THE "NO-TELL MOTEL" AND THE BOBBY GREENLEASE MURDER

Mystery and Mayhem at the Coral Court Motel

On October 7, 1953, police officers in St. Joseph, Missouri made a gruesome discovery in the backyard of a woman named Bonnie Heady. The blades of their shovels turned up the decaying corpse of a young kidnapping victim named Bobby Greenlease, who had been missing for days. It was the ending to a strange saga that had started on the other side of the state and had direct connections to an infamous motor lodge on Route 66, the Coral Court Motel.

During the glory days of the American highway, Route 66 reigned supreme as the most famous of the country’s motorways. And there were few motels on Route 66 -- or just about anywhere-- that earned the kind of tawdry reputation like that of the Coral Court Motel, which was located just outside the city limits of St. Louis. When it comes to mystery, intrigue and the sheer tawdriness of a “no-tell motel,” you couldn’t beat the place.

The Coral Court Motel during its fading years

The brick motor court, located at 7755 Watson Road, was designed in the 1940s and a classic example of an Art Deco-style motel. The Coral Court first became famous because of its prime location on Route 66. Heading west on the Mother Road, it was the perfect place to stop after a day-long drive from Chicago. Later, it would earn its seamy reputation as a perfect hiding spot for philanderers and for its grim connection to a St. Louis kidnapping and murder case.

The Coral Court was started by John Carr in 1841. It was painstakingly designed by architect Adolph L. Struebig, who was hired by Carr to give him a little something special. There were a lot of “mom and pop” motels in those days, with eight or so units, but Carr didn’t want that. He told Struebig that he wanted something outstanding. Construction was started that summer and by early 1942, the Coral Court was greetings its first guest. The first 10 bungalows were built in a grand style with honey-colored glazed bricks and large glass block windows. Each unit had two rooms and two garages and this helped the Coral Court to become an immediate success.

After World War II, 23 additional units (or 46 rooms) were designed by architect Harold T. Tyre. They used the same materials and varied only slightly from the original units. The new units featured triangular glass block windows, but the overall look of the place remained. Another expansion took place in 1953 with the additional of three more (ordinary-looking) two-story units, also designed by Tyre, at the back of the property. A swimming pool was added in the early 1960s.

The Coral Court Motel

For many locals, the Coral Court was sort of a rite of passage. Attending a late night, post-prom party or swiping a Coral Court towel or matchbook was the thing to do for St. Louis teenagers. For those who wanted to remain anonymous, the motel was the place to go for an illicit rendezvous. It soon began to be known as St. Louis’ best “no-tell motel.” The reasons why were simple -- The rooms could be rented for a rest period of 4 or 8 hours, which was originally created as a courtesy for truck drivers, but had obvious benefits for lovers. Each room had its own garage, so cars were hidden from prying eyes. And the management of the Coral Court was absolutely discreet. Thanks to this, the legend of the motel spread all across the United States.

The notorious moment in the motel’s history, though, was its connection to the Greenlease kidnapping case in 1953. The incident received national attention and became known as one of the most tragic crimes of the 1950s. It also brought lasting infamy to the Coral Court, largely due to the fact that the Coral Court was used as a hideout by the kidnappers – and the fact that half of the $600,000 ransom vanished at the motel.

Bobby Greenlease

Bobby Greenlease, Jr. was the son of Robert and Virginia Greenlease, residents of Mission Hills, Kansas, a prominent suburb of Kansas City. Robert Greenlease was one of the largest Cadillac dealers in the nation. In comparison to the wealth of the Greenlease family, Bobby’s kidnappers, Carl Austin Hall and Bonnie Heady, were dead broke. However, both had known privilege earlier in their lives. It had been at military school that Hall had met Paul Greenlease, Bobby’s older, adopted brother. Hall later inherited a large sum of money from his father, but lost it all in bad business ventures. After that, he turned to crime. He was arrested for robbing cab drivers (his total take was only $38) and he was sent to the Missouri State Penitentiary. In prison, he dreamed of the "big score" and began planning the kidnapping that would help him to retire.

After getting out of prison, Hall moved to St. Joseph, Missouri and he started dating Bonnie Heady. She was no catch, having a reputation for not only sleeping around but also for occasionally dabbling in prostitution. The good news was that she owned her own home and she and Hall often drank themselves into a stupor there, never being bothered by anyone. They had a violent relationship and in fact, when Heady was arrested for kidnapping, she still bore the bruises of her latest beating. Her willingness to put up with Hall’s abuse is probably a clue as to why she agreed to go along with his kidnapping scheme.

Carl Hall and Bonnie Heady

During the summer months of 1953, Hall and Heady made repeated trips to Kansas City to follow the Greenlease family. After some debate, they decided that Bobby would be the easiest prey. At that time, the boy was enrolled at Notre Dame de Sion, a fashionable Catholic school. In the late morning of September 28, Heady entered the school and told a nun that she was Bobby’s aunt. She and Virginia Greenlease had been shopping at the Country Club Plaza, she told the nun, when Virginia had suffered a heart attack. Heady said that she had come to take Bobby to the hospital. When Bobby was brought out of his class, he immediately took Heady’s hand in his, as if he knew her. Heady would later say, "He was so trusting."

Heady met Hall a few minutes later at the Katz Drugstore and they drove across town and then across the state line into Kansas. When Bobby was taken across state lines, the Lindbergh Statute (name for the famous case) went into effect and became a Federal crime. And it was just about to get worse.

In a vacant field in Overland Park, Heady got out of the car and walked a short distance away while Hall killed Bobby. First, he tried to strangle the little boy, but the rope he used was too short. Then, he punched him in the face, knocking out one tooth. Finally, he pushed Bobby down and shot him in the head with a .38 caliber pistol. The boy was dead less than 30 minutes after he had been abducted. After that, they drove back to St. Joseph and buried the body in the back yard of Heady’s home. Hall had dug the grave the night before. After the body was covered, he planted flowers in the freshly churned soil, hoping to cover all evidence of the horrific crime.

The Greenlease family got their first inkling of trouble when the nun who had released Bobby from school called to inquire about Virginia’s health. Soon after, they got the ransom demands from Hall. He also mailed them a pin that Bobby had been wearing when he was taken. The killer demanded a ransom of $600,000 in $10 and $20 bills.

