On the evening of Oct. 9, 1952, every light in downtown Crane went out.
Mayor George H. Manlove and Claude Hill of the Empire District Electric Company climbed onto the speakers' stand holding a single lit kerosene lantern. Thousands of people stood watching in the dark. Then they threw the switch, and Crane's new white way street lighting beamed for the first time. It was one moment in a day full of them - the first Missouri Broiler Festival and Barbecue, a one-day celebration of an industry that had grown out of nothing in less than a decade. Next weekend, Aug. 21 and 22, the Crane Broiler Festival returns to the city park for the 75th time.
The festival began with a gamble on chickens.
In December 1947, the first chicks arrived at Ruel Barnes' farm in north Stone County. Barnes, a Navy veteran home from World War II, had partnered with Bob Cannon and Paul Estes after the three drove to northwest Arkansas to study the poultry boom underway there. Backed by a local bank and neighbors, they built a broiler house with family labor and sold that first flock at 38 cents a pound. It worked. Local production climbed from roughly 50,000 birds in 1948 to more than two million by 1952, and past 4.5 million by 1955. Across southwest Missouri, annual output reached some 22 million birds. Crane became the Broiler Capital of Missouri. In those years the town supported three automobile dealerships, three feed stores, two grocery stores and two hardware stores. By 1952, the growers wanted to show off what they had built. The Southwest Missouri Broiler Growers Association, headquartered in Crane, chose its own hometown for the celebration - a town on the Missouri Pacific's White River line, sitting in the middle of the new industry. The organizers aimed high.
It was an election year, and they invited national figures from both parties. Newspapers reported that the Democrats had accepted and would send Vice President Alben Barkley, vice presidential nominee John Sparkman or Sen. Robert Kerr. Republicans, the papers said, were trying to arrange for Dwight Eisenhower himself, with Richard Nixon or Robert Taft as alternates. Officials predicted a crowd of 30,000 to 40,000. Sponsors boasted that older broiler states - Maine, Delaware, Maryland, Georgia - would bow their heads in shame after seeing what Crane put on. The presidential candidates never came, and neither did 40,000 people. What arrived instead was still extraordinary for a town of about 1,200: three sitting U.S. senators, the district congressman, the state agriculture commissioner and a crowd that contemporary accounts placed between 8,000 and 10,000. The day opened at 9 a.m. with a gun shoot featuring Dick O'Conner's cap-and-ball rifle collection, a holdover from the Stone County Centennial the year before. The Rev. Verdane Gibson of Crane gave the invocation at 12:40 p.m., and the Crane High School band played the national anthem. Ten thousand locally raised chickens went onto open-air pits built of concrete blocks and metal racks, each bird turned by hand. James Graham and his staff served dinners from noon until 7 p.m. Newspaper accounts put the number served at close to 4,000. An afternoon session brought poultry business to the stage: E.B. Winters, poultry extension specialist at the University of Missouri; State Commissioner of Agriculture Robert Thornberg; and Alex Gordeaux, editor of Broiler Growers magazine. Equipment companies set up displays on the grounds, and the Plaza Theatre ran a free continuous picture show. Lloyd Evans, farm service director at Springfield radio station KWTO, served as master of ceremonies. KWTO weatherman C.C. Williford gave a humorous talk, and Ozarks folklorist May Kennedy McCord spoke and sang ballads.
With the Eisenhower-Stevenson election less than a month away, the speeches came in waves. Sen. Robert S. Kerr of Oklahoma spoke for the Democrats at 3 p.m. Republicans answered with Congressman Dewey Short - a Galena native representing Missouri's Seventh District - at 6:15 p.m. and Sen. Andrew Schoeppel of Kansas at 6:45. Sen. James P. Kem of Missouri, who did not appear on the printed program, spoke as well, weeks before losing his seat that November. The speeches did not stay polite. Kerr criticized Kem and Short by name and charged that Missouri had gone six years with what amounted to a vacant Senate seat. Short answered from the stage hours later, before a hometown crowd, and was by all accounts the most popular speaker of the day. Flood, drought and grasshoppers were not the only calamities that could strike a community, he said, alluding to the Oklahoma wind storm that had just blown through. He added that he had never spoken of a colleague the way Kerr had spoken that afternoon. One courtesy survived the day. John Hosmer of Marshfield, Short's opponent in that fall's election, introduced Sen. Kerr - and declined to make a campaign speech of his own.
The Springfield Shrine Band, joined by Aurora musicians, played a concert that evening. Then came the crowning of the first Broiler Festival queen, a statewide title billed in advance as Missouri State Broiler Queen. Gov. Forrest Smith had been scheduled to place the crown but was unable to attend. Commissioner Thornberg came in his place. Twelve finalists competed. The judges called back Wilma Ruth Rittenhouse, the 20-year-old daughter of Mrs. S.Y. Rittenhouse of Monett, and 16-year-old Carolyn Cheatum of Crane for a final look before settling on Rittenhouse. The new queen received luggage, an evening gown and flowers, and reigned over the street dance that followed on Main Street, where the KWTO String Band played until midnight. The other finalists came from Crane, Aurora, Hurley, Reeds Spring, Springfield and Clever. The pageant that began that night continues today as the Miss Slick Chick Pageant.
Organizers announced before the crowds left that the next festival would be bigger. They kept their word: the 1953 festival ran two days, and the chicken dinner has been a two-day event ever since. The celebration itself has outgrown that. Carnival rides and food stands are now open on Wednesday and Thursday, two days before the pits are lit, stretching the festival across four days.
Much has changed. The temporary block pits gave way to the permanent covered cooking pits and dining pavilion that stand in the park today. The lineup grew to include carnival rides, a parade, a car show, a 5K, live music, a gospel tent and the mule jump. Early festivals featured an FFA stock show and, in 1953, a tractor rodeo.
The center of it has not moved. The chicken is still cooked over an open-air pit in the same park, by the same method those growers used in 1952.
If You Go
The 75th Crane Broiler Festival runs Friday and Saturday, Aug. 21 and 22, at Crane City Park. Admission and parking are free. Carnival rides and food stands open early, at 6 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, Aug. 19 and 20. Friday opens with craft and vendor booths and chicken dinner serving at 11 a.m., with dinners running until about 9 p.m. or until sold out. Gospel tent music begins at noon on the front stage. Carnival rides start at 5 p.m., the Slick Chick Pageant at 6 p.m., and country music on the Backstage at 6:30 p.m. with Travis Scott & the Playboyz, joined by Greg Caught, Kevin Baker, Penni Lawrence and Gannon Clevenger. Saturday begins with the Discover Crane Chicken Chase at 7:30 a.m. on Main Street. Parade line-up is at 9 a.m., with vehicles at 509 Meadowlark Ave. and walkers at the Crane Swimming Pool, and the parade steps off at 10 a.m. along Main Street - the same street lit for the first time in 1952. Craft and vendor booths open at 10 a.m. Chicken dinner serving, the mule jump, the car show at the ball field and gospel tent music all begin at 11 a.m. Carnival rides start at noon and bluegrass takes the Backstage at 1:30 p.m. The festival closes at dark with 75th anniversary fireworks at the ball field. Armbands are $28 Wednesday and Thursday, $30 Friday and $35 for all day and night Saturday. Carnival ride times may change at the operator's discretion. Commemorative 75th anniversary T-shirts are available through the festival. The full schedule is posted at cranebroilerfestival.org.
