It was looking grim for the 114-year-old building that housed the Green Parrot tavern in Galena, Kan., a couple weeks ago when a sinkhole opened up behind the property and threatened to swallow it. Many people predicted, including me, that the entire building would have to be condemned.
Well, reports of the Green Parrot’s imminent demise appear to be premature. Even though the apartments behind the tavern are a total loss because of the hole, which was caused by undermining, the sinkhole has stabilized and the Green Parrot can eventually be reopened.
The owner of the tavern, Mickey Morang, provided these details during an Aug. 13 letter to the editor in the Joplin Globe:
The structural engineer sent to investigate by the insurance company has assured me the apartments on the south side of the Green Parrot will have to be demolished. But, the Green Parrot itself (located at 317 S. Main), Galena, Kan., is, in his words, “a sound structure” needing only to be stabilized on the extreme northeast corner of the building by installing pilings for additional support. We will be doing business as usual as soon as repairs can be completed.
The engineer also told me that Galena Police Chief Larry Delmont was at no time in danger when he saved my lovebird, Romeo, and it goes without saying that he has my eternal gratitude. He is to be commended for an outstanding job of coordinating all the different agencies dealing with such a catastrophic situation.
So it’s good news for roadies who want to stop on the Mother Road for a spell and wet their whistles. The Green Parrot, by the way, has been operating there since 1942.
UNCLES, OUTLAWS, & GREEN PARROTS
by Jerry Thomas (jerryt@interpac.net)
“Ten dollars,” Opal said, displaying for my view the t-shirt that I was about to buy.
GREEN PARROT — GALENA, KANSAS
“I bought ten dollars worth of gasoline from my friend Jack at Jack’s Self-Serv the other day,” I told Opal. “And I mentioned discounts.”
“Discounts?”
“Yeah. I asked Jack what the price of that gasoline would be after deducting the Classmate’s Discount and the Senior Citizen’s Discount and the Old Friend’s Discount. In less than a second Jack made the calculation.”
“Ten dollars,” Jack said.
Opal smiled as she took my ten dollars for the t-shirt. Little did she know — I would have paid twenty!
Some fifty-seven years ago I watched an artist paint enormous Green Parrot murals on the interior walls of the Green Parrot. Similar to the Green Parrot on my t-shirt. “The parrots are still there,” Opal said. “You can’t see them because of the paneling and the new low ceiling, but they’re there still.”
As a boy of twelve I admired that many-talented man. He became a popular person in Downtown Galena in the Forties. The man who painted the Green Parrot murals was known to his many friends as “Tommy” Thomas, but I knew him as Uncle Vern. James Vernor Thomas (not to be confused with my brother, Ivan Vernor Thomas, who was also known as “Tommy” Thomas). He was not only a painter but also a talented entrepreneur.
Because my mother was a teacher in the Galena Public Schools and therefore had a reputation to maintain, my parents were scandalized when Uncle Vern came to town and announced his plan to open up a drinking establishment on Main Street. “He’s the black sheep of the family,” my mother told me. She would have preferred that I avoid my uncle, but I found him interesting and exciting. I liked to “hang out” with Uncle Vern.
“People like to drink,” he told me. And to prove the point he advertised FREE BEER ALL DAY LONG for the Grand Opening of the Green Parrot. Beer drinkers came from miles around; they overflowed out into Main Street that day, nearly stopping the transcontinental traffic on Route Sixty-Six.
A lot of people like stronger stuff than beer,” he said. He filled that need by making a “secret room” at the Green Parrot and keeping it well stocked with hard liquor. “It’s the combined efforts of the WCTU, the Church Ladies, and the bootleggers that keep Kansas ‘dry’,” he said during one of our many trips to Joplin. We loaded cases of whiskey, gin, and vodka into the spacious trunk and back seat of Uncle Vern’s LaSalle and transported the load back across the State Line. I knew Uncle Vern was not a Church Lady, nor a WCTU member.
“Isn’t this against the law?” I asked.
“Not if you know how to do business,” he said. He then explained to his 12-year-old nephew how to “do business.”
“I made substantial contributions to the Sheriff’s election campaign, and I make regular monthly payments to the Police. They look the other way; they don’t bother me.”
“By the way,” he said, “we don’t talk about the secret room — not to anybody.”