Robert Greenlease called several of his closest friends and he began putting together the money. He also called the head of the local bank, Arthur Eisenhower (brother of Dwight D. Eisenhower), and the two men put together a plan to record the serial numbers of all of the ransom bills. While the money was being accumulated, Hall called the Greenlease residence repeatedly. He continually reassured them that Bobby was alive. Finally, a week after the kidnapping, the money was delivered. Actually, it was delivered two times because Hall couldn’t find it the first time.

Finally, after almost bungling another money drop on a dark country road, Hall was able to get the money. It was just after midnight on October 5 and Hall made one last phone call to a friend of Robert Greenlease, Robert Ledterman, who had been assisting with the ransom payment. He promised Ledterman that the family would have Bobby back within 24 hours.

While Robert and Virginia waited for word of where to find their son, Hall and Heady drove to St. Louis with a money bag that weighed more than 85 pounds. As they traveled, word of the kidnapping leaked to the media and it became a nationwide sensation. When they arrived in St. Louis, Hall and Heady were stunned to find themselves at the center of the story. They ditched their car and started using taxicabs. They rented a small apartment on Arsenal Street in South St. Louis and decided to lay low. Hall quickly got restless and one afternoon, left a drunken Heady in the apartment with a few thousand dollars and vanished. He departed for the "good life."

Hall then hooked up with an ex-con cab driver and a prostitute. The three of them ended up at the Coral Court Motel on Route 66. It was renowned as a place where a fellow could stay for a while with no questions asked. Rumor had it that the motel’s owner, John Carr, was mob-connected and had operated a posh brothel in St. Louis for many years.

Hiding out at the Coral Court, Hall began to lavish money on his seedy new companions. The prostitute would later say that Hall stayed so drunk, and was so nervous, that he couldn’t perform sexually. As for the cab driver, Hall had turned the man into his own personal valet. He gave the man fistfuls of money and told him to buy new clothes and whatever else he thought he might need. What the cab driver brought him was trouble. The owner of the cab company was a man named Joe Costello, a well-known local gangster. When Costello heard about the big spending customer, he contacted St. Louis Police Lieutenant Louis Shoulders. Since Costello and Shoulders always denied stealing the ransom money, it is unknown whether Costello figured out that Hall was the Greenlease kidnapper and gave Shoulders a tip for the arrest of a lifetime -- or whether they simply conspired to rip Hall off.

However, what is known is that Hall, guided by the cab driver, rented an apartment on the edge of St. Louis. A short time after moving in, he was arrested by Shoulders and a patrolman named Elmer Dolan. Hall was picked up for questioning about the large amount of money that he was flashing around. He was taken to the police station on Newstead Avenue and allegedly, the remaining ransom money was stuffed into a suitcase and a footlocker. The footlocker, which contained about $300,000, was recovered, but the elusive suitcase was never seen again.

Patrolman Elmer Dolan shows a revolver, which he and Lt. Louis Shoulders (left) seized after arresting Hall on the night of October 6.

Once he was arrested, Hall almost immediately broke down. Heady was quickly arrested at the small apartment where Hall had dumped her. On October 7, police officers and reporters raced for Heady’s house in St. Joseph, where they dug up Bobby’s body from the backyard.

And once Hall and Heady confessed to the crime, they resigned themselves to being executed for the murder. When a Federal jury in Kansas City returned the verdict, it has been said that Heady actually smiled. On December 18, only 81 days after the kidnapping, Hall and Heady were executed side-by-side at the Missouri State Penitentiary. The pair had declined to seek mercy at the trial and did not appeal the verdict. Missouri authorities had a second chair installed in the gas chamber so that Heady and Hall could be executed at the same time. Heady was the only woman to ever be put to death in the gas chamber and it’s said that she talked cheerfully to the guards and the officials while she was being strapped in. She did not fall silent until Hall finally told her to shut up.

Amidst the widespread anger about the murder of Bobby Greenlease, there was also an immediate investigation into the money that went missing. The glory that should have led to promotions for Shoulders and Dolan became a dirty scandal that highlighted the widespread corruption of the St. Louis police department in the 1950s.

The two officers were later convicted in a Federal court on a charge of perjury, for supposedly lying about the sequence of events from the time they arrested Hall until the time the money was brought to the police station and counted. Various police clerks and officers testified that they never saw the men carrying anything when they entered the station with Hall and they certainly did not see the suitcase or the foot locker. Shoulders stated that the money was outside in the car and that he brought it into the station after bringing Hall inside.

The official theory was that Shoulders and Dolan, who both left the station on personal errands after booking Hall, returned to Hall’s apartment and stole half the money. They brought the remaining half to the station through the rear door. Hall’s statement, not surprisingly, directly contradicted that of Shoulders and Dolan. Hall maintained that the money had been left in the apartment when he was arrested.

Over time, numerous theories have been floated as to who actually took the money. Most pointed fingers at Shoulders and his connection with Joe Costello, while others blamed the corruption in the police department itself. Costello was accused of taking the money by the FBI, who followed him for years, tapping his phones and questioning his associates. They could never make the theft charges stick, but Costello was eventually arrested on weapons charges and sent to prison.

So if the cops and Costello didn‘t have it, then where could the money have gone? Some have suggested that Coral Court owner John Carr may have been involved. If Carr knew about the money (and it’s possible that he did), he could have entered Hall’s room using a pass key and walked out with half the money, believing that Hall would never miss it. And even if he did miss it, what would he be able to do about it? When John Carr died, he was a multi-millionaire. Could any of that remaining fortune have been part of the Greenlease kidnapping money? Obviously, we will never know. Whoever took the money, though, it was gone. For many years after, it was news whenever any of the bills linked to the missing Greenlease money turned up. But where was it coming from? No one knew and now, with so many principals in the case long dead, it can only be realized that the vanished money will always remain a mystery – a lingering stain on the history of the Coral Court Motel.

John Carr died in 1984 and left the Coral Court to his wife, Jessie, and head housekeeper, Martha Shutt. Jessie and her second husband, Robert Williams, operated the place until August 1993 but by then, the lack of maintenance had taken its toll. Even though many Coral Court fans tried to protect the place from destruction, there was nothing they could to protect it from the wishes of the owners. They didn’t want to bother with the Coral Court anymore and they attorney advised them to sell the property.

As the fate of the place became clear, the concern of its supporters shifted to trying to prevent any further damage to the place while it was on the market. Although the motel was roped off and patrolled regularly by the police, it did not prevent “souvenirs-seekers” and vandals from breaking into the rooms. Some even loaded the bricks into their cars, hoping they would become valuable later on. Tragically, this only brought about the definite destruction of the motel.

