On January 5, 1926, the internationally renowned pianist J.W. “Blind” Boone announced his retirement in an interview with the Columbia Missourian saying, “I am going to retire and live in the happiness I have wrought from others and in a final pursuit of those stray tones which I have not yet found in life.” Boone spoke publicly about retirement as early as 1921, but the Missourian interview was published after special New Years Eve performances on both KFRU, a radio station only a year old, and Stephens College Radio. Boone, who was rarely in his hometown for New Years, would keep a busy January schedule.

On January 4th, 1971, the Columbia Public Library opened at a new location on the corner of Broadway and Garth. Six days earlier library patrons moved the book collection by hand, forming a “book brigade” that stretched over half a mile from the previous location at Broadway and 7th Street in the Gentry Building. The effort to establish a library for the citizens of Columbia has a long history.

On Jan. 3, 1905, the Pratt Family (George, Georgina, J.K., and Charles) registered the addition of eighteen large lots to the City of Columbia in what is now known as the East Campus Neighborhood. The Pratt Addition is a small, but early, part of the East Campus Neighborhood, notable for it’s early twentieth century suburban architecture.

On January 2nd, 1862, the 2nd Missouri Cavalry Regiment, commonly known as “Merrill's Horse” arrived in Columbia and pitched their tents on the University of Missouri campus. Merrill established a permanent Union headquarters in Academic Hall, whose six columns famously survive in the middle of Francis Quadrangle, a National Historic District.

On January 1st, 1871, the Columbia, Missouri Herald newspaper was first published by Edwin William Stephens. In 1892 the Herald Building would be erected on the southwest corner of Hitt and Broadway. In 1904 it was Columbia’s largest business and employed 100 people.

On this date in CoMo’s history…