But now, with my relatives long since laid to rest, I can permit myself to indulge in the pleasure of revealing some of the history of the Green Parrot and what it means to me.
Another of my uncles had set up his wood lathe in the garage at our home and taught me how to use it. From one-by-four pine lumber I made 100 round ashtrays. With my wood-burning set I labeled the ash trays “GREEN PARROT — GALENA, KANSAS”.
The proprietor of the Green Parrot paid me fifteen cents apiece for the 100 ash trays. “I hope the customers will steal them,” he said. “Good advertising.”
If any current 1999 readers of the Sentinel are in possession of on of those items of Green Parrot paraphernalia I might be persuaded to pay as much as ten dollars for it. If there is one at the Galena Museum I haven’t seen it there yet.
I did, however, find further proof of my uncle’s belief that people like to get intoxicated. The curators of the Galena Museum have prominently displayed a series of 8 X 10 photographs of a drunk named “Willie.” The captions on the photos explain Willie’s moods: “Willie feels sad,” “Willie wants a beer.” “Willie drinks a beer.” and so on. From his facial ex-pressions we can readily see that Willie feels fine after having drunk a couple of beers. Do bus loads of school children troop through the Galena Museum? Are we sending a message to our children?
My uncle Vern, founder of the Green Parrot, had traveled widely. He had lived in Panama and in Alaska. He was wise to the ways of the world, and he was wise to the American Way of Life. He knew that people not only liked to drink but also got a special thrill from doing something that was against the law. “National Prohibition ended a long time ago,” he told me “But in Kansas it’s still in full force. It creates a facade of morality and it’s good for my business.”
As a teenager in Galena I was fascinated by the idea that State Lines made such a difference. The production, processing, storing, transport, sale, and consumption of alcoholic beverages was a Criminal Offense in Kansas, but one of the largest whiskey factories in the USA thrived just a few blocks from my home — just across the State Line.
Galena residents could (and did) buy hard liquor at any one of the several Liquor Stores along State Line Road. As Galena High School journalism students Sam Price and I interviewed the Manager of the distillery and wrote an article for the Galena Sentinel-Times. Thousands of gallons of whiskey daily. “The folks across the State Line had their whiskey, wine, and beer; what was okay in Missouri was forbidden over here.”
The day after the Class of Forty-Eight graduated fro Galena High School, while our youthful voices still echoed “The End of a Perfect Day” in its hallowed hallways my family moved to Colorado. Forty years later, I returned. Forty years of living elsewhere gave me some insights into the ways of the world and the American Way of Life.
The history of Southeast Kansas is a rich history that has been sadly neglected by the Kansas State Historical Society. Blending my personal experience with some research, I plan to make that history available to readers. I am grateful to the Editor and Publisher of the Galena Sentinel-Times for publishing these “rough drafts” of my articles.
After forty years of absence and abstinence from contact with Galena I returned. I was thrilled to find that the Green Parrot not only survives but thrives. It give me focal point. I lived in Galena from age five to seventeen (1936 – 1948). Thoughts and memories of my Old Home Town swirl through my mind now that I am retired. Finding a focal point helps me to put those memories and ideas into writing. A few years go I focused n a rock that my Fourth-Grade teacher, Mrs. Glades, used to sit on as she watched us play softball at East Galena school. Frances Secrist went there and photographed the rock — and it’s still there. Just a short distance north of the present Little League facility.
Today I’m using the Green Parrot as my focal point. Perhaps readers of the Sentinel can guide me to other focal points.
The headline on my article about the white rock and East Galena School was “NOSTALGIA — A THING OF THE PAST.”
This, too, is about a thing of the past. I know nothing about current business practices in Galena. Like Will Rogers, “all I know’s what I read in the papers — and what I see as I ramble around … … “
I observe that an interesting part of Galena’s history is about Prohibition. First it was the Prohibition against setting up homesteads in the Osage Neutral Lands, which then became the Cherokee Neutral Lands. Living here was Prohibited, but people did it anyway.
Next was the Prohibition against Alcoholic Beverages, but people did it anyway.
Now it’s the Prohibition against Marijuana.
What next?
Sassafrass?
————–end of original article—————–
https://p208.ezboard.com/fcherokeecountykansasfrm2.showMessage?topicID=49.topic
(When this article was published in the Galena Sentinel, certain parts of it were deleted by the Editor)
Tear down the Green Parrott!!!!!!!!!!!!