The Coral Court was closed in 1993 and razed two years later. The motel was on the market for almost three years but no one could afford the steep price tag and the money that would be needed for renovation. Finally, in June 1995, the motel (except for one unit) was demolished. Luckily for Coral Court supporters, the Missouri Museum of Transportation, with help from scores of volunteers, worked for weeks to disassemble a complete Coral Court unit and move it, piece by piece, to the museum. The exhibit opened in May 2000 and remains on display for anyone who wants to catch a glimpse of the motel’s history as it played out on Route 66.

Unfortunately, there is little trace remaining at the site of the Coral Court today. It is now a subdivision called Oak Knoll Manor, although the original, distinctive stone gates are still in place. It’s hard to imagine the drama, passion and excitement that one played out at one of America’s original “no-tell motels” but it’s a story that could have only taken place on Route 66.

"THE KING OF BEERS"

Raise a glass to Adolphus Busch

In 1929, Gerald Holland wrote in the American Mercury magazine, “whatever odium may be attached to beer in other parts of the Republic, its status in St. Louis is as firmly grounded as James Eads’ span across the Mississippi... beer made St. Louis.”

And he was right. There has not been a time in St. Louis’ history as a frontier station, fur-trading outpost, hard-living river town and gateway to the West that there has not been beer in the city. Dating back to 1809, when a man named John Coons set up a primitive brewery on the riverfront, and continuing today, St. Louis is a city where beer is king. Over two hundred breweries have existed in and around St. Louis during the past two centuries. Many were small, long-forgotten operations that lasted only a few years while others grew to be national, and international, companies that are still in existence today. To ghost enthusiasts, the most famous beer in St. Louis history was, of course, made by the Lemp family, but the greatest surviving brewery of the “golden age” is undoubtedly Anheuser-Busch.

The company really got its start under another name entirely – Hammer and Urban. They were a small contender among the city’s 49 breweries in 1860.  The brewery’s production capacity far exceeded the demand for its product and the partners were forced into bankruptcy. During the legal proceedings that followed, two of the brewery’s creditors took over its operations. E. Anheuser and Company, the new operator, was made up of a partnership between Eberhard Anheuser, a successful candle and soap maker, and William D’Oench, a wholesale medicine supplier. They called it the Bavarian Brewery but neither man had much of an idea of what to do with it. D’Oench quickly turned over control to Anheuser and as luck would have it, the Civil War (and the hard drinking soldiers in St. Louis) turned it into a lucrative business, despite the poor quality of the beer they were making.

When the war ended, though, he knew he was in trouble. His partner had sold out in 1864, leaving Anheuser to run the brewery on his own. Anheuser had never claimed to be a master brewer. He knew everything there was to know about making soap, but beer remained a mystery to him. Union troops and thirsty laborers had been willing to drink his beer but the discriminating Germans of St. Louis didn’t want any part of it. They didn’t have to settle for a mediocre brew when there were a dozen other breweries in the city turning out far superior lager for the same price.

While Anheuser may not have known much about beer, he had become rich by knowing how to run a business. He knew that he needed help right away and he knew where to find it – with his talented and charismatic son-in-law, Adolphus Busch.

Adolphus Busch arrived in St. Louis in 1857 and found his first employment among the commission houses on the levee. Born in Germany on July 10, 1839, Busch was the well-educated son of a successful businessman. The second-youngest of twenty-two children, some of them half-siblings, he attended school at the Gymnasium of Mainz, the Academy of Darmstadt and the Collegiate Institute of Brussels. He spoke, in addition to German, fluent French and English and was proficient in Italian and Spanish, as well. Within a couple of years, he began specializing in malts and hops and as a supplier to Eberhard Anheuser, he came to admire Anheuser’s blonde, curly-haired daughter, Elisa, known as “Lilly.” On March 7, 1861, Adolphus and seventeen-year-old Lilly were married in a double-ring ceremony with Adolphus’ brother, Ulrich Busch, Jr., and Lilly’s sister, Anna. Legend has it Adolphus was twenty minutes late for the wedding because he had stopped to close a business deal. Despite the inauspicious start to their union, Adolphus and Lilly went on to have fourteen children, nine of whom survived to adulthood. Shortly after the wedding, Ulrich and Anna moved to Chicago, where Ulrich went into the brewery supply business. Adolphus enlisted in the Union Army, where he joined up with one of the regiments from the south side of the city and was sent to fight in southern and western Missouri. When he returned to St. Louis, he went back into the supply business and in 1864 he began working part-time as a salesman for the Bavarian Brewery.

 

Adolphus Busch and Elisa “Lilly” Anheuser Busch

In 1869, he sold his shares of the supply company and used the funds to buy into the Bavarian Brewery. The company was restructured, with Anheuser continuing as president and Busch becoming secretary. Anheuser turned most of his attention back to soap manufacturing and placed the management of the brewery into the hands of his capable son-in-law. In five years, Busch increased the production of beer from eight thousand barrels per year to eighteen thousand. Busch also seized upon many of the latest scientific and industrial innovations including pasteurization, which allowed the brewery to package, ship and store beer with a much longer shelf life, and artificial refrigeration, which allowed brewers to store beer in warehouses, making the lagering caves obsolete. Under Busch’s guidance, the brewery began bottling its beer in 1872. In 1883, Busch would become a full partner in the company and its name would be changed to the Anheuser-Busch Brewing Association.

 In those days, brewing was still a local industry but there was a huge amount of money to be made in St. Louis. Busch was determined to corner the market. Unfortunately, he could not make claim to having the best brew in town; that honor was held by the Lemp family. However, even bad beer, if marketed correctly, could make the brewery a huge amount of money. In those days, the sales strategy for beer revolved around the “beer collector,” who bought beer but did not sell it. All brewers had such spending agents, but Busch gathered together an accomplished group of men and soon his beer was selling as well as the Falstaff brand from the Lemp brewery. Every saloon that sold Busch beer was favored by a visit from the collector once each month. He would travel from saloon to saloon, spending an amount proportionate to the saloon’s monthly beer purchase. This made the collector an important person with high social standing among men from all walks of life; indeed it was the habit of loafers to follow the beer collector’s carriage from saloon to saloon, hoping to be treated to free drinks at each stop. The usual protocol was for the beer collector to buy a man a Busch beer as long as that man turned around and bought two more for himself and his friends.

