EDITOR:
I got a kick out of Guy Speckman’s funny comment in his May 1 Ponder the Thought column about contacting me if you’re headed out for some noodling and inclined to commit a crime while on the Missouri River.
His question “what if you keep to the Kansas side of the river” actually brings to mind a fascinating Platte County case, the great Missouri River flood of 1881, and some interesting people of Platte County history.
I’ve attached a copy of the opinion in State v. Keane, a case decided by the Kansas City (now the Western District) Court of Appeals in 1900 answers your question. That case decided, in the words of the opinion itself, a question of “great importance.” The question was if Charles Keane, who ran an unlicensed saloon on the west side of the dry riverbed of where the Missouri River ran prior to the flood of 1881, could be convicted of selling intoxicating liquor without a license in Platte County.
As you may know, that huge flood changed the course of the Missouri River and also changed the course of Weston’s history. According to the Weston Historical Museum:
Weston’s early prominence in steamboat trade and as an outfitter for wagon trains heading west depended on what was a capricious Missouri river, the longest river in North America. A flood in 1881 shifted the river west and Weston lost its port and its important river economy. The population of 5,000 inhabitants in 1855 soon dwindled to fewer than 1,000 after the Civil War.
Undaunted, enterprising entrepreneurs like Charles Keane would not be deterred by this natural and economic disaster. Mr. Keane opened a saloon to the west of the midpoint of the former Missouri River channel. When prosecuted by then-Platte County Prosecuting Attorney Sydney Beeny, Mr. Keane claimed the saloon was not in Platte County because it was on the Kansas side of the river before the river changed course due to the flood. Although Mr. Keane was convicted by Platte County Judge A. D. Burnes, the Court of Appeals reversed that conviction and ordered Mr. Keane discharged, finding that he was selling liquor in Kansas, not in Platte County, Missouri.
To make things even more interesting, Mr. Keane was represented by James Hull (a predecessor of former Platte County Prosecuting Attorney and later Presiding Judge Owens Lee Hull, Jr.), who later himself became Platte County Prosecuting Attorney and then Speaker of the Missouri House of Representatives.
So, the answer to your question is: If you’re planning on committing a crime while noodling in the Missouri River, keep your doggone noodle on the Kansas side–west of the river’s centerline!
--Eric Zahnd
Platte County
Prosecuting Attorney
