.
“It was a drug-related, creepy, sinister deal,”
Schnake said. “And it was just a matter of time before something like that
happened.”
Nonprofit plans ‘gap housing’ project
With the final codefendant from the 2020 murder case
tried and sentenced last year, residents who spoke to the Daily
Citizen seem hopeful the town has turned a corner and welcome anyone trying to
make positive changes — like Rachel Luebbering, executive director of Southwest
Missouri Coalition of Charities & Community Services.
Luebbering has spearheaded an effort to create “gap
housing” in Stotts City for those with extremely low income or other barriers
to housing (criminal background, evictions, etc.).
Luebbering’s nonprofit recently purchased 15 acres on
the east side of Stotts City — a grassy and wooded area within city
limits.
The coalition’s first project was to construct a
women’s recovery home on the property which opened earlier this year to house
10 women in recovery.
Construction is currently underway for Redemption
Ridge, which has the potential to have up to 400 units of housing — a mix of
short-term, dorm-like housing renting for $100 a week and apartment-style
single dwellings that rent for $800 a month (both with utilities included). The
first unit will be a 2,400 square-foot complex with 10 bedrooms, a communal
living room, kitchen and bathrooms.
Asked “Why Stotts City?” Luebbering gave several
reasons, including the fact there are no building codes or zoning restrictions
and the land was cheap. Although there are no employers in Stotts City,
Luebbering said the town is centrally located to Springfield, Joplin and Monett
— larger communities with numerous businesses.
Grant to spruce up town, gazebo
In 2024, the coalition applied for and was awarded
a $25,000 grant from Community Foundation of the Ozarks
and the Coover Charitable Foundation to expand Miners Park with repairs to the
historic stone gazebo and new picnic tables and playground equipment.
“Anything betters the area,” Luebbering said. “It’s a
great place to make a change.”
“We want to come alongside the Stotts City community
and, with their buy-in of our mission of gap housing and recovery, continue the
work they have begun and return Stotts City to its prior hopeful years of
growth, community and connection as it had in the mining days,” she said. “We
are excited to see how amazing Stotts City looks and feels in two years, when
we hope our Redemption Ridge is completed.”
“You see the momentum of good things happening,
especially with Whosoever and Living Hope,” Luebbering continued. “They have a
lot of people who have come through their programs that are doing great now.
That is just a testament to the kind of people they are who run that program
and stick by those people.”
“I feel like (residents of Stotts City) have a lot
going for them in their community spirit.” she said. “Many of them can identify
with the people we will house at Redemption Ridge.”
Stearnsy Bears was big in Stotts City
Sometime between the mining boom circa 1900 and the
2020 “well murder,” Stotts City was known for something fuzzy, soft and
adorable — the Stearnsy Bears.
The late Jim and Sally Stearns established the Stearnsy Bears,
with the manufacturing and a shop located in the old Stotts City Hardware Store
building on Stotts City’s main street back in 1981. Stearnsy Bears were hand-crafted teddy bears designed
and dressed to suit their future owners.
The bears were featured on Hallmark and American
Greeting cards and were shipped worldwide. The bears were often dressed in
vintage Victorian clothes or made out of family heirlooms such
as a wedding dress, military uniform or high school letterman jacket.
Charles Stearns, Jim and Sally’s son, now lives a
couple blocks away from where Stearnsy Bears was once located. Charles said he
moved the business out of the old hardware building on the town’s main street
about 10 years ago. He and his now-ex-wife continued making the bears for a few
years in their home. But the couple separated, and the bear-making
ceased.
He donated most of the remaining
bears to the World’s Largest Toy Museum in Branson and kept only a few
for himself.
“It’s still standing,” Charles said of the old Stearns
Country Store building. “Like many things in Stotts City, it’s fallen on hard
times.”
For 40 years, the Stearnsy Bears were quite the draw
for Stotts City. People, including the occasional journalist, traveled from all over to visit the
Stearns Country Store.
Charles Stearns has hope for Stotts City
“I don’t want to brag on it too much, but we were
special,” Charles said. “And Stotts City was kind of past its prime for being
known for anything else. We just happened to find our niche in this particular
place.
“The town itself, like a lot of small towns, had kind
of fallen on hard times. But it actually worked out well for us,” Charles said.
“For years, people were coming to Stotts City to see the bears.”
Stearns has lived his entire life in Stotts City and
described it as an old and quiet town. With most of the old timers dying off
and few people choosing to move to Stotts City, he wondered for a time if the
town itself would soon “die off.”
“I’m just gonna live here no matter what because I’ve
always lived here,” he said. “But what I see happening now, I actually
have a little bit of hope that Stotts City is turning at least a small corner.
I think things are getting better.
“I am a super big supporter of that,” Charles said,
referring to the recovery homes. “Now I have a little bit of hope.”
Stotts City officials struggle to enforce
laws
Mayor Amy McCullough said it was the cheap property
prices and convenient location that drew her to Stotts City about four years
ago. Thinking maybe she could make a difference, she ran for and was elected
mayor in 2024.
Her term will be up in April 2026 and she is unsure if
she’ll run again.
Asked if she feels like she’s been able to make much
of a difference, McCullough said, “not much.”
“The only revenue the city has is the water and sewer
department. And not everybody in town has water and sewer so therefore you
don’t have the full revenue,” she said.
McCullough said she guesses some of the residents have
figured out that they can simply do without water and sewer, and the city has
no way to enforce the ordinance requiring it.
“We’ve struggled to keep an attorney at hand to issue
the citations and follow up with citations and take them to court,”
McCullough said.
The town’s previous city attorney ticketed and
attempted to take about 50 residents to court over not being hooked up to water
and sewer.
“The judge dismissed it because something wasn’t right
in the paperwork,” the frustrated mayor said. “It was a technical issue so
everybody’s citations got dismissed.”
The municipality also gets some revenue from personal
property taxes, McCullough said, but that’s not much money because the property
values are so low.
Petition audit adds to division
Almost every local who talked to the Daily Citizen at
some point brought up a stark division among Stotts City residents — although
it’s difficult for an outsider to discern an exact cause of this division.
Some pointed to the recent effort by some in the
community to start a petition audit of Stotts City. The Missouri State
Auditor’s Office is currently conducting that performance audit of the
municipality.
Several residents who spoke with the Daily Citizen
were angry about the audit, saying the city has little to no money to embezzle
in the first place and the cost of the petition audit will cause water rates to
increase.
The audit will cost Stotts City about $25,000. Last
year, Stotts City generated about $117,000 in revenue and had almost $105,000
in expenses.
“That’s kind of comical,” Mayor McCullough said of the
petition audit. “The citizens, while I’m trying to get things going for the
city, they are passing around a petition to get the city audited because they
thought somebody was embezzling money.
“I tried my best to tell them, ‘There’s no money to
embezzle. But hey, if that’s what you want, then great. I’m for it,’” she
continued. “Let’s pull the state auditor in and see what happens.”
Stearns agreed, adding that he was “1000 percent
against” the audit.
“Nobody is stealing any money,” he said. “I wish there
was money where there was the possibility.”
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