Busch was a consummate salesman who became known for his clever and innovative advertising. He gave away watch fobs, chinaware and other Victorian-era novelties advertising his product. Among the promotional items was a jackknife that doubled as a corkscrew, a useful item since beer at that time was corked rather than capped. On the handle was the E. Anheuser & Co. logo and at one end was a peephole through which could be viewed a portrait of Adolphus Busch. Another popular promotional item was a tray embellished with a picture of the Anheuser-Busch Brewery with flags flying proudly from every cupola and tower. Seated in a prominent spot was a zaftig young lady with a modest wisp of veil covering her lap, her pulchritude winsomely promoting the virtues of Busch beer.

One of the original “Bud” girls – seductive advertising for the late nineteenth century

During the years that the breweries were running at full stream, there was probably more beer consumed in St. Louis than in any other city of its size in the world. With beer sold at a nickel a glass (which also included the customary free lunch), it was a luxury that was within the reach of almost everyone.

  

Despite all his ingenious plans and clever marketing schemes, Busch was still trailing the Lemps in popularity and sales when the great beer revolution began and it became possible to bottle beer for a longer shelf life. Busch immediately installed bottling facilities at its brewery. Soon, though, it would be a brand of beer that would bring even great acclaim to Busch and his thriving brewery.

  

In 1876, Budweiser lager beer came on the market, brewed by the Anheuser brewery and bottled by Carl Conrad, a local wine and liquor merchant. It went largely unnoticed at first. According to the story, Conrad was traveling in Europe in the early 1870s and dined in a small Bohemian monastery, where he was served the most wonderful beer he had ever tasted. He offered to buy the recipe from the monks but they gladly gave it to him for free. After returning to America, he asked his friend Adolphus Busch to make the beer for him. It was dubbed “Budweiser” after the small town of Budweis where Conrad had discovered it. He bottled the beer that Busch made for him and sold it in his shop. Not long after, he ran into financial trouble and borrowed money from Busch to stay afloat. In January 1883, he declared bankruptcy and licensed the Budweiser name, bottling and marketing rights to the Anheuser-Busch brewery. Busch had been his largest creditor and had a $94,000 lien on his property. In January 1891, Busch legally acquired all rights to the Budweiser name and trademark and Conrad, with whom Busch maintained a lifelong friendship, joined Anheuser-Busch as a technician.

Budweiser was different from the other beers being produced because it was brewed with rice rather than corn grits for natural carbonation. It was then subjected to a second fermentation process and aged, as a true lager must be. Despite its higher price, it was soon in such demand that Busch was scarcely able to get enough bottles to its suppliers. So, the brewery invested in glass factories. Busch founded the Adolphus Busch Glass Factory of St. Louis and Belleville, Illinois, and the Streator Glass Company of Streator, Illinois, remaining chief stockholder in both to keep the cost advantage for the brewery.

A Budweiser bottle from the 1870s

Now, Busch not only had bottled beer to sell, but he had the best bottled beer in the country. His innovations were disastrous to the small breweries that were left in St. Louis and by 1900, only nineteen of them remained. Brewing had changed from a neighborhood business to one with the potential to reach markets everywhere, which is just what Busch began to do. While his competitors in St. Louis were struggling, he invested deeply and became a “traveling ambassador of beer.”

The genial mustachioed Busch was impeccably dressed and portly, as befitted a successful man of his day. While he appeared dignified he wasn’t a bit snobbish and had friends from all ranks of society. He loved a good laugh and didn’t mind poking fun at himself. He especially enjoyed pulling pranks on his friend and frequent traveling companion, St. Louis restaurant owner Tony Faust. One time, the two of them were in a restaurant in France. Busch, who spoke French, was teaching his friend how to order a meal. When they finished dining, Faust asked what he should say to ask the waiter for cigars. Bush spoke a phrase in French and Faust repeated it to the waiter, who obligingly brought Faust the check. Busch roared with laughter and his friend realized he’d been had.

Word of Budweiser beer began to spread and Busch began marketing and advertising in every state in the growing nation. The plant in St. Louis began to expand, employing as many as 7,500 men. Each year, Anheuser-Busch produced 1.6 million barrels of beer. Nearly all was consumed in the United States, but even the small amount sent abroad exceeded the entire sales, domestic and foreign, of most of the company’s rivals.

Busch continued to expand and bought railroads, a coal mine and several hotels, all to further the cause of his beer. He had agents in every major city and owned property in every state in the union. With Budweiser now the chief product of the brewery, he reduced his sixteen brands to just four: Budweiser, Michelob, Faust and the standard pale beer. At that time, Michelob was the finest beer being made in America and was also the most expensive at twenty-five cents a glass. Like Budweiser, it originated in Bohemia, and it was Adolphus himself who discovered it. He bought a glass of beer one day for the equivalent of a few cents and it struck him as being even better than Budweiser. He returned home and ordered his staff to duplicate it. Michelob was the result, but it cost so much that sales were always low. This brand would not be bottled for many years. The Faust brand was named in honor of Tony Faust. One of Busch’s daughters, Anna Louise, later married Faust’s son, Edward.

Eberhard Anheuser died in 1880, stunned by the success that his son-in-law had achieved. At the time of his death, only the Lemps could continue to compete with Anheuser-Busch. They had also expanded into national distribution and, like Busch, were using refrigerated railroad cars to ship their acclaimed Falstaff brand across the country. The two companies battled for domination in the market for years but by the middle 1880s, the Lemp Brewing Company had started to fall behind. Anheuser-Busch soon had no true rivals in St. Louis – but the same could not be said on a national level.

In the late 1800s, worldwide competition for medals at expositions and fairs was fierce. At the World’s Columbian Exposition held in Chicago in 1893, regarded by brewers as the most prestigious competition of the century, the rivalry between Busch and his closest competitor came to a head. At the time, the Pabst Brewery in Milwaukee (operated by Frederick Pabst, a close friend and relative by marriage of William Lemp) was the largest in the United States, with Anheuser-Busch a close second. At one point in the competition, Anheuser-Busch had been awarded six medals for its beer and Pabst had received five. The grand prize was still to be awarded and the judges’ scrutiny was intense. A dispute began over the makeup of the panel of judges and the method they were using of awarding points. The brewers, interested only in product quality, were upset that points were to be given for “commercial importance.”

Ultimately, Budweiser was given the highest award over Pabst’s Blue Ribbon beer but the decision was later reversed based on a chemical analysis that showed Budweiser contained impurities. The award was then given to Pabst. Outraged, the hot-tempered Busch appealed the decision, angering the exposition commissioners so much that they decided that no award would be given at all. After Busch threatened legal action, the commission reversed itself again and gave the award to Budweiser. Pabst complained and, after yet another reversal, he was declared the winner.

Adolphus Busch was bitter over what he felt was unfair judging at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. After a reversal, he lost out to his closest competitor, Pabst in Milwaukee. His anger over the judging caused him not to enter any beers in the competition at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis.

Enraged, Busch pursued one of the judges across Europe to try and get him to change his mind. In late 1894, the commission announced its refusal to reconsider the decision. Busch sputtered in rage in the newspapers, “Prizes are not given to the goods meriting same but are secured by money and strategy.” This statement offers a hint as to why no Anheuser-Busch products were presented for judging during the World’s Fair held in St. Louis in 1904.

The controversy over the judging at the Columbian Exposition certainly didn’t damage Anheuser-Busch’s business. In fact, it helped it and the brewery continued to expand. As Busch made more and more money, he began to spend it quite freely. He maintained his family in luxury and constructed a mansion known as No. 1 Busch Place. It was located in a park-like section of the 142-acre brewery grounds. The spacious rooms were known for their color schemes -- the Rose Room, the Green Room, the Blue Room, etc. On the gleaming parquet floors were dazzling Oriental rugs. Stained glass windows admitted filtered light, and walls, tables and shelves were jammed with a massive array of art objects, as was the fashion of the time. As was fitting for the home of a merchant prince, expensive imported furniture filled every inch of space and frescoed ceilings, antique tapestries and artwork added to the overall majesty of the decor. Murals of plump, scantily clad women appeared to float across the ceiling of the main salon, where the walls were covered with paintings from some of the prominent artists of the day. Busch was one of the first to recognize the talents of American landscape artist William Keith. He was also an admirer of John Singer Sargent and James McNeill Whistler.

Anyone of note who visited St. Louis visited with the Busch family, including Enrico Caruso, Theodore Roosevelt, Edward, Prince of Wales, and many others. They often entertained local friends and held grand parties at the house. The exuberant Busch loved children and holidays. Every year, during the first week of December, a brewery watchman dressed as St. Nicholas visited the Busch children, filling their stockings with fruit and treats to start the holiday season. On Christmas Eve, a huge tree on a revolving stand was the center of activity for everyone. Easter brought even more festivity when Busch decided to have an egg hunt for his and his neighbors’ children. It turned out to be a huge success and each year brought ever-larger numbers of “neighbor” children until the event was eventually moved to Forest Park.

Busch loved animals, especially horses, as is evidenced by the brewery’s enduring reputation for its outstanding Clydesdales. It was in Adolphus’ day that teams of the majestic, high-stepping animals first pulled the red and green Busch delivery wagons. Busch worried so much about the care of horses that he could not stand to think of his guests’ carriage horses standing outside in bad weather. After the passengers had been discharged, Busch gave orders for the carriages to be driven into a large rotunda in the carriage house. There the horses were comfortably stabled and the coachmen could relax in a recreation room, where plenty of food and Budweiser beer were kept on hand.

Busch maintained one of the finest stables of riding and carriage horses in the United States. The stable building, located just across the drive from 1 Busch Place, could house up to thirty horses at a time. He also kept a large collection of wheeled conveyances: carriages, coaches, barouches, landaus, shooting wagons and the like. Sets of gold- and silver-mounted harnesses were displayed in glass cases along the stable walls.

In the early 1900s, Busch also became interested in the “horseless carriage” and developed a fascination for motorcars. He commissioned one of the first automobiles in St. Louis, an ornate Pope-Toledo with a specially built wicker body and brass fittings.

The Busch family lived in sumptuous luxury but unlike some of the tycoons of his day who were notoriously tightfisted, Adolphus was gave freely of his fortune. His gifts included large donations to Washington University in St. Louis and to Harvard. He contributed relief funds to the victims of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and every Groundhog Day, he gave $5,000 to a convent in St. Louis. He also gave freely to charities in Germany, a habit that would come back to haunt the family with the advent of the First World War.

Employees of Anheuser-Busch lived well. Not only did the brewery pay a good wage, every man was entitled to a generous portion of free beer each day, which he was expected to drink. The trips to the keg were seen as an important part of the day’s routine, an affirmation of the employees’ dedication to their product. It was thought that a man needed a certain amount of beer each day to maintain good work habits and vigorous health. One man was actually thrown out of the brewers’ union for failing to drink his daily quota of beer. He took his case to court and it was decided that it wasn’t necessary to drink beer in order to do a good day’s work. Union members shook their heads in disbelief, but the man was reinstated.

The Anheuser-Busch Brewery

The new century got off to a great start for Anheuser-Busch. In 1901, it finally overtook the annual production levels of Pabst. With preparations being made in St. Louis for the World’s Fair in 1904, Busch accepted the position of fair director. Many of the local brewers, led by Busch, came together to create a gigantic entertainment venue -- a replica of the Tyrolean Alps. Located at the end of the “Pike,” next to the main entrance, the Alps covered more than six acres of Forest Park and proved to be among the fair’s most popular attractions. But behind the scenes there were numerous disputes between the operators of the Alps and the fair’s management, including issues of trash pickup, blocking of the service entrance by railroad cars, squabbles over the width of the walkways and the amount of water and electricity used by the attraction. The problems festered all summer, leading to Busch’s resignation as the fair’s director in November 1904.

After the fair closed down, most of the state and national buildings were sold off or demolished. Busch purchased the Belgium national building and had it moved onto the brewery property, where it was reconstructed for use by the Adolphus Busch Glass Manufacturing Company.

Busch’s hard work and generosity led to him being popular with the people of St. Louis, especially the lower and middle classes. In spite of his vast wealth, he encountered coolness from members of the city’s upper crust, who refused to accept the brash German as one of their own. But Busch couldn’t have cared less. He gathered his own circle of friends around him and managed to stay in the good graces of those who were buying his beer.

By the Buschs’ golden wedding anniversary in 1911, most of the daily operations of the brewery had been turned over their son, August. He had become so skilled in running the company’s business affairs that Adolphus and Lilly had time to indulge their love of travel. They toured Europe and visited many parts of the U.S., spending considerable time in their houses in Pasadena, California, and Cooperstown, New York.

    

Adolphus and Lilly wanted to make sure that each of their eight surviving children had their own home. Their eldest son, Adolphus Busch, Jr., nicknamed “Bulfy,” had died of a perforated appendix in 1898. He had been named a corporate director at twenty-one and if he had lived, he might have taken over the company. August and his wife, Alice, received a grand home that had been built at Grant’s Farm, southwest of St. Louis, the former home of Ulysses S. Grant; Edmee Reisinger and her husband, Hugo, received a mansion on Fifth Avenue in New York; Clara von Gotard, who was married to Baron Paul von Gotard, was given a mansion in Berlin, Germany; Mrs. J.W. Loeb received a home near Lincoln Park in Chicago; and Mrs. Edward A. Scharrer was given a house in Stuttgart, Germany.

There was a huge celebration in St. Louis to mark the Buschs’ anniversary, although Adolphus and Lilly were unable to attend. They were in Pasadena at the time, where Busch was seriously ill. Some thirteen thousand employees and friends celebrated in their absence. The brewery was closed for the day and all five thousand employees had been given the day off with pay. The party took place at the Coliseum, where a fifty-piece band played and employees paraded, sang, danced and waved flags. Lights gleamed on a center fountain that fired off a thirty-foot jet of water and the crowd partied into the night. It was reported that more than forty thousand bottles of beer were consumed, along with 100,000 sandwiches. The Buschs’ well-wishers sent them a solid gold card of congratulations. President William Howard Taft sent the couple a $20 gold piece. Former President Theodore Roosevelt one-upped him by giving them a gold loving cup.

By this time, the storm clouds of Prohibition were already starting to gather and Anheuser-Busch, along with other national brewers, began working to separate the various beer-makers from the hard liquor industry in the minds of lawmakers and temperance supporters. They eventually failed at this although they did manage to start producing low-alcohol and non-alcoholic beers. Anheuser-Busch trademarked the Bevo brand, a non-intoxicating malt-based beverage, in 1908.

Unfortunately, Busch’s health did not improve. He had suffered from dropsy, as edema was then called, since 1906. In October 1913, he and Lilly traveled to Langenschwalbach, Germany, for a stay at Villa Lilly, one of their two homes on the Rhine. He hoped that the brisk autumn weather would improve his health but it did no good. On October 10, at the age of 74, Busch suffered a heart attack while sitting at his desk. He died peacefully a few hours later. His body was returned to St. Louis and a viewing was held at No. 1 Busch Place.

A final farewell was said to Busch at the house where he had welcomed dignitaries and common people alike. It took twenty-five trucks to haul all of the funeral flowers to the cemetery. A crowd of nearly 25,000 people gathered around the brewery to pay their last respects.

The funeral procession left No. 1 Busch Place and departed for Bellefontaine Cemetery. St. Louis residents solidly lined the route. Mayor Henry Kiel requested that all business in the city be halted for five minutes during the burial. The Jefferson Hotel and the Planter’s House turned off their lights during that interval and all of the city’s streetcars were stopped. A committee of Busch employees was granted permission to carry the casket through the brewery and along the route that Adolphus had once walked to work each day. Busch was laid to rest in an ornate mausoleum resembling a miniature cathedral, complete with gargoyles and with its own watering system for plants and bushes.

Charles Nagel, one of the leading citizens of St. Louis, gave the eulogy. He was joined by a number of other honored guests, including congressmen, the presidents of Harvard and the University of Missouri and Baron von Lesner, the personal representative of Kaiser Wilhelm II, who was a longtime friend of Busch. Nagel called Busch “a giant among men. Like a descendant of one of the great and vigorous ancient gods, he rested among us and with his optimism, his far seeing vision, his undaunted courage and his energy, shaped the affairs of men.”

The elaborate Busch mausoleum at Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis

 After Busch’s death, Lilly divided her time between Europe and California, with only occasional stops in St. Louis. The house was seldom used and after her death in 1928, the Busch children divided the contents and it was closed up for good. It was finally demolished to expand the brewery in 1929.

August A. Busch, Sr., who had been running the company for several years, continued the growth and the expansion of the brewery until the outbreak of World War I. By 1917, the United States had entered the conflict, which brought dark times to the family. The two countries to which the Buschs were devoted were now at war. Lilly Busch was actually in Germany when America entered the war and it took former senator Harry Hawes seven and a half months to get her home. The brewery was handicapped by rumors that the Busch family was pro-German. Despite purchases of large amounts of Liberty Bonds by the company and by the family, the malicious stories refused to go away. The Busch family, as well as the scores of Germans living in St. Louis, were kept under close watch but they managed to weather the storm of the war.

  

And then something worse came along.

  

By the late 1910s, Anheuser-Busch, like breweries all across America, was confronted by Prohibition. In an effort to combat the growing threat against beer sales and production, Busch filled the newspapers with ads in favor of personal liberty. But all the while, the company prepared for the inevitable. It stepped up production of Bevo, which was being sold all over the world by 1919. One year before, production of real beer had stopped, so there seemed to be little cause for concern about Prohibition. No one realized at the time that the disappearance of real beer would largely destroy the demand for “near-beer” products like Bevo. Just because liquor was illegal, it was certainly not hard to get. The horrible taste of bootleg hard liquor was usually so bad that it had to be disguised, which brought about the creation of sweet mixed drinks. People who became accustomed to the taste of these syrupy new drinks often lost the taste for the tart flavor of beer, or in this case, near-beer. And with real beer being illegally produced by bootleggers, the good stuff was still easy enough to get. So, why drink non-alcoholic beer when you could get the real thing at the local speakeasy? By 1923, sales of Bevo fell off to almost nothing, causing grave concerns at Anheuser-Busch.

The early years of Prohibition were grim across St. Louis. The Lemp Brewery, the neighbor and chief local competitor of Anheuser-Busch, closed down and sold off its huge plant for a fraction of what it had been worth a few years before. August Busch refused to give up, though. He was determined to find a way to keep the company afloat until the Prohibition laws were repealed. A short time later, Anheuser-Busch began to produce truck bodies and refrigerator cabinets and they went into the yeast business. Their superior product soon gained control of the market and money began trickling back into the coffers again. They also began bottling soft drinks, including Busch Extra-Dry Ginger Ale, and canned malt syrup, which was often used illegally to make home brew by eager customers.

But Busch was not happy just holding the company together. He wanted to make beer and he loathed Prohibition. On his own, he began investigating the corruption and hypocrisy of the law and he made his findings public. He discovered that liquor was sold aboard American flagships and discovered the failures of law enforcement and outright graft within the ranks of the Anti-Saloon League. He pressed for a uniform and effective enforcement of the law as long as it was on the books. On the other hand, he used his attorneys to appeal to Presidents Coolidge and Hoover and to Congress to repeal the law. He insisted that law-abiding businessmen were suffering while lawbreakers flourished, as long as Prohibition was the law of the land. Busch supported just about any politician who stood against Prohibition and finally, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected in 1932. Roosevelt said he “wants repeal, and I am confident that the United States of America wants repeal.” Prohibition finally came to an end on April 7, 1933.

After Prohibition was repealed, Anheuser-Busch Clydesdales delivered a shipment of Budweiser to President Roosevelt at the White House. It was actually a re-enactment of the beer delivery, which had arrived by air to the president a short time earlier.

Under a permit to brew beer in advance of the date for its legal sale, Anheuser-Busch had 250,000 barrels ready and while they planned to resume business quietly, April 7 arrived in St. Louis like a combination of Mardi Gras and New Year’s Eve. A jubilant crowd surrounded the brewery as the gates were thrown open and a fleet of trucks rolled out to deliver the first supply of Budweiser to the city’s packed taverns. It was a great night in south St. Louis as August Busch had brought the old brewery from “doom to boom.”

  

Sadly, August A. Busch would not be around to enjoy the celebration for long. As the company began to enter a new period of growth, Busch’s life came to an end. He had suffered from several heart attacks during the hard years and was pained by gout and dropsy. On the night of February 13, 1934, in tremendous agony, he wrote a letter to his family, signed and sealed it, and then turned up the radio before shooting himself.

He was succeeded by Adolphus Busch III, known around the brewery simply as “The Third.” He was a retiring man who grappled with the problems the company faced during the Depression and World War II. He died after a short illness on August 29, 1946.

August A. Busch, Jr., or “Gussie” became the fourth Busch to become president of Anheuser-Busch and is remembered today as one of the most popular and outgoing members of the family. He carefully protected the company’s reputation and further expanded its image to make it one of the best known (or perhaps the best known) brewery in the world today. In 1953, when it was thought that the St. Louis Cardinals might be sold away from St. Louis, Gussie wrote the check that bought the baseball team and turned Sportsman’s Park into Busch Stadium.

And while the Busch family and the brewery continue to thrive in St. Louis today, the family has not been without its scandals and troubles over the years, from brushes with the law, death and even kidnappings. But through it all, they have managed to prosper and to build a great legacy in St. Louis.

FROM THE BOOK SUICIDE AND SPIRITS BY TROY TAYLOR

WAS JACK THE RIPPER FROM ST. LOUIS?

THE STRANGE TALE OF FRANCIS TUMBLETY

On May 28, 1903, a very strange man died in St. Louis. His name was Dr. Francis J. Tumblety and he had a passionate hatred for women, surgical skills and happened to be in London, England in 1888 – at the same time that the mysterious killer known as “Jack the Ripper” was killed prostitutes in the city’s East End. Was Tumblety, as some believe, Jack the Ripper?

In the year 1888, the city of London, England was terrorized by a killer who called himself “Jack the Ripper.” The madman prowled the streets of the Whitechapel District in East London and slaughtered a number of prostitutes, carving his way into the historical record as the first “modern serial killer.” As the years have passed, the Ripper has held the morbid curiosity of professional and amateur sleuths, armchair detectives and crime buffs alike. Having eluded capture in the 1880s, his identity has been debated ever since and scores of suspected have emerged, with a number of Americans among them. Many St. Louisans have been surprised over the years to find that one of the suspects lived in St. Louis and died there 15 years after the murders in London stopped.

London’s Whitechapel District in the 1880s

Suspicion by police officials that Dr. Francis J. Tumblety may have been Jack the Ripper came about in 1913, a number of years after the murders took place. In a letter dated on September 23, Inspector John Littlechild, head of the Special Branch in England, wrote to George Sims, a journalist, about a medical man who may have been the killer. He was apparently replying to Sims about other possible suspects when he wrote:

I never heard of a Dr. D in connection with the Whitechapel murders, but amongst the suspects, and to my mind a very likely one, was a Dr. T (which sounds much like a D). He was an American quack named Tumblety and at one time was a frequent visitor to London and on these occasions constantly brought under the notice of police, there being a large dossier concerning him at Scotland Yard. Although a “Sycopathis Sexualis” [sic] subject, he was not known as a sadist (which the murderer unquestionably was) but his feelings toward women were remarkable and bitter in the extreme, a fact on record. Tumblety was arrested at the time of the murders in connection with unnatural offenses and charged at Marlborough Street, remanded on bail, jumped his bail and got away to Boulogne. He shortly left Boulogne and was never heard of afterwards. It is believed that he committed suicide but certain it is that from the time the “Ripper” murders came to an end.

And while not all of Inspector Littlechild’s facts were correct, he did make an interesting case toward the American doctor being the fiendish killer. In fact, the idea was so compelling that when the letter resurfaced years later, the theory was later turned into flawed but fascinating book by two British police officers, Stewart P. Evans and Paul Gainey, called Jack the Ripper: First American Serial Killer.

But was the “medical man” the real Whitechapel killer? Let’s look into the facts and the fancy behind the intriguing suspect.

Dr. Francis Tumblety, photographed in the pseudo-military garb that he was so fond of

Francis J. Tumblety was born in Canada in 1833 and moved with his family to Rochester, New York at a very young age. Although uneducated, he was a clever man and became wealthy and successful as a homeopath and a mixer of patent medicines. There is no record as to whether or not these “snake oil” cures worked or not, but it is certain that Tumblety held no medical degree. He did claim to possess Indian and Oriental secrets of healing and good health and he was described as charming and handsome, so it’s not surprising that he made quite a bit of money in this questionable field.

When not charming customers, Tumblety was said to have been disliked by many for his self-aggrandizing and his constant boasting. He had a penchant for staying in fine hotels, wearing fine clothes and making false claims. Often these tall tales got him into trouble and he left town on more than one occasion just a step ahead of the law.

In the late 1850s and early 1860s, Tumblety was living in Washington, D.C. and from this period, the first stories of his deep-seated hatred for women began to surface. During a dinner party one night in 1861, Tumblety was asked by some guests why he did not invite any single women to the gathering. Tumblety replied that women were nothing more than “cattle” and that he would rather give a friend poison than see him with a woman. He then began to speak about the evils of women, especially prostitutes. A man who was in attendance that evening, an attorney named C.A. Dunham, later remarked that it was believed that Tumblety had been tricked into marriage by a woman who was later revealed to be a prostitute. This was thought to have sparked his hatred of woman, but none of the guests had any idea just how far the feelings of animosity went until Tumblety offered to show them his “collection.” He led his guests into a back study of the house, where he kept his anatomical “museum.” Here, they were shown row after row of jars containing women’s uteruses.

The Lindell Hotel in St. Louis, a haven for Confederate sympathizers during the Civil War

In 1863, Tumblety came to St. Louis for the first time and took rooms at the Lindell Hotel. As he recounted in letters, his flamboyant ways did not appeal to those in St. Louis and he claimed to have been arrested in both the city and in Carondelet, an independent city at that time, for “putting on airs” and “being caught in quasi-military” dress. Regardless of his claims, Tumblety most likely caused trouble during these troubled times in the city because of his apparent southern sympathies. In 1865, he was arrested on the serious charge of what amounted to an early case of biological terrorism. Federal officers had him arrested after he was allegedly involved in a plot to infect blankets, which were to be shipped to Union troops, with yellow fever. The whole thing did turn out to be a case of mistaken identity (an alias of Tumblety’s was remarkably close to a real doctor involved) but it’s likely that he would not have been suspected if not for some actions on his part. Tumblety was taken to Washington and imprisoned until the confusion over the plot could be cleared up and was later released. According to British records, Tumblety was then arrested again after the death of President Abraham Lincoln, this time as a conspirator in the assassination. He was again released but this time, his reputation was destroyed in Washington and he fled to New York. After that, he began traveling frequently to London during the 1870s and 1880s.

Although there has been much debate over the years as to how many victims that Jack the Ripper claimed, and just when the murders began, it is generally believed that the first killing occurred on August 31, 1888. The victim was a prostitute named Mary Ann Nichols. Her death was followed by those off Annie Chapman and Elizabeth Stride on September 8. On September 30, the Ripper claimed Catherine Eddowes. Organs had been removed from the bodies of both Chapman and Eddowes, including the latter woman’s uterus.

Just prior to the start of the murders, Dr. Tumblety had come to London and had taken lodgings in Batty Street, the heart of Whitechapel and within easy distance of the murder scenes. It is on the record that he was watched closely by the police, especially after an incident involving a pathological museum. During the Annie Chapman inquest, police investigators heard information that has created the most pervasive and enduring myth of the Whitechapel murders, that of the Ripper as a surgeon. Only one medical examiner, arguing against all other expert testimony, believed that the killer had expert anatomical knowledge. He was basing his theory on a witness that claimed the killer was hunting for women’s uteruses to sell to an unknown American. This bizarre bit of testimony came about because Tumblety did indeed visit a pathological museum in London and had inquired about any uteruses that might be for sale. He apparently wanted to add them to his collection.

On November 7, Tumblety was arrested, not for murder, but rather for “unnatural offences,” which was usually a reference to homosexuality. He was later released on bail, although when exactly that was has been a matter of debate for many years. According to some records, he was released on November 16 but according to others, he was actually let go on November 8. The entire theory of whether or not he was Jack the Ripper hinges on the date that he was released from jail.

The reason for this is that on November 9, the Ripper claimed his last victim. Her name was Mary Kelly and she was mutilated in ways that cannot be imagined in her own bed. She was butchered beyond recognition and a number of her organs were removed, including her heart and uterus.

A gruesome crime scene photo from the Mary Kelly murder. 

Was it the work of Dr. Tumblety?

If Tumblety was actually released on November 8, then he could have easily killed Mary Kelly. One account of the days following the murder states that he was arrested on suspicion of her murder on November 12, was released without being charged and then vanished from Whitechapel. On November 24, it is alleged that he took a steamer to France and then sailed from France to New York. Scotland Yard detectives were said to have pursued him to New York and while they kept on eye on him, had no evidence to arrest him and could not have him extradited for the still outstanding indecency charges. They eventually gave up and went home.

Those who do not believe that Tumblety was the Ripper give a different accounting of the days after Mary Kelly was killed. According to these sources, Tumblety was not released on bail until November 16. As Inspector Littlechild writes, he was then believed to jump bail and escape to Boulogne with the police pursuing him. From there, he booked passage to New York, where police staked out his lodgings. He escaped them, however, and vanished. He was not, as far as recorded, further pursued for his part in the killings. With that said, it would have been impossible for Tumblety to be the Ripper. If he were the killer, then someone would have had to copy and exceed his previous work on Mary Kelly while the doctor was still in jail. Most would agree that this seems highly unlikely.

But our story is not quite over.

Regardless of what is written about the last days of Tumblety in London, all will agree that after his escape he did end up in St. Louis. He also traveled for a time, avoiding Washington but frequently visiting Baltimore, New Orleans and St. Louis. He continued to live in hotels and established no permanent residence in any of the cities. In April 1903, though, Tumblety checked himself into St. John’s Hospital and Dispensary at 23rd and Locust Streets in St. Louis. The hospital, which was then located in the old Catlin-Beach-Barney Mansion, provided care for indigents, which is how Tumblety was presenting himself at this time. The hospital is still in operation today as St. John’s Mercy Medical Center, located at Interstate 64 and Ballas Road.

According to accounts, Tumblety was suffering from a long and painful illness, although what it may have been has never been specifically identified. Some have suggested that it may have been a debilitating case of syphilis, the contraction of which might have been cause for his hatred of women and especially prostitutes. Whatever it was, though, Tumblety remained at St. John’s until his death on May 28, 1903. However, he was far from indigent when he died. Court records showed that Tumblety left an estate of more than $135,000, some of which St. John’s managed to recover. The hospital asked for about $450 to cover the room expenses and medical tests for a man who was clearly not poor. The rest of the estate, except for costs to a St. Louis undertaker, went to Tumblety’s niece, Mary Fitzsimmons of Rochester, New York.

Aside from the hospital, there was one other claim to Tumblety’s estate. While the hospital’s costs can be seen as clearly legitimate, the additional claim was quite strange, especially in light of Tumblety’s clear prejudices on the subject. The challenge to a will that Tumblety had written on May 16 came from an attorney in Baltimore named Joseph Kemp. He claimed that Tumblety had written an earlier will in October 1901 that left $1,000 from his estate to the Baltimore Home for Fallen Women --- in other words, a halfway house for prostitutes. The claim was thrown out of court but it does provide an interesting final note to the life of a man who has been suspected of being the most famous killer of prostitutes